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Title: The Revolutionary Catechism Author: Sergey Nechayev Date: 1869 Language: en Topics: history, nihilist, revolution, violence Source: Retrieved on February 25th, 2009 from http://www.spunk.org/texts/places/russia/sp000116.txt
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.
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.
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 of our treasures; without their help, we would never succeed.
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.