On October 26, 2025, the Sam and Esther Dolgoff Institute (SEDI) hosted historian Mark Leier for a rich and provocative discussion on Mikhail Bakunin—philosopher, agitator, exile, and one of the most misunderstood revolutionaries of the nineteenth century.
Drawing on his biography Bakunin: The Creative Passion, Leier unraveled the myths that have long haunted Bakunin’s reputation—from the caricature of a “prophet of destruction” to the false dichotomy between anarchism and Marxism. Through careful historical reconstruction, he showed how Bakunin’s ideas on education, materialism, and the role of intellectuals anticipated later critiques of bureaucracy, vanguardism, and the professional-managerial class.
Leier traced Bakunin’s path from his Hegelian studies in Berlin to his clashes with Marx in the First International, revealing a thinker whose insistence on freedom, spontaneity, and working-class autonomy remains vital today. The talk also explored Bakunin’s warnings about the rise of a new class of intellectuals who, under the guise of science and reason, might reproduce domination in revolutionary movements—a lesson Leier connects to contemporary politics and the recurring tension between theory and action on the left.
Mark Leier is a professor of history at Simon Fraser University and the author of Bakunin: The Creative Passion (St. Martin’s Press / Palgrave Macmillan), Rebel Life: The Life and Times of Robert Gosden, and Where the Fraser River Flows: The Industrial Workers of the World in British Columbia. His scholarship focuses on labor radicalism, anarchist thought, and the history of working-class resistance in North America.
This event is part of SEDI’s ongoing speaker series, bringing together radical historians, writers, and organizers to deepen our understanding of the past and sharpen our interventions in the present.
The Sam and Esther Dolgoff Institute:
https://www.dolgoffinstitute.com/
Explore Mark Leier’s work:
Rebel Life: The Life and Times of Robert Gosden, Revolutionary, Mystic, Labour Spy - https://www.newstarbooks.com/book.php?book_id=155420058X
Works at The Anarchist Library - https://theanarchistlibrary.org/category/author/mark-leier
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