After discussing this incident-which he called “a blood-stained inanity”-with the writer Ford Madox Ford, Conrad based the character of Stevie on Bourdin. Bourdin’s motives and target were unclear, but it appears that he intended to bomb the Greenwich Observatory. In 1894, a revolutionary French anarchist named Martial Bourdin attempted to carry out a bombing in London, but his explosives went off prematurely, killing him. Others, like Michaelis (who may have been based on the Russian philosopher Peter Kropotkin) reject violent measures, instead focusing on helping society evolve to adopt an economic system based on mutual cooperation and aid. A range of anarchist perspectives is reflected in The Secret Agent: some, like The Professor, favor violent revolutionary tactics. Anarchism is an umbrella term for political philosophies and movements that reject hierarchical authority and typically seek to abolish the state it is also associated with anti-capitalist and libertarian socialist thought.
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