Sergey Nechayev had already developed an awareness of social inequality and a resentment of the local nobility in his youth.
33 Facts About Sergey Nechayev
2.
Sergey Nechayev's father got him a job as an errand boy in a factory, but he refused the servant's job.
3.
Sergey Nechayev's family paid for good tutors who taught him Latin, German, French, history, maths and rhetoric.
4.
Aged 18, Sergey Nechayev moved to Moscow, where he worked for the historian Mikhael Pogodin.
5.
From September 1868, Sergey Nechayev attended lectures at the Saint Petersburg University as an auditor and became acquainted with the subversive Russian literature of the Decembrists, the Petrashevsky Circle and Mikhail Bakunin among others as well as the growing student unrest at the university.
6.
Sergey Nechayev took part in devising this student movement's "Program of revolutionary activities" which stated later a social revolution as its ultimate goal.
7.
In particular, the program envisioned composition of the Catechism of a Revolutionary, for which Sergey Nechayev would become famous.
8.
In December 1868, Sergey Nechayev met Vera Zasulich at a teachers' meeting.
9.
Sergey Nechayev asked her to come to his school where he held candlelit readings of revolutionary tracts.
10.
The last of these student meetings occurred on 28 January 1869, where Sergey Nechayev presented a petition calling for freedom of assembly for students.
11.
In January 1869, Sergey Nechayev spread false rumors of his arrest in Saint Petersburg, then left for Moscow before heading abroad.
12.
Sergey Nechayev tried to get Vera Zasulich to emigrate with him by declaring love for her, but she refused.
13.
Sergey Nechayev sent her a letter claiming to have been arrested.
14.
In late spring 1869, Sergey Nechayev wrote the Catechism of a Revolutionary, a program for the "merciless destruction" of society and the state.
15.
Sergey Nechayev saw ruthless immorality in the pursuit of total control by church and the state and believed that the struggle against them must therefore be carried out by any means necessary, with an unwavering focus on their destruction.
16.
The individual self is to be subsumed by a greater purpose in a kind of spiritual asceticism which for Sergey Nechayev was far more than just a theory, but the guiding principle by which he lived his life, claiming:.
17.
Sergey Nechayev has no private interests, no affairs, sentiments, ties, property nor even a name of his own.
18.
Sergey Nechayev must exploit rich and influential people, subordinating them to himself.
19.
Sergey Nechayev pretended to be a proxy of the Russian department of the Worldwide Revolutionary Union which did not exist and created an affiliate of a secret society called People's Reprisal Society which issued the magazine People's Reprisal.
20.
Sergey Nechayev claimed that the society had existed for quite some time in every corner of Russia.
21.
Sergey Nechayev spoke passionately to student dissidents about the need to organise.
22.
However, the already fanatical Sergey Nechayev appeared to be becoming more distrustful of the people around him, even denouncing Bakunin as doctrinaire, "idly running off at the mouth and on paper".
23.
Sergey Nechayev issued a number of proclamations aimed at different strata of the Russian population.
24.
Bakunin then threatened Sergey Nechayev with breaking relations with him, writing:.
25.
Bakunin continued to write privately to Sergey Nechayev, proposing that they continue to work together.
26.
In September 1870, Sergey Nechayev published an issue of the Commune magazine in London as the Second French Empire of Napoleon III collapsed.
27.
Sergey Nechayev kept in touch with the Polish Blanquists such as Caspar Turski and others.
28.
On 14 August 1872, Sergey Nechayev was arrested in Zurich and handed over to the Russian police.
29.
Sergey Nechayev was found guilty on 8 January 1873 and sentenced to twenty years of katorga for killing Ivanov.
30.
In December 1880, Sergey Nechayev established contact with the Executive Committee of the People's Will and proposed a plan for his own escape.
31.
Sergey Nechayev's theories had a major influence on other Russian revolutionaries, like Pyotr Tkachev and Vladimir Lenin.
32.
Sergey Nechayev was the first to bring the theme of the professional revolutionary in Russia.
33.
Lenin stated that Sergey Nechayev was a "Titan of the revolution" and that all of the communist revolutionaries must "read Sergey Nechayev".