They set the stage insofar as they happened before. Bakunin famously took part in the rebellion in Dresden (and was the model for Siegfried in Wagner's Ring Cycle), but that was prior to him becoming an anarchist. The excitement that the '48 rebellions created was the republican (as in anti-monarchist) vibe, but like Anti-Imperialism or Anti-Fascism, anti-monarchism in those years was an incoherent mishmash of ideas and theories. Many of the ideas of the first generation of self-proclaimed European anarchists took the events of '48 as inspiration, but always very critically. It would be better to start a historical survey of anarchist ideas and practices by examining the First International.
