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THE REVOLUTIONARY CATECHISM
by Nechayev
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The Duties of the Revolutionary toward Himself
1. The revolutionary is a doomed man. He has no personal interests, no
business affairs, no emotions, no attachments, no property, and no
name. Everything in him is wholly absorbed in the single thought
and the single passion for revolution.
2. The revolutionary knows that in the very depths of his being, not
only in words but also in deeds, he has broken all the bonds which
tie him to the social order and the civilized world with all its
laws, moralities, and customs, and with all its generally accepted
conventions. He is their implacable enemy, and if he continues to
live with them it is only in order to destroy them more speedily.
3. The revolutionary despises all doctrines and refuses to accept the
mundane sciences, leaving them for future generations. He knows
only one science: the science of destruction. For this reason, but
only for this reason, he will study mechanics, physics, chemistry,
and perhaps medicine. But all day and all night he studies the
vital science of human beings, their characteristics and
circumstances, and all the phenomena of the present social order.
The object is perpetually the same: the surest and quickest way of
destroying the whole filthy order.
4. The revolutionary despises public opinion. He despises and hates
the existing social morality in all its manifestations. For him,
morality is everything which contributes to the triumph of the
revolution. Immoral and criminal is everything that stands in its
way.
5. The revolutionary is a dedicated man, merciless toward the State and
toward the educated classes; and he can expect no mercy from them.
Between him and them there exists, declared or concealed, a
relentless and irreconcilable war to the death. He must accustom
himself to torture.
6. Tyrannical toward himself, he must be tyrannical toward others. All
the gentle and enervating sentiments of kinship, love, friendship,
gratitude, and even honor, must be suppressed in him and give place
to the cold and singleminded passion for revolution. For him, there
exists only one pleasure, on consolation, one reward, one
satisfaction -- the success of the revolution. Night and day he
must have but one thought, one aim -- merciless destruction.
Striving cold-bloodedly and indefatigably toward this end, he must
be prepared to destroy himself and to destroy with his own hands
everything that stands in the path of the revolution.
7. The nature of the true revolutionary excludes all sentimentality,
romanticism, infatuation, and exaltation. All private hatred and
revenge must also be excluded. Revolutionary passion, practiced at
every moment of the day until it becomes a habit, is to be employed
with cold calculation. At all times, and in all places, the
revolutionary must obey not his personal impulses, but only those
which serve the cause of the revolution.
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The Relations of the Revolutionary toward his Comrades
8. The revolutionary can have no friendship or attachment, except for
those who have proved by their actions that they, like him, are
dedicated to revolution. The degree of friendship, devotion and
obligation toward such a comrade is determined solely by the degree
of his usefulness to the cause of total revolutioary destruction.
9. It is superfluous to speak of solidarity among revolutionaries. The
whole strength of revolutionary work lies in this. Comrades who
possess the same revolutionary passion and understanding should, as
much as possible, deliberate all important matters together and come
to unanimous conclusions. When the plan is finally decided upon,
then the revolutionary must rely solely on himself. In carrying out
acts of destruction, each one should act alone, never running to
another for advice and assistance, except when these are necessary
for the furtherance of the plan.
10. All revolutionaries should have under them second- or third-degree
revolutionaries -- i.e., comrades who are not completely initiated.
these should be regarded as part of the common revolutionary
capital placed at his disposal. This capital should, of course, be
spent as economically as possible in order to derive from it the
greatest possible profit. The real revolutionary should regard
himself as capital consecrated to the triumph of the revolution;
however, he may not personally and alone dispose of that capital
without the unanimous consent of the fully initiated comrades.
11. When a comrade is in danger and the question arises whether he
should be saved or not saved, the decision must not be arrived at
on the basis of sentiment, but solely in the interests of the
revolutionary cause. Therefore, it is necessary to weigh carefully
the usefulness of the comrade against the expenditure of
revolutionary forces necessary to save him, and the decision must
be made accordingly.
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The Relations of the Revolutionary toward Society
12. The new member, having given proof of his loyalty not by words but
by deeds, can be received into the society only by the unanimous
agreement of all the members.
13. The revolutionary enters the world of the State, of the privileged
classes, of the so-called civilization, and he lives in this world
only for the purpose of bringing about its speedy and total
destruction. He is not a revolutionary if he has any sympathy for
this world. _He_should_not_hesitate_to_destroy_any_position_,
_any_place_, _or_any_man_in_this_world_. He must hate everyone and
everything in it with an equal hatred. All the worse for him if he
has any relations with parents, friends, or lovers; _he_is_no_
_longer_a_revolutionary_if_he_is_swayed_by_these_relationships_.
14. Aiming at implacable revolution, the revolutionary may and
frequently must live within society will pretending to be
completely different from what he really is, for he must penetrate
everywhere, into all the higher and middle-classes, into the houses
of commerce, the churches, and the palaces of the aristocracy, and
into the worlds of the bureaucracy and literature and the military,
and also into the Third Division and the Winter Palace of the Czar.
15. This filthy social order can be split up into several categories.
The first category comprises those who must be condemned to death
without delay. Comrades should compile a list of those to be
condemned according to the relative gravity of their crimes; and
the executions should be carried out according to the prepared
order.
16. When a list of those who are condemned is made, and the order of
execution is prepared, no private sense of outrage should be
considered, nor is it necessary to pay attention to the hatred
provoked by these people among the comrades or the people. Hatred
and the sense of outrage may even be useful insofar as they incite
the masses to revolt. It is necessary to be guided only by the
relative usefulness of these executions for the sake of revolution.
Above all, those who are especially inimical to the revolutionary
organization must be destroyed; their violent and sudden deaths
will produce the utmost panic in the government, depriving it of
its will to action by removing the cleverest and most energetic
supporters.
17. The second group comprises those who will be spared for the time
being in order that, by a series of monstrous acts, they may drive
the people into inevitable revolt.
18. The third category consists of a great many brutes in high
positions, distinguished neither by their cleverness nor their
energy, while enjoying riches, influence, power, and high positions
by virute of their rank. These must be exploited in every possible
way; they must be implicated and embroiled in our affairs, their
dirty secrets must be ferreted out, and they must be transformed
into slaves. Their power, influence, and connections, their wealth
and their energy, will form an inexhaustable treasure and a precious
help in all our undertakings.
19. The fourth categoy comprises ambitious office-holders and liberals
of various shades of opinion. The revolutionary must pretend to
collaborate with them, blindly following them, while at the same
time, prying out their secrets until they are completely in his
power. They must be so compromised that there is no way out for
them, and then they can be used to create disorder in the State.
20. The fifth category consists of those doctrinaires, conspirators,
and revolutionists who cut a great figure on paper or in their
cliques. They must be constantly driven on to make compromising
declarations: as a result, the majority of them will be destroyed,
while a minority will become genuine revolutionaries.
21. The sixth category is especially important: women. They can be
divided into three main groups. First, those frivilous,
thoughtless, and vapid women, whom we shall use as we use the third
and fourth category of men. Second, women who are ardent, capable,
and devoted, but whom do not belong to us because they have not yet
achieved a passionless and austere revolutionary understanding;
these must be used like the men of the fifth category. Finally,
there are the women who are completely on our side -- i.e., those
who are wholly dedicated and who have accepted our program in its
entirety. We should regard these women as the most valuable or our
treasures; without their help, we would never succeed.
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The Attitude of the Society toward the People
22. The Society has no aim other than the complete liberation and
happiness of the masses -- i.e., of the people who live by manual
labor. Convinced that their emancipation and the achievement of
this happiness can only come about as a result of an all-destroying
popular revolt, the Society will use all its resources and energy
toward increasing and intensfying the evils and miseries of the
people until at last their patience is exhausted and they are
driven to a general uprising.
23. By a revolution, the Society does not mean an orderly revolt
according to the classic western model -- a revolt which always
stops short of attacking the rights of property and the traditional
social systems of so-called civilization and morality. Until now,
such a revolution has always limited itself to the overthrow of one
political form in order to replace it by another, thereby
attempting to bring about a so-called revolutionary state. The
only form of revolution beneficial to the people is one which
destroys the entire State to the roots and exterminated all the
state traditions, institutions, and classes in Russia.
24. With this end in view, the Society therefore refuses to impose any
new organization from above. Any future organization will
doubtless work its way through the movement and life of the people;
but this is a matter for future generations to decide. Our task is
terrible, total, universal, and merciless destruction.
25. Therefore, in drawing closer to the people, we must above all make
common cause with those elements of the masses which, since the
foundation of the state of Muscovy, have never ceased to protest,
not only in words but in deeds, against everything directly or
indirectly connected with the state: against the nobility, the
bureaucracy, the clergy, the traders, and the parasitic kulaks. We
must unite with the adventurous tribes of brigands, who are the
only genuine revolutionaries in Russia.
26. To weld the people into one single unconquerable and
all-destructive force -- this is our aim, our conspiracy, and our
task.