I own a copy of the card game Burn In Hell by Steve Jackson Games. There is a card in the game for the anarchist Mikhail Bakunin. He is caricatured with gritted teeth and a fuse on top of his head, as if his entire head is a fuse bomb. The card classifies him as a "Murderer"; other cards with that classification include John Wilkes Booth and Agrippina Minor. The card also attributes "Wrath" (of the seven deadly sins) to Bakunin.

(At this point, the question is stated; everything below is the research I did.)

One day I was bored and decided to look up the details on this. But I found no reference online to Mikhail Bakunin bombing other anarchists, or for that matter bombing anyone at all.

Now, the use of "some believe" is clearly suspicious, though perhaps forgivable if the claim is in fact true; after all this is just a card game. But I hesitate to dismiss the claim out of hand for two reasons.

First, the rest of the card's bio seems to check out. For copyright reasons I'd rather not post the complete text, but it mentions his military service early in life, his involvement in various insurrections in nineteenth century Europe, and quoted him in verbatim agreement with this source:

Even the first part of the questionable claim seems to be justified by discussions I found of his philosophical differences with Karl Marx (see "Marx" section) and his other contemporaries.

Secondly, and crucially, I found little discussion of what Bakunin did other than write and talk about these issues during his life. And yet, according to this source:

Bakunin ... saw himself primarily as a man of action, although his action was rarely successful and his life was punctuated by abortive revolutions.

The most specific information I can find on his actions is from the same source:

The years of the revolutions in Europe -- 1848-1849 -- were the most dramatic period of Bakunin's life. He was an enthusiastic partisan of the uprising in France; later in 1848 he fought on the barricades of Prague, and in March 1849, he took a leading part, with Richard Wagner, in the Dresden revolution. He was captured there and, after periods in Saxon and Austrian prisons and twice being sentenced to death and reprieved, he was handed over to the Russian authorities, who imprisoned him in the Peter and Paul Fortress. Six years there ruined his health. In 1857 he was sent to exile in Siberia, and in 1861 he escaped, via Japan and the United States, to western Europe.

So he "was an enthusiastic partisan" in one uprising, "fought" in another and "took a leading part" in another. What does that mean exactly? It's noteworthy enough to draw multiple death sentences and hard labor in exile, and mention in multiple modern biographical articles, and yet completely non-specific in the online record as far as I can discover. It's weird.

In comparison, many specific details of Bakunin's social contacts are documented from the same period. Including this fawning commentary from Wikipedia on the final stages of his admittedly impressive escape from Siberia to western Europe:

In Boston, Bakunin visited Karol Forster, a partisan of Ludwik Mieroslawski during the 1848 Revolution in Paris, and caught up with other "Forty-Eighters", veterans of the 1848 revolutions in Europe, such as Friedrich Kapp. He then sailed for Liverpool arriving on December 27. Bakunin immediately went to London to see Herzen. That evening he burst into the drawing-room where the family was having supper. "What! Are you sitting down eating oysters! Well! Tell me the news. What is happening, and where?!"

To see what I was expecting to find, many specific details of Fidel Castro's invasion of Cuba are documented, including certain of Che Guevara's specific actions in the heat of battle.

What interests me most about all this is, despite the description of Bakunin as a "man of action" who believes that destruction is a force of creation, and despite many allusions to his involvement in multiple insurrections, there seems to be a glaring omission in online materials of what exactly his actions were.

Could it be that those who might devote time and resources to documenting the written works and biography of Bakunin online might also choose to omit certain acts on his part that might today be viewed disapprovingly? Is there only oral tradition, and no documentary source, remaining of Bakunin's acts which somehow found its way onto this card? Or did Steve Jackson Games simply invent this murderer/bomber description of Bakunin out of whole cloth?

Right now, I'm not really sure which to be more skeptical of: the game card, or the treatment of Bakunin in online sources in a strictly respectful and academic tone, lacking fine-grained details of his actions during the various civil unrests he participated in.

I own a copy of the card game Burn In Hell by Steve Jackson Games. There is a card in the game for the anarchist Mikhail Bakunin. He is caricatured with one eye shut, bearing resemblance to portraits I have found online, but with gritted teeth and a fuse on top of his head, as if his entire head is a fuse bomb. The card classifies him as a "Murderer"; other cards with that classification include John Wilkes Booth and Agrippina Minor. The card also attributes "Wrath" (of the seven deadly sins) to Bakunin.

For context, the rest of the card's bio seems to check out. For copyright reasons I'd rather not post the complete text, but it mentions his military service early in life, some details of his involvement in various insurrections in nineteenth century Europe which I was able to verify, and quoted him in verbatim agreement with this source:

So the question is simply: Is the claim that Mikhail Bakunin is a "Murderer" guilty of "Wrath" true or arguably true? And was Bakunin ever involved in any bombing, either of an anarchist meeting specifically or of anyone generally?

And if the claim is false, can its origin be traced to any source contemporary to his time (perhaps from those who opposed his ideas)?

One day I was bored and decided to look up the details on this. But I found no reference online to Mikhail Bakunin bombing other anarchists, or for that matter bombing anyone at all.

(At this point, the question is stated; everything below is the research I did.)

One day I was bored and decided to look up the details on this. But I found no reference online to Mikhail Bakunin bombing other anarchists, or for that matter bombing anyone at all.