Sergey Nechayev

8/13/2019 Sergey Nechayev

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Contents

Te Duties of the Revolutionary toward Himself . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3Te Relations of the Revolutionary toward his Comrades . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4Te Relations of the Revolutionary toward Society . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5Te A itude of the Society toward the People . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7


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Te Duties of the Revolutionary toward Himself

1. e revolutionary is a doomed man. He has no personal interests, nobusiness affairs, no emotions, no a achments, no property, and no name.Everything in him is wholly absorbed in the single thought and the singlepassion for revolution.

2. Te revolutionary knows that in the very depths of his being, not only inwords but also in deeds, he has broken all the bonds which tie him to thesocial order and the civilized world with all its laws , moralities, and cus toms ,and w ith a llits gene rally accepted con ventions . He is their implacable enemy,and if he continues to live with them it is only in order to destroy them mo respeedily.

3 . T e revolutiona ry despises all doctrines and ref uses to accep t the mundanesciences, leaving them for future generations. He knows only one science:

the science of destruction. For this reason, but only for this reason, he willstudy mechanics, physics, chemistry, and perhaps medicine. But all day andall night he studies the vital science of human beings, their characteristicsand c ircums tances , and a ll the phenomena o f the p resen t social order. eobject is perpetually the same: the surest and quickest way of destroyingthe whole lthy order.

4. T e revolutiona ry despises pub lic opinion. He despises and ha tes the exist-ing social morality in all its manifestations. For him, morality is everythingwh ich con tributes to the triumph o f the revolution . Immo ral and crimina l iseverything that stands in its way.

5. e revolutionary is a dedicated man, merciless toward the State andtoward the educated classes; and he can expect no mercy from them. Be-tween him and them there exists, declared or concealed, a relentless andirreconcilable war to the death. He must accustom himself to torture.

6. Tyr ann ical towa rd himse lf, he mus t be tyr ann ical towa rd others. Allthe gen tle and ene rvating sen timen ts of kinsh ip, love, friendsh ip, gratit ude ,and even honor, must be suppressed in him and give place to the cold andsingleminded pass ion f or revolution . For him, there exists only one pleasu re,on consolation, one reward, one satisfaction the success of the revolution.Night and day he must have but one thought, one aim merciless destruc-tion. Striving cold-bloodedly and indefatigably toward this end, he must be

prepared to destroy himself and to destroy with his own hands everythingthat stands in the path of the revolution.


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7. T e na ture of the true revolutiona ry excludes a ll sentimen tality, r oman ti-cism , inf atua tion , and exaltation . All private ha tred and revenge mus t alsobe excluded . Revolutiona ry pass ion , practiced a t every momen t of the da yun til it becomes a hab it, is to be emp loyed with cold calculation . At all times ,

and in a ll places, the revolutiona ry must obey not his persona l impu lses, butonly those which serve the cause of the revolution.

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Te Relations of the Revolutionary toward hisComrades

8. Te revolutionary can have no friendship or a achment, except for thosewho ha ve proved by their actions tha t they, like h im, are dedicated to rev-olution. e degree of friendship, devotion and obligation toward such acomrade is determined solely by the degree of his usefulness to the cause of total revolutioary destruction.

9. It is supe ruous to speak o f solidarity among revolutiona ries. T e who lestr eng th of revolutiona ry work lies in this. Comrades who possess thesame revolutionary passion and understanding should, as much as possible,deliberate all impo rtan t ma ers together andcome to unan imous conc lusions .When the p lan is nally decided upon , then the revolutiona ry mus t rely solelyon h imse lf. In carryi ng ou t acts of destruction , each one shou ld act alone ,never r unn ing to ano the r f or advice and ass istance , excep t when these a renecessary for the furtherance of the plan.

10. All revolutionaries should have under them second or third degreerevolutionaries i.e., comrades who are not completely initiated. theseshou ld be regarded as pa rt of the common revolutiona ry capital placed at hisdisposa l. Ti s capital shou ld, of course, be spent as econom ically as possiblein order to derive from it the greatest possible prot. Te real revolutionaryshou ld regard himself as capital consecrated to the triumph o f the revolution;however, he may not personally and alone dispose of that capital withoutthe unanimous consent of the fully initiated comrades.

11. When a com rade is in dange r and the ques tion a rises whe ther he shou ldbe 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. erefore,it is necessary to weigh carefully the usefulness of the comrade against the


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expenditure of revolutionary forces necessary to save him, and the decisionmust be made accordingly.

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Te Relations of the Revolutionary toward Society

12. Te new member, having given proof of his loyalty not by words but bydeeds, can be received into the society only by the unanimous agreement of all the members.

13. Te 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 purposeof bringing about its speedy and total destruction. He is not a revolutionaryif 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 andeverything in it with an equal hatred. All the worse for him if he has anyrelations 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 frequentlymus t live within society will pretend ing to be comp letely diff erent from wha the really is, f or he mus t pene trate everywhe re, into all the h igher and m iddle-classes, into the houses of commerce, the churches, and the palaces of thearistocracy, and into the wo rlds of the bu reauc racy and literature and themilitary, and also into the Tir d Division and the W inter Palace of the Czar.

15. is lthy social order can be split up into several categories. e rstcategory comprises those who must be condemned to death without delay.Comrades should compile a list of those to be condemned according to therelative gravity of their crimes; and the executions should be carried outaccording 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 shou ld be considered, noris it necessa ry t o pay a ention to the ha tred provoked by these peop le amongthe comrades or the people. Hatred and the sense of outrage may even beusef ul insof ar as they incite the masses to revolt. It is necessa ry t o be guidedonly by the relative usef ulness of these executions f or the sake o f revolution.

Above all, those who a re espec iallyinimical to the revolutiona ry organ izationmust be destroyed; their violent and sudden deaths will produce the utmost


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Te Attitude of the Society toward the People

22 . T e Society has no a im other than the comp lete liberation and happ inessof the masses i.e., of the peop le who live by manua l labor. Convinced thattheir emancipation and the achievement of this happiness can only comeabout as a result of an all-destroying popular revolt, the Society will use allits resources and energy toward increasing and intensfying the evils andmiseries o f the peop le un til at last the ir patience is exhaus ted and they aredriven to a general uprising.

23 . By a revolution, the Society does not mean an o rderly revolt according tothe c lassic western mode l a revolt wh ich a lways stops sho rt of a acking therights of property and the traditional social systems of so-called civilizationand morality. Until now, such a revolution has always limited itself to theoverthrow of one political form in order to replace it by another, therebya empting to bring about a so-called revolutionary state. e only form of revolution benecial to the people is one which destroys the entire State tothe roots and exterminated all the state traditions, institutions, and classesin Russia.

24. With this end in view, the Society therefore refuses to impose any neworganization from above. Any future organization will doubtless work itsway through the movemen t and lif e of the peop le; but this is a ma er f or f u-ture gene rations to decide. Our task is terrible, total, universal, and me rcilessdestruction.

25. erefore, in drawing closer to the people, we must above all makecommon cause w ith those e lemen ts of the masses wh ich, since the f ounda tion

of the state of Muscovy, have never ceased to protest, not only in words butin deeds , agains t everyt hing d irectly or ind irectly connec ted w ith the s tate:against the nob ility, t he bureauc racy, the clergy, the traders, and the pa rasitickulaks. We must unite with the adventurous tribes of brigands, who are theonly genuine revolutionaries in Russia.

26. To weld the people into one single unconquerable and all-destructiveforce this is our aim, our conspiracy, and our task.


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e Anarchist LibraryAnti-Copyright

May 21, 2012

Sergey Nechayeve Revolutiona ry Catech ism

1869

Retrieved on February 25 th , 2009 from www.spunk.org
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Sergey Nechayev

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