Editing Mikhail Bakunin (section)

=== Revolutionary activity and imprisonment ===
[[File:Young Bakunin.jpg|thumb|Bakunin, 1843]]

Throughout the 1840s, Bakunin grew into revolutionary agitation.{{sfn|Shatz|2003|p=36}} When his cadre aroused interest from Russian secret agents, Bakunin left for [[Zürich]] in early 1843. He met the proto-communist [[Wilhelm Weitling]] whose arrest led [[Bern]]'s Russian embassy to distrust Bakunin.{{sfn|Eckhardt|2022|p=310}} Defying Russian orders to return, the [[Governing Senate|Russian Senate]] stripped him of his rights as a nobleman and sentenced him [[trial in absentia|in absentia]] to [[penal labor]] in Siberia.{{sfnm|1a1=Shatz|1y=2003|1p=36|2a1=Eckhardt|2y=2022|2p=310}} Without steady financial support, Bakunin became an itinerant, traveling Europe meeting the people who had influenced him.{{sfn|Shatz|2003|p=36}} He visited [[Brussels]] and [[Paris]], where he joined international emigrants and socialists, befriended the anarchist [[Pierre-Joseph Proudhon]], and met the philosopher [[Karl Marx]], with whom he would later tussle.{{sfn|Eckhardt|2022|p=310}} Bakunin only became personally active in political agitation in 1847, as Polish emigrants in Paris invited him to commemorate the [[1830 Polish uprising]] with a speech.{{sfn|Eckhardt|2022|p=310}} His call for Poles to overthrow czarism in alliance with Russian democrats made Bakunin known throughout Europe and led the Russian ambassador to successfully request Bakunin's deportation.{{sfn|Eckhardt|2022|pp=310–311}}

When the French King [[Louis Philippe I]] abdicated during the [[February 1848 Revolution]], Bakunin returned to Paris and basked in the revolutionary milieu.{{sfn|Shatz|2003|p=36}} With the French government's support, he headed to Prussian Poland to agitate for revolt against Russia but never arrived.{{sfn|Shatz|2003|pp=36–37}} He attended the 1848 [[Prague Slavic Congress, 1848|Prague Slavic Congress]] to defend Slavic rights against German and Hungarian nationalism, and participated in [[1848 Prague uprising|its impromptu insurrection]] against the [[Habsburg empire|Austrian Habsburgs]]. Uncaptured, he wrote ''Aufruf an die Slaven'' ("Appeal to the Slavs") at the end of the year, advocating for a Slavic federation and revolt against the Austrian, Prussian, Turkish, and Russian governments. It was widely read and translated.{{sfn|Shatz|2003|p=37}}

After participating in both the Prague uprising and the [[May Uprising in Dresden|1849 Dresden uprising]], Bakunin was imprisoned, tried, sentenced to death, extradited multiple times, and ultimately placed in [[solitary confinement]] in the [[Peter and Paul Fortress]] of [[St. Petersberg, Russia]], in 1851. Three years later, he transferred to [[Shlisselburg Fortress]] near St. Petersberg for another three years. Prison weathered but did not break Bakunin, who retained his revolutionary zeal through his release. He did, however, write an autobiographical, genuflecting ''[[Confession (Bakunin)|Confession]]'' to the Russian emperor, which proved to be a controversial document upon its public discovery some 70 years later. The letter did not improve his prison conditions. In 1857, Bakunin was permitted to transfer to permanent exile in Siberia. He married Antonia Kwiatkowska there{{sfn|Shatz|2003|p=37}} before escaping in 1861, first to Japan, then to San Francisco, sailing to [[Panama]] and then to New York and Boston, and arrived in London by the end of the year.{{sfn|Shatz|2003|p=38}} Bakunin set foot in America just as the [[American Civil War|Civil War]] was breaking out. Speaking with supporters of both sides, Bakunin stated that his sympathies were with the North, although he claimed hypocrisy in their stated goal of slave liberation while also forcing the South to remain in the Union.<ref name=":0" /> Bakunin also viewed the Southern political system and agrarian character as freer in some respects for its white citizens than in the industrial North.<ref name=":0">{{Cite web |last=Avrich |first=Paul |title=Bakunin in America |url=https://files.libcom.org/files/BAKUNIN%20AND%20THE%20UNITED%20STATES.pdf}}</ref> Though a fierce critic and enemy of slavery, Bakunin held a deep admiration for the United States as a whole, referring to the country as “the finest political organization that ever existed in history.”<ref name=":0" />