Misplaced Pages

#965034

150-483: Pyotr Alexeyevich Kropotkin (9 December 1842 – 8 February 1921) was a Russian anarchist and geographer known as a proponent of anarchist communism . Born into an aristocratic land-owning family, Kropotkin attended Page Corps and later served as an officer in Siberia , where he participated in several geological expeditions. He was imprisoned for his activism in 1874 and managed to escape two years later. He spent

300-516: A carnivalesque atmosphere that is part of contemporary anarchist vividity. As anarchism is a philosophy that embodies many diverse attitudes, tendencies, and schools of thought, disagreement over questions of values, ideology, and tactics is common. Its diversity has led to widely different uses of identical terms among different anarchist traditions which has created a number of definitional concerns in anarchist theory . The compatibility of capitalism , nationalism , and religion with anarchism

450-421: A gift economy can break the cycle of poverty . They rely on Kropotkin, who believed that the hunter-gatherers he had visited implemented mutual aid. In his 1892 book The Conquest of Bread , Kropotkin proposed a system of economics based on mutual exchanges made in a system of voluntary cooperation. He believed that in a society that is socially, culturally, and industrially developed enough to produce all

600-457: A necessary evil . Anarchists took an active role in strike actions, although they tended to be antipathetic to formal syndicalism , seeing it as reformist . They saw it as a part of the movement which sought to overthrow the state and capitalism. Anarchists also reinforced their propaganda within the arts , some of whom practiced naturism and nudism . Those anarchists also built communities which were based on friendship and were involved in

750-461: A violent turn, aim to overthrow authority and the state. Many facets of human civilization have been influenced by anarchist theory, critique, and praxis . The etymological origin of anarchism is from the Ancient Greek anarkhia (ἀναρχία), meaning "without a ruler", composed of the prefix an- ("without") and the word arkhos ("leader" or "ruler"). The suffix -ism denotes

900-568: A 1919 letter to the workers of Western Europe, promoting the possibility of revolution, but also warning against the centralized control in Russia, which he believed had condemned them to failure. Kropotkin wrote to Lenin in 1920, describing the desperate conditions that he believed to be the result of bureaucratic organization, and urging Lenin to allow for local and decentralized institutions. Following an announcement of executions later that year, Kropotkin sent Lenin another furious letter, admonishing

1050-825: A Kropotkin Museum. This closed in 1938 with his wife's death. Kropotkin is the namesake for multiple regional entities. The Konyushennaya district in Moscow, where Kropotkin was born, is now known by his name, as the Kropotkinsky district, including the Kropotkinskaya metro station. He is the namesake for a large town in the North Caucasus (southwest Russia) and a small town in Siberia. The Kropotkin Range he

1200-548: A Rebel , a compilation of Kropotkin's Révolté writings while he was in prison, which became a main source of Kropotkin's thoughts on revolution. As Kropotkin's health worsened from scurvy and malaria , France released him in early 1886. He would stay in England through 1917, settling in Harrow, London , apart from brief trips to other European countries. In London in late 1886, he co-founded Freedom , an anarchist monthly and

1350-435: A Russian constitution. He developed an interest in science, reading, and opera. As a top student, Kropotkin became a sergeant-major in 1861 and was thrust into court life, serving as the emperor's personal Page de Chambre. His views of the tsar and court life soured as imperial policy changed over the next year. Privately he was preoccupied with the need to live a societally useful life. For his tour of service, in 1862 he chose

1500-477: A bank of the people. Mutualism has been retrospectively characterised as ideologically situated between individualist and collectivist forms of anarchism. In What Is Property? (1840), Proudhon first characterised his goal as a "third form of society, the synthesis of communism and property." Collectivist anarchism is a revolutionary socialist form of anarchism commonly associated with Mikhail Bakunin . Collectivist anarchists advocate collective ownership of

1650-662: A central role in anarchist philosophy. Anarchism's emphasis on anti-capitalism , egalitarianism , and for the extension of community and individuality sets it apart from anarcho-capitalism and other types of economic libertarianism . Anarchism is usually placed on the far-left of the political spectrum. Much of its economics and legal philosophy reflect anti-authoritarian , anti-statist , libertarian , and radical interpretations of left-wing and socialist politics such as collectivism , communism , individualism , mutualism , and syndicalism , among other libertarian socialist economic theories. As anarchism does not offer

SECTION 10

#1732772527966

1800-482: A certain small scale, communities and communes and co-ops could flourish and provide humans with a rich material life and wide areas of liberty without centralized control." Kropotkin's focus on local production led to his view that a country should strive for self-sufficiency by manufacturing its own goods and growing its own food, thus lessening the need to rely on imports. To these ends, he advocated irrigation and greenhouses to boost local food production. There

1950-732: A direct route through Manchuria from Chita to Vladivostok the next year. He explored the East Siberian Mountains in the north the year after. The mountain measurements from his 1866 Olekminsk - Vitimsk expedition confirmed his Manchurian hypothesis that the Siberian area from the Ural Mountains to the Pacific Ocean was a plateau and not a plain . This discovery of the Patom and Vitim Plateaus won him

2100-412: A fixed body of doctrine from a single particular worldview , many anarchist types and traditions exist and varieties of anarchy diverge widely. One reaction against sectarianism within the anarchist milieu was anarchism without adjectives , a call for toleration and unity among anarchists first adopted by Fernando Tarrida del Mármol in 1889 in response to the bitter debates of anarchist theory at

2250-590: A gold medal from the Russian Geographical Society and led to the commercialization of the Lena gold fields . A range of mountains in this region was later named for him. Kropotkin covered Siberia for St. Petersburg newspapers since his arrival, including the condition of the Polish political exiles who participated in the unsuccessful 1866 Baikal Insurrection . Kropotkin secured a promise from

2400-693: A leader or a leading group. One way is for an individual from the group to play the role of facilitator to help achieve a consensus without taking part in the discussion themselves or promoting a specific point. Minorities usually accept rough consensus, except when they feel the proposal contradicts anarchist ethics, goals and values. Anarchists usually form small groups (5–20 individuals) to enhance autonomy and friendships among their members. These kinds of groups more often than not interconnect with each other, forming larger networks. Anarchists still support and participate in strikes, especially wildcat strikes as these are leaderless strikes not organised centrally by

2550-563: A minority of anarchists adopted tactics of revolutionary political violence , known as propaganda of the deed . The dismemberment of the French socialist movement into many groups and the execution and exile of many Communards to penal colonies following the suppression of the Paris Commune favoured individualist political expression and acts. Even though many anarchists distanced themselves from these terrorist acts, infamy came upon

2700-419: A misunderstanding of anarchist principles. While opposition to the state is central to anarchist thought, defining anarchism is not an easy task for scholars, as there is a lot of discussion among scholars and anarchists on the matter, and various currents perceive anarchism slightly differently. Major definitional elements include the will for a non-coercive society, the rejection of the state apparatus,

2850-582: A position with the Russian interior ministry with no duties. He studied physics, math, and geography at the university. After presenting his Vitim expedition findings, Kropotkin accepted the Russian Geographical Society's part-time offer of its Physical Geography section Secretaryship. Kropotkin translated Herbert Spencer for additional income. He continued to develop a theory, which he considered his best scientific contribution, that

3000-526: A public speaker. As a thinker, Kropotkin focused more acutely on issues of morality than of economics or politics and carried himself by his own principles without imposition on others. In practice, this made him more of a "revolutionary humanitarian" than a revolutionist by deed. He was also known for being exceptionally kind and for forgoing material comforts to live a revolutionary, principled life by example. Gerald Runkle wrote that "Kropotkin with his scholarly and saintly ways ... almost brought respectability to

3150-755: A singular anarchism , in which common principles are shared between schools of anarchism while each group prioritizes those principles differently. Gender equality can be a common principle, although it ranks as a higher priority to anarcha-feminists than anarcho-communists. Anarchists are generally committed against coercive authority in all forms, namely "all centralized and hierarchical forms of government (e.g., monarchy, representative democracy, state socialism, etc.), economic class systems (e.g., capitalism, Bolshevism , feudalism , slavery , etc.), autocratic religions (e.g., fundamentalist Islam , Roman Catholicism , etc.), patriarchy , heterosexism , white supremacy , and imperialism ." Anarchist schools disagree on

SECTION 20

#1732772527966

3300-425: A small yet diverse following of Bohemian artists and intellectuals as well as young anarchist outlaws in what became known as illegalism and individual reclamation . Anarchist principles undergird contemporary radical social movements of the left. Interest in the anarchist movement developed alongside momentum in the anti-globalisation movement, whose leading activist networks were anarchist in orientation. As

3450-459: A source of discord and hatred. Kropotkin believed that any post-revolutionary government would lack the local knowledge to organize a diverse population. Their vision of society would be limited by their own vindictive, self-serving, or narrow ideals. To ensure order, preserve authority , and organize production the state would need to use violence and coercion to suppress further revolution, and control workers. The workers would be reliant on

3600-423: A subject of study for anarchists, yielding a post-structuralist critique of sexual normality . Some anarchists distanced themselves from this line of thinking, suggesting that it leaned towards an individualism that was dropping the cause of social liberation. The interest of anarchists in education stretches back to the first emergence of classical anarchism. Anarchists consider proper education, one which sets

3750-431: A syndicate. As in the past, newspapers and journals are used, and anarchists have gone online to spread their message. Anarchists have found it easier to create websites because of distributional and other difficulties, hosting electronic libraries and other portals. Anarchists were also involved in developing various software that are available for free. The way these hacktivists work to develop and distribute resembles

3900-511: A synonym for anarchism; its use as a synonym is still common outside the United States. Some usages of libertarianism refer to individualistic free-market philosophy only, and free-market anarchism in particular is termed libertarian anarchism . While the term libertarian has been largely synonymous with anarchism, its meaning has more recently been diluted by wider adoption from ideologically disparate groups, including both

4050-493: A system would breed the same type of centralization and inequality as a capitalist wage system. He stated that it is impossible to determine the value of an individual's contributions to the products of labor and thought that anyone who was placed in a position of trying to make such determinations would wield authority over those whose wages they determined. According to Kirkpatrick Sale , "[w]ith Mutual Aid especially, and later with Fields, Factories, and Workshops , Kropotkin

4200-400: A tactic which can include acts of sabotage or terrorism . This attitude was quite prominent a century ago when seeing the state as a tyrant and some anarchists believing that they had every right to oppose its oppression by any means possible. Emma Goldman and Errico Malatesta , who were proponents of limited use of violence, stated that violence is merely a reaction to state violence as

4350-405: A teenager and began a 14-year epistolary relationship with his brother that charts his intellectual and emotional development. By the time of his arrival, Kropotkin had already shown a populist position towards the emancipation of serfs and a nature of revolt against his father and the school's hazing. Kropotkin began his first underground revolutionary writings at the school, where he advocated for

4500-508: A way of men imposing authority over women, largely because marriage law greatly favoured the power of men. The notion of free love was much broader and included a critique of the established order that limited women's sexual freedom and pleasure. Those free love movements contributed to the establishment of communal houses, where large groups of travelers, anarchists and other activists slept in beds together. Free love had roots both in Europe and

4650-513: A wide range of intellectuals (including the writers Ba Jin and James Joyce ). Much of Kropotkin's impact was in his intellectual writings prior to 1914. He had little influence on the Russian revolution, despite returning for it. Emma Goldman regarded Kropotkin as her "great teacher" and as among the greatest minds and personalities of the 19th century. After Kropotkin's 1921 death, the Bolsheviks permitted Kropotkin's Moscow house to become

Peter Kropotkin - Misplaced Pages Continue

4800-629: A widespread "Boldness of thought, a distinct and wide conception of all that is desired, constructive force arising from the people in proportion as the negation of authority dawns; and finally -- the initiative of all in the work of reconstruction -- this will give to the revolution the Power required to conquer." Kropotkin applied this criticism to the Bolsheviks ' rule following the October Revolution . Kropotkin summarized his thoughts in

4950-469: Is a theory of anarchism that advocates a communist society with common ownership of the means of production, held by a federal network of voluntary associations , with production and consumption based on the guiding principle " From each according to his ability, to each according to his need ." Anarcho-communism developed from radical socialist currents after the French Revolution but

5100-401: Is a way to regain urban space from the capitalist market, serving pragmatical needs and also being an exemplary direct action. Acquiring space enables anarchists to experiment with their ideas and build social bonds. Adding up these tactics while having in mind that not all anarchists share the same attitudes towards them, along with various forms of protesting at highly symbolic events, make up

5250-399: Is enacted by many contemporary anarchist groups, striving to embody the principles, organization and tactics of the changed social structure they hope to bring about. As part of this the decision-making process of small anarchist affinity groups plays a significant tactical role. Anarchists have employed various methods to build a rough consensus among members of their group without the need of

5400-469: Is governed by consensus, although they saw this as highly unlikely. Beliefs on how to abolish the state also differ. As gender and sexuality carry along them dynamics of hierarchy, many anarchists address, analyse, and oppose the suppression of one's autonomy imposed by gender roles. Sexuality was not often discussed by classical anarchists but the few that did felt that an anarchist society would lead to sexuality naturally developing. Sexual violence

5550-405: Is responsible for their own actions but works together to bring down oppression using sabotage and other violent means against state, capitalism, and other enemies. Members of The Invisible Committee were arrested in 2008 on various charges, terrorism included. Overall, contemporary anarchists are much less violent and militant than their ideological ancestors. They mostly engage in confronting

5700-506: Is significant overlap between the two. Anarchist tactics have shifted during the course of the last century. Anarchists during the early 20th century focused more on strikes and militancy while contemporary anarchists use a broader array of approaches . During the classical era, anarchists had a militant tendency. Not only did they confront state armed forces, as in Spain and Ukraine, but some of them also employed terrorism as propaganda of

5850-517: Is widely disputed, and anarchism enjoys complex relationships with ideologies such as communism, collectivism , Marxism, and trade unionism . Anarchists may be motivated by humanism , divine authority , enlightened self-interest , veganism , or any number of alternative ethical doctrines. Phenomena such as civilisation , technology (e.g. within anarcho-primitivism), and the democratic process may be sharply criticised within some anarchist tendencies and simultaneously lauded in others. Objection to

6000-619: The Amur Cossacks in east Siberia , an undesirable post that would let him study the technical mathematics of artillery, travel, live in nature, and achieve financial independence from his father. He developed a firm worldview of compassion for the poor and contrasted the pride and dignity of the yeoman peasant farmers against the indignities of serfdom. He wrote approvingly of the cultivated Transbaikalia governor-general Boleslav Kukel , to whom Kropotkin reported. Kukel engaged Kropotkin in prison reform and city self-governance projects that

6150-544: The Bolshevik government had stabilised, including during the Kronstadt rebellion . Several anarchists from Petrograd and Moscow fled to Ukraine, before the Bolsheviks crushed the anarchist movement there too. With the anarchists being repressed in Russia, two new antithetical currents emerged, namely platformism and synthesis anarchism . The former sought to create a coherent group that would push for revolution while

Peter Kropotkin - Misplaced Pages Continue

6300-524: The Chaikovsky Circle , a group of revolutionaries that Kropotkin considered more educational than revolutionary in their activities. Kropotkin believed in the inevitability of social revolution and the need for stateless social organization. His populist revolutionary program for the group focused on urban workers and peasants whereas the group's moderates focused on students. Partially for this reason, he declined to contribute his personal wealth to

6450-671: The Escuela Moderna in Barcelona as an opposition to the established education system which was dictated largely by the Catholic Church. Ferrer's approach was secular, rejecting both state and church involvement in the educational process while giving pupils large amounts of autonomy in planning their work and attendance. Ferrer aimed to educate the working class and explicitly sought to foster class consciousness among students. The school closed after constant harassment by

6600-604: The Geographical Journal and Nature . After 1890, according to biographers George Woodcock and Ivan Avakumović , Kropotkin became more of a scholarly recluse and less of a propagandist. His works' revolutionary zeal subsided as he turned to social, ethical, and scientific questions. He joined the British Association for the Advancement of Science . He continued to contribute to Freedom but

6750-748: The Industrial Workers of the World left their organisations and joined the Communist International . In the Spanish Civil War of 1936–39, anarchists and syndicalists ( CNT and FAI ) once again allied themselves with various currents of leftists. A long tradition of Spanish anarchism led to anarchists playing a pivotal role in the war, and particularly in the Spanish Revolution of 1936 . In response to

6900-607: The Konyushennaya (" Equerries ") district. His father, Alexander, was a typical royal officer who owned serfs in three provinces and whose family descended from the Grand Princes of Smolensk . His mother, Ekatarina Sulima, was the daughter of General Nikolai Sulima and a descendant of a Zaporozhian Cossacks leader. Peter, the youngest of her four children, was three years old when she died of tuberculosis . Kropotkin's father remarried two years later. This stepmother

7050-463: The New Left and libertarian Marxists , who do not associate themselves with authoritarian socialists or a vanguard party , and extreme cultural liberals , who are primarily concerned with civil liberties . Additionally, some anarchists use libertarian socialist to avoid anarchism's negative connotations and emphasise its connections with socialism . Anarchism is broadly used to describe

7200-540: The Republican government, ending in another defeat of anarchists at the hands of the communists. By the end of World War II , the anarchist movement had been severely weakened. The 1960s witnessed a revival of anarchism, likely caused by a perceived failure of Marxism–Leninism and tensions built by the Cold War . During this time, anarchism found a presence in other movements critical towards both capitalism and

7350-454: The St. Imier International . Under the influence of Peter Kropotkin , a Russian philosopher and scientist, anarcho-communism overlapped with collectivism . Anarcho-communists, who drew inspiration from the 1871 Paris Commune , advocated for free federation and for the distribution of goods according to one's needs . By the turn of the 20th century, anarchism had spread all over the world. It

7500-733: The Summerhill School in 1921, also declaring being free from coercion. Transbaikalia The steppe and wetland landscapes of Dauria are protected by the Daurian Nature Reserve , which forms part of a World Heritage Site named " Landscapes of Dauria ". Dauria stretches for almost 1,000 km from north to south from the Patom Plateau and North Baikal Plateau to the Russian state borders with Mongolia and China. The Transbaikal region covers more than 1,000 km from west to east from Lake Baikal to

7650-610: The World Trade Organization (WTO), the Group of Eight and the World Economic Forum . During the protests , ad hoc leaderless anonymous cadres known as black blocs engaged in rioting, property destruction and violent confrontations with the police. Other organisational tactics pioneered at this time include affinity groups , security culture and the use of decentralised technologies such as

SECTION 50

#1732772527966

7800-461: The anti-authoritarian wing of the socialist movement . Anarchism is contrasted to socialist forms which are state-oriented or from above. Scholars of anarchism generally highlight anarchism's socialist credentials and criticise attempts at creating dichotomies between the two. Some scholars describe anarchism as having many influences from liberalism, and being both liberal and socialist but more so. Many scholars reject anarcho-capitalism as

7950-451: The arms industry to addressing Monsanto seed-saving policies and patents , helping farmers , and resisting the commodification of food and housing. Honeywell also emphasizes that contemporary anarchists are interested in the flourishing not only of humans , but non-humans and the environment as well. Honeywell argues that their analysis of capitalism and governments results in anarchists rejecting representative democracy and

8100-531: The glacial lakes of its northeast. His father died later that year and Kropotkin inherited a wealthy estate in Tambov . Kropotkin turned down the Geographical Society's offer of its general secretary position, instead choosing work on his Ice Age data and interest in bettering the lives of peasants. While Kropotkin became increasingly revolutionary in his writings, he was not known for activism. He

8250-401: The means of production which is theorised to be achieved through violent revolution and that workers be paid according to time worked, rather than goods being distributed according to need as in communism. Collectivist anarchism arose alongside Marxism but rejected the dictatorship of the proletariat despite the stated Marxist goal of a collectivist stateless society . Anarcho-communism

8400-857: The meridian of the confluence of the Shilka and Argun Rivers. To the west and north lies the Irkutsk Oblast ; to the north the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia), to the east the Amur Oblast . Oktyabrsky (Октябрьский) village, Amur Oblast , near the Russia-China border is a large site of uranium mining and processing facilities. Part of the area is protected by the Dauria Nature Reserve . The region has given its name to various animal species including Daurian hedgehog , and

8550-439: The second wave of feminism , radicalising some currents of the feminist movement and being influenced as well. By the latest decades of the 20th century, anarchists and feminists were advocating for the rights and autonomy of women, gays, queers and other marginalised groups, with some feminist thinkers suggesting a fusion of the two currents. With the third wave of feminism , sexual identity and compulsory heterosexuality became

8700-612: The second wave of feminism . Black anarchism began to take form at this time and influenced anarchism's move from a Eurocentric demographic. This coincided with its failure to gain traction in Northern Europe and its unprecedented height in Latin America. Around the turn of the 21st century, anarchism grew in popularity and influence within anti-capitalist, anti-war and anti-globalisation movements. Anarchists became known for their involvement in protests against

8850-429: The state and its institutions is a sine qua non of anarchism. Anarchists consider the state as a tool of domination and believe it to be illegitimate regardless of its political tendencies. Instead of people being able to control the aspects of their life, major decisions are taken by a small elite. Authority ultimately rests solely on power, regardless of whether that power is open or transparent , as it still has

9000-494: The state or the Russian Orthodox Church , which he saw as stifling human creativity and impeding human instinctual drive towards cooperation . Kropotkin claimed that the benefits arising from mutual organization incentivizes humans more than mutual strife. His hope was that in the long run, mutual organization would drive individuals to produce . Anarcho-primitivists and anarcho-communists believe that

9150-447: The "big-A Anarchism" of the classical era, the newly coined term "small-a anarchism" signals their tendency not to base their thoughts and actions on classical-era anarchism or to refer to classical anarchists such as Peter Kropotkin and Pierre-Joseph Proudhon to justify their opinions. Those anarchists would rather base their thought and praxis on their own experience, which they will later theorize. The concept of prefigurative politics

SECTION 60

#1732772527966

9300-652: The 1890s on the animal instinct for cooperation as a counterpoint to Darwinism became a series of articles in Nineteenth Century and, later, the book Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution , which was widely translated. Following a scientific congress in Toronto in 1897, Kropotkin toured Canada. His experience there led him to advise the Russian Doukhobors who sought to immigrate there. He helped facilitate their emigration in 1899. Kropotkin entered

9450-552: The 20th century, the anarchist movement flourished in most parts of the world and had a significant role in workers' struggles for emancipation . Various anarchist schools of thought formed during this period. Anarchists have taken part in several revolutions , most notably in the Paris Commune , the Russian Civil War and the Spanish Civil War , whose end marked the end of the classical era of anarchism . In

9600-721: The Bakuninists were expelled from the International by the Marxists at the 1872 Hague Congress . Anarchists were treated similarly in the Second International , being ultimately expelled in 1896. Bakunin predicted that if revolutionaries gained power by Marx's terms, they would end up the new tyrants of workers . In response to their expulsion from the First International, anarchists formed

9750-500: The Darwinian sense that made for the success of species, including the human". In the last chapter, he wrote: In the animal world we have seen that the vast majority of species live in societies, and that they find in association the best arms for the struggle for life: understood, of course, in its wide Darwinian sense – not as a struggle for the sheer means of existence, but as a struggle against all natural conditions unfavourable to

9900-655: The East Siberian mountains were part of a large plateau and not independent ridges. Kropotkin participated in an 1870 polar expedition plan that postulated the existence of what was later discovered as the Franz Josef Land Arctic archipelago. In early 1871, he was commissioned to study the Ice Age in Scandinavian geography, in which Kropotkin developed theories of the glaciation of Europe and

10050-514: The Establishment and secondly to promote anarchist ethics and reflect an anarchist vision of society, illustrating the unity of means and ends . A broad categorisation can be made between aims to destroy oppressive states and institutions by revolutionary means on one hand and aims to change society through evolutionary means on the other. Evolutionary tactics embrace nonviolence and take a gradual approach to anarchist aims, although there

10200-768: The Internet. A significant event of this period was the confrontations at the 1999 Seattle WTO conference . Anarchist ideas have been influential in the development of the Zapatistas in Mexico and the Democratic Federation of Northern Syria, more commonly known as Rojava , a de facto autonomous region in northern Syria . While having revolutionary aspirations, many contemporary forms of anarchism are not confrontational. Instead, they are trying to build an alternative way of social organization (following

10350-600: The Jura Federation and began editing its publication. There he met Ukrainian Jewish student Sophie Kropotkin , and the two were married in 1878. In 1879, he started Le Révolté , a revolutionary fortnightly, in Geneva that published his personal articulation of anarchist communism , the idea of distributing work product communally based on need rather than by work. He became the philosophy's most prominent proponent, despite not creating it. The philosophy became part of

10500-631: The Jura program in 1880 at Kropotkin's advocacy. Le Révolté also published Kropotkin's best known pamphlet, "An Appeal to the Young," in 1880. Switzerland expelled Kropotkin at Russia's behest after the assassination of Alexander II in early 1881. He moved to Thonon-les-Bains , France , near Geneva, so that his wife could finish her Swiss education. Upon learning that the Holy League, a tsarist group, intended to kill him for his alleged association with

10650-570: The Nechayev conspiracy model. Members of the circle began to be arrested in late 1873 and the Third Section secret police came for Kropotkin in March 1874. His arrest for agitation, as a former page de chambre and officer, was scandalous. Kropotkin had just filed his Ice Age report and had been recently elected president of the Geographical Society's Physical and Mathematical Department. At

10800-480: The Social Revolution will be so immense and so profound, it must so change all the relations based today on property and exchange, that it is impossible for one or any individual to elaborate the different social forms, which must spring up in the society of the future. [...] Any authority external to it will only be an obstacle, only a trammel on the organic labor which must be accomplished, and beside that

10950-827: The United States and met John Most , Emma Goldman , and Benjamin Tucker . American publishers published his Memoirs of a Revolutionist and Fields, Factories, and Workshops by the end of the decade. He visited the United States again in 1901 at the invitation of the Lowell Institute to give lectures on Russian literature that were later published. He published The Great French Revolution (1909), The Terror in Russia (1909), and Modern Science and Anarchism (1913). His 70th birthday in 1912 had celebratory gatherings in London and Paris. Kropotkin's support for Western entry into World War I, siding with Britain and France, divided

11100-410: The United States; however, some anarchists struggled with the jealousy that arose from free love. Anarchist feminists were advocates of free love, against marriage, and pro-choice (using a contemporary term), and had a similar agenda. Anarchist and non-anarchist feminists differed on suffrage but were supportive of one another. During the second half of the 20th century, anarchism intermingled with

11250-453: The ability to coerce people. Another anarchist argument against states is that the people constituting a government, even the most altruistic among officials, will unavoidably seek to gain more power, leading to corruption. Anarchists consider the idea that the state is the collective will of the people to be an unachievable fiction due to the fact that the ruling class is distinct from the rest of society. Specific anarchist attitudes towards

11400-468: The anarchist doctrines of the next generation but did not use anarchist or anarchism in describing themselves or their beliefs. The first political philosopher to call himself an anarchist (French: anarchiste ) was Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (1809–1865), marking the formal birth of anarchism in the mid-19th century. Since the 1890s and beginning in France, libertarianism has often been used as

11550-433: The anarchist ideals, especially when it comes to preserving users' privacy from state surveillance . Anarchists organize themselves to squat and reclaim public spaces . During important events such as protests and when spaces are being occupied, they are often called Temporary Autonomous Zones (TAZ), spaces where art, poetry, and surrealism are blended to display the anarchist ideal. As seen by anarchists, squatting

11700-459: The anarchist movement, although contemporary anarchism favours actions over academic theory. Various anarchist groups, tendencies, and schools of thought exist today, making it difficult to describe the contemporary anarchist movement. While theorists and activists have established "relatively stable constellations of anarchist principles", there is no consensus on which principles are core and commentators describe multiple anarchisms , rather than

11850-620: The anarchist movement, which had been anti-war, and damaged his esteem as a luminary of socialism. He exacerbated this by insisting, with returning to Russia, that Russians support the war as well. With the outbreak of the Russian Revolution, Kropotkin returned to Russia in June 1917. He refused the Petrograd Provisional Government's offer of a cabinet seat. In August, he advocated for defending Russia and

12000-510: The army rebellion , an anarchist-inspired movement of peasants and workers, supported by armed militias, took control of Barcelona and of large areas of rural Spain, where they collectivised the land. The Soviet Union provided some limited assistance at the beginning of the war, but the result was a bitter fight between communists and other leftists in a series of events known as the May Days , as Joseph Stalin asserted Soviet control of

12150-547: The assassination, he moved to London, but could only bear to live there for a year. Upon his return in late 1882, the French arrested him for agitation, partly to appease Russia. He was sentenced to five years in Lyons . In early 1883, he was transferred to the Clairvaux Prison , where he continued his academic work. A public campaign of intellectuals and French legislators called for his release. Reclus published Words of

12300-738: The belief that human nature allows humans to exist in or progress toward such a non-coercive society, and a suggestion on how to act to pursue the ideal of anarchy. The most notable precursors to anarchism in the ancient world were in China and Greece . In China, philosophical anarchism (the discussion on the legitimacy of the state) was delineated by Taoist philosophers Zhuang Zhou and Laozi . Alongside Stoicism , Taoism has been said to have had "significant anticipations" of anarchism. Anarchic attitudes were also articulated by tragedians and philosophers in Greece. Aeschylus and Sophocles used

12450-456: The central government ultimately denied. The exiled poet and political prisoner Mikhail Larionovitch Mikhailov introduced Kropotkin to anarchism by recommending he read an essay by Pierre-Joseph Proudhon . Kropotkin's brother came to live with him in Irkutsk . After Kukel's ouster in early 1863, Kropotkin found solace in geographical work. He led a disguised reconnaissance expedition to find

12600-418: The common good. Kropotkin believed that a communist society could be established only by a social revolution , which he described as, "... the taking possession by the people of all social wealth. It is the abolition of all the forces which have so long hampered the development of Humanity". However, he criticized forms of revolutionary methods (like those proposed by Marxism and Blanquism ) that retained

12750-417: The day. He advocated for workers' cooperatives and argued against the Bolsheviks' hostage policy and centralization of authority while simultaneously encouraging Western comrades to stop their governments' military interventions in Russia. Kropotkin ultimately had little impact on the Russian revolution, but his advocacy work for political and anarchist prisoners in Russia and for the Russian revolution, during

12900-462: The deed . Assassination attempts were carried out against heads of state , some of which were successful. Anarchists also took part in revolutions. Many anarchists, especially the Galleanists , believed that these attempts would be the impetus for a revolution against capitalism and the state. Many of these attacks were done by individual assailants and the majority took place in the late 1870s,

13050-425: The early 1880s and the 1890s, with some still occurring in the early 1900s. Their decrease in prevalence was the result of further judicial power and of targeting and cataloging by state institutions. Anarchist perspectives towards violence have always been controversial. Anarcho-pacifists advocate for non-violence means to achieve their stateless, nonviolent ends. Other anarchist groups advocate direct action ,

13200-408: The extraction of surplus value from their labor. Kropotkin claimed this power was made possible by the state's protection of private ownership of productive resources. However, Kropotkin believed the possibility of surplus value was itself the problem, holding that a society would still be unjust if the workers of a particular industry kept their surplus to themselves, rather than redistributing it for

13350-485: The first English anarchist periodical, which he continued to support for almost three decades. His first and only child, Alexandra Kropotkin , was born the next year. He published multiple books over the next coming years including In Russian and French Prisons and The Conquest of Bread . His intellectual circle in London included William Morris and W. B. Yeats as well as old Russian friends Sergey Stepnyak-Kravchinsky and Nikolai Tchaikovsky . Kropotkin contributed to

13500-504: The following birds: Asian brown flycatcher ( Muscicapa daurica ), Daurian jackdaw , Daurian partridge , Daurian redstart , Daurian starling , Daurian shrike and the red-rumped swallow ( Hirundo daurica ). The Mongolian wild ass ( Equus hemionus hemionus ) is extinct in the region. The common name of the famous Dahurian larch ( Larix gmelinii ) as well as that of the Dahurian buckthorn ( Rhamnus davurica ) are also derived from

13650-637: The form of disrupting and protesting against unjust hierarchy, or the form of self-managing their lives through the creation of counter-institutions such as communes and non-hierarchical collectives. Decision-making is often handled in an anti-authoritarian way, with everyone having equal say in each decision , an approach known as horizontalism . Contemporary-era anarchists have been engaging with various grassroots movements that are more or less based on horizontalism, although not explicitly anarchist, respecting personal autonomy and participating in mass activism such as strikes and demonstrations. In contrast with

13800-433: The foundations of the future autonomy of the individual and the society, to be an act of mutual aid . Anarchist writers such as William Godwin ( Political Justice ) and Max Stirner (" The False Principle of Our Education ") attacked both state education and private education as another means by which the ruling class replicate their privileges. In 1901, Catalan anarchist and free thinker Francisco Ferrer established

13950-429: The free potential of society through equality and social ownership . In a chronological sense, anarchism can be segmented by the classical currents of the late 19th century and the post-classical currents ( anarcha-feminism , green anarchism , and post-anarchism ) developed thereafter. Beyond the specific factions of anarchist movements which constitute political anarchism lies philosophical anarchism which holds that

14100-835: The golden age of anarchism. Drawing from mutualism, Mikhail Bakunin founded collectivist anarchism and entered the International Workingmen's Association , a class worker union later known as the First International that formed in 1864 to unite diverse revolutionary currents. The International became a significant political force, with Karl Marx being a leading figure and a member of its General Council. Bakunin's faction (the Jura Federation ) and Proudhon's followers (the mutualists) opposed state socialism , advocating political abstentionism and small property holdings. After bitter disputes,

14250-417: The goods and services it needs, there would be no obstacle, such as preferential distribution, pricing or monetary exchange, to prevent everyone to take what they need from the social product. He supported the eventual abolition of money or tokens of exchange for goods and services. Kropotkin believed that Mikhail Bakunin 's collectivist economic model was just a wage system by a different name and that such

14400-481: The governor-general to suspend the prisoners' death sentences, which was reneged. Disillusioned, Kropotkin and his brother resolved to leave the military. His time in Siberia taught him to appreciate peasant social organization and convinced him that administrative reform was an ineffectual means to improve social conditions. After five years in Siberia, Kropotkin and his brother moved to St. Petersburg, where they continued their schooling and academic work. Kropotkin took

14550-684: The group. He viewed professionals as unlikely to forgo their privileges and judged them to not live societally useful lives. His program emphasized federated agrarian communes and a revolutionary party. While he could speak powerfully, Kropotkin was not a successful organizer. Kropotkin's first political memo in November 1873 covered his basic plan for stateless social reconstruction including common property, worker control of factories, shared physical labor towards societal need, and labor vouchers in lieu of money. He emphasized living among commoners and using propaganda to focus mass dissatisfaction. He rejected

14700-469: The help of his sister. With assistance from friends, he escaped from the minimal-security prison in June 1876. By way of Scandinavia and England, Kropotkin arrived in Switzerland by the end of the year, where he met Italian anarchists Carlo Cafiero and Errico Malatesta . He visited Belgium and Zurich, where he met French geographer Élisée Reclus , who became a close friend. Kropotkin associated with

14850-527: The higher intellectual development, and the further growth of sociable habits, secure the maintenance of the species, its extension, and its further progressive evolution. The unsociable species, on the contrary, are doomed to decay. Kropotkin did not deny the presence of competitive urges in humans, but did not consider them the driving force of human history . He believed that seeking out conflict proved to be socially beneficial only in attempts to destroy injustice , as well as authoritarian institutions such as

15000-527: The ideological current that favours anarchy. Anarchism appears in English from 1642 as anarchisme and anarchy from 1539; early English usages emphasised a sense of disorder. Various factions within the French Revolution labelled their opponents as anarchists , although few such accused shared many views with later anarchists. Many revolutionaries of the 19th century such as William Godwin (1756–1836) and Wilhelm Weitling (1808–1871) would contribute to

15150-471: The ideological development of what became the era of classical anarchism. During the French Revolution , partisan groups such as the Enragés and the sans-culottes saw a turning point in the fermentation of anti-state and federalist sentiments. The first anarchist currents developed throughout the 18th century as William Godwin espoused philosophical anarchism in England , morally delegitimising

15300-523: The last decades of the 20th and into the 21st century, the anarchist movement has been resurgent once more, growing in popularity and influence within anti-capitalist , anti-war and anti-globalisation movements. Anarchists employ diverse approaches , which may be generally divided into revolutionary and evolutionary strategies ; there is significant overlap between the two. Evolutionary methods try to simulate what an anarchist society might be like, but revolutionary tactics, which have historically taken

15450-492: The last four years of his life replenished some of the goodwill he had lost from his support for Western powers in World War I. Kropotkin died of pneumonia on 8 February 1921. His family refused an offer of a state funeral . With his Moscow funeral, the Bolsheviks permitted the diminished Russian anarchist movement an official, restrained occasion to memorialize their figurehead. It was the last major anarchist demonstration of

15600-501: The latter were against anything that would resemble a political party. Seeing the victories of the Bolsheviks in the October Revolution and the resulting Russian Civil War , many workers and activists turned to communist parties , which grew at the expense of anarchism and other socialist movements. In France and the United States, members of major syndicalist movements such as the General Confederation of Labour and

15750-465: The major currents of social anarchism ( collectivist , communist and syndicalist ). They differ on organisational and economic aspects of their ideal society. Mutualism is an 18th-century economic theory that was developed into anarchist theory by Pierre-Joseph Proudhon. Its aims include "abolishing the state", reciprocity , free association , voluntary contract, federation and monetary reform of both credit and currency that would be regulated by

15900-444: The methods by which these forms should be opposed. The principle of equal liberty is closer to anarchist political ethics in that it transcends both the liberal and socialist traditions. This entails that liberty and equality cannot be implemented within the state, resulting in the questioning of all forms of domination and hierarchy. Anarchists' tactics take various forms but in general serve two major goals, namely, to first oppose

16050-501: The most prominent being The Conquest of Bread (1892) and Fields, Factories, and Workshops (1899), with Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution (1902) being his principal scientific offering. He contributed the article on anarchism to the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition and left an unfinished work on anarchist ethical philosophy. Kropotkin was born in Moscow on 9 December 1842, in

16200-828: The movement and attempts were made to prevent anarchists immigrating to the US , including the Immigration Act of 1903 , also called the Anarchist Exclusion Act. Illegalism was another strategy which some anarchists adopted during this period. Despite concerns, anarchists enthusiastically participated in the Russian Revolution in opposition to the White movement , especially in the Makhnovshchina ; however, they met harsh suppression after

16350-667: The movement shaped 21st century radicalism, wider embrace of anarchist principles signaled a revival of interest. Anarchism has continued to generate many philosophies and movements, at times eclectic, drawing upon various sources and combining disparate concepts to create new philosophical approaches. The anti-capitalist tradition of classical anarchism has remained prominent within contemporary currents. Contemporary news coverage which emphasizes black bloc demonstrations has reinforced anarchism's historical association with chaos and violence. Its publicity has also led more scholars in fields such as anthropology and history to engage with

16500-517: The movement." As the anarchists' leading theorist in his lifetime, Kropotkin wrote their most systematic doctrine in an accessible way; and led the development of anarchist-communist social doctrine. His works, inventive and pragmatic, were the most read anarchist books and pamphlets, with translations into major European and Eastern languages that influenced revolutionaries (e.g., Nestor Makhno and Emiliano Zapata ) and non-anarchist reformers alike (e.g., Patrick Geddes , Ebenezer Howard ), as well as

16650-460: The myth of Antigone to illustrate the conflict between laws imposed by the state and personal autonomy . Socrates questioned Athenian authorities constantly and insisted on the right of individual freedom of conscience . Cynics dismissed human law ( nomos ) and associated authorities while trying to live according to nature ( physis ). Stoics were supportive of a society based on unofficial and friendly relations among its citizens without

16800-414: The news media. In the current era, Italian anarchist Alfredo Bonanno , a proponent of insurrectionary anarchism , has reinstated the debate on violence by rejecting the nonviolence tactic adopted since the late 19th century by Kropotkin and other prominent anarchists afterwards. Both Bonanno and the French group The Invisible Committee advocate for small, informal affiliation groups, where each member

16950-609: The next 41 years in exile in Switzerland , France (where he was imprisoned for almost four years) and England. While in exile, he gave lectures and published widely on anarchism and geography. Kropotkin returned to Russia after the Russian Revolution in 1917, but he was disappointed by the Bolshevik state. Kropotkin was a proponent of a decentralized communist society free from central government and based on voluntary associations of self-governing communities and worker-run enterprises. He wrote many books, pamphlets and articles,

17100-414: The other, no matter what name is given to government, whether dictator, royalty, or parliament. We know that what makes the strength and the truth of our party is contained in this fundamental formula — "Nothing good or durable can be done except by the free initiative of the people, and every government tends to destroy it;" and so the very best among us, if their ideas had not to pass through the crucible of

17250-438: The period in Russia, as the movement and Kropotkin's writings would be fully suppressed later that year. Kropotkin critiqued what he considered to be the fallacies of the economic systems of feudalism and capitalism . He believed they create poverty and artificial scarcity and promote privilege . Alternatively, he proposed a more decentralized economic system based on mutual aid and voluntary cooperation . He argued that

17400-454: The police during demonstrations and riots, especially in countries such as Canada , Greece , and Mexico . Militant black bloc protest groups are known for clashing with the police; however, anarchists not only clash with state operators, they also engage in the struggle against fascists and racists , taking anti-fascist action and mobilizing to prevent hate rallies from happening. Anarchists commonly employ direct action . This can take

17550-456: The popular mind, before being put into execution, and if they should become masters of that formidable machine — the government — and could thus act as they chose, would become in a week fit only for the gallows. We know whither every dictator leads, even the best intentioned, — namely to the death of all revolutionary movement. Rather than a centralized approach, Kropotkin stressed the need for decentralized organization. He believed that dissolving

17700-463: The presence of a state. In medieval Europe , there was no anarchistic activity except some ascetic religious movements. These, and other Muslim movements, later gave birth to religious anarchism . In the Sasanian Empire , Mazdak called for an egalitarian society and the abolition of monarchy , only to be soon executed by Emperor Kavad I . In Basra , religious sects preached against

17850-600: The revolution at the National State Conference. Kropotkin applied for a residence in Moscow in 1918, which was personally approved by Vladimir Lenin, head of the Soviet government. Months later, finding life in Moscow difficult in his old age, Kropotkin moved with his family to a friend's home in the nearby town of Dmitrov. In 1919, Emma Goldman visited his family there. Kropotkin met with Lenin in Moscow and corresponded by mail to discuss political questions of

18000-711: The same source. The ancient proto-Mongol Slab Grave Culture occupied the area around Lake Baikal in the Transbaikal territory. In 1667, Gantimur opened Transbaikalia and the country on the Amur River to the influence of the Tsardom of Russia . In Imperial Russia , Dauria itself became an oblast - the Transbaikal Oblast ( Russian : Забайкальская область ), established in 1851, with its capital at Nerchinsk , then at Chita . It became part of

18150-559: The society's request the tsar granted Kropotkin books to finish his glaciation report. Kropotkin was held in the Peter and Paul Fortress . His brother, who had also radicalized as a follower of Lavrov, was also arrested and exiled in Siberia , where he committed suicide about a decade later. Kropotkin was moved to the House of Detention prison military hospital in St. Petersburg for poor health, with

18300-405: The species. The animal species [...] in which individual struggle has been reduced to its narrowest limits [...] and the practice of mutual aid has attained the greatest development [...] are invariably the most numerous, the most prosperous, and the most open to further progress. The mutual protection which is obtained in this case, the possibility of attaining old age and of accumulating experience,

18450-466: The state bureaucracy to organize them, so they would never develop the initiative to self-organize as they needed. This would lead to the re-creation of classes , an oppressed workforce, and eventually another revolution. Thus, Kropotkin wrote that maintaining the state would paralyze any true social revolution, making the idea of a "revolutionary government" a contradiction in terms: We know that Revolution and Government are incompatible; one must destroy

18600-403: The state and Ferrer was later arrested. Nonetheless, his ideas formed the inspiration for a series of modern schools around the world. Christian anarchist Leo Tolstoy , who published the essay Education and Culture , also established a similar school with its founding principle being that "for education to be effective it had to be free." In a similar token, A. S. Neill founded what became

18750-411: The state as a whole. Anarchist schools of thought have been generally grouped into two main historical traditions, social anarchism and individualist anarchism , owing to their different origins, values and evolution. The individualist current emphasises negative liberty in opposing restraints upon the free individual, while the social current emphasises positive liberty in aiming to achieve

18900-428: The state lacks moral legitimacy , without necessarily accepting the imperative of revolution to eliminate it. A component especially of individualist anarchism, philosophical anarchism may tolerate the existence of a minimal state but claims that citizens have no moral obligation to obey government when it conflicts with individual autonomy . Anarchism pays significant attention to moral arguments since ethics have

19050-504: The state such as the anti-nuclear , environmental , and peace movements , the counterculture of the 1960s , and the New Left . It also saw a transition from its previous revolutionary nature to provocative anti-capitalist reformism . Anarchism became associated with punk subculture as exemplified by bands such as Crass and the Sex Pistols . The established feminist tendencies of anarcha-feminism returned with vigour during

19200-413: The state vary. Robert Paul Wolff believed that the tension between authority and autonomy would mean the state could never be legitimate. Bakunin saw the state as meaning "coercion, domination by means of coercion, camouflaged if possible but unceremonious and overt if need be." A. John Simmons and Leslie Green , who leaned toward philosophical anarchism, believed that the state could be legitimate if it

19350-462: The state with stateless societies and voluntary free associations . A historically left-wing movement, anarchism is usually described as the libertarian wing of the socialist movement ( libertarian socialism ). Although traces of anarchist ideas are found all throughout history, modern anarchism emerged from the Enlightenment . During the latter half of the 19th and the first decades of

19500-556: The state with a new society democratically self-managed by workers. The basic principles of anarcho-syndicalism are direct action , workers' solidarity and workers' self-management . Individualist anarchism is a set of several traditions of thought within the anarchist movement that emphasise the individual and their will over any kinds of external determinants. Early influences on individualist forms of anarchism include William Godwin , Max Stirner , and Henry David Thoreau . Through many countries, individualist anarchism attracted

19650-400: The state would cripple counter-revolution without reverting to authoritarian methods of control, writing, "In order to conquer, something more than guillotines are required. It is the revolutionary idea, the truly wide revolutionary conception, which reduces its enemies to impotence by paralyzing all the instruments by which they have governed hitherto." He believed this was possible only through

19800-412: The state, Max Stirner 's thinking paved the way to individualism and Pierre-Joseph Proudhon 's theory of mutualism found fertile soil in France . By the late 1870s, various anarchist schools of thought had become well-defined and a wave of then-unprecedented globalisation occurred from 1880 to 1914. This era of classical anarchism lasted until the end of the Spanish Civil War and is considered

19950-543: The state. In Europe, various religious sects developed anti-state and libertarian tendencies. Renewed interest in antiquity during the Renaissance and in private judgment during the Reformation restored elements of anti-authoritarian secularism in Europe, particularly in France. Enlightenment challenges to intellectual authority (secular and religious) and the revolutions of the 1790s and 1848 all spurred

20100-478: The tendencies for this kind of organization already exist, both in evolution and in human society. Kropotkin disagreed in part with the Marxist critique of capitalism, including the labor theory of value , believing there was no necessary link between work performed and the values of commodities. His attack on the institution of wage labor was based more on the power employers exerted over employees, and not only on

20250-451: The terror which Kropotkin saw as needlessly destructive. In 1902, Kropotkin published his book Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution , which gave an alternative view of animal and human survival. At the time, some proponents of " Social Darwinism " such as Francis Galton proffered a theory of interpersonal competition and natural hierarchy. Instead, Kropotkin argued that "it was an evolutionary emphasis on cooperation instead of competition in

20400-492: The theories of dual power ), based on mutual interdependence and voluntary cooperation. Scholar Carissa Honeywell takes the example of Food Not Bombs group of collectives, to highlight some features of how contemporary anarchist groups work: direct action , working together and in solidarity with those left behind. While doing so, Food Not Bombs provides consciousness raising about the rising rates of world hunger and suggest policies to tackle hunger, ranging from de-funding

20550-462: The time. Belief in political nihilism has been espoused by anarchists. Despite separation, the various anarchist schools of thought are not seen as distinct entities but rather as tendencies that intermingle and are connected through a set of shared principles such as autonomy, mutual aid , anti-authoritarianism and decentralisation . Inceptive currents among classical anarchist currents were mutualism and individualism . They were followed by

20700-470: The use of state power, arguing that any central authority was incompatible with the dramatic changes needed by a social revolution. Kropotkin believed that the mechanisms of the state were deeply rooted in maintaining the power of one class over another, and thus could not be used to emancipate the working class . Instead, Kropotkin insisted that both private property and the state needed to be abolished together. The economic change which will result from

20850-433: Was a concern for anarchists such as Benjamin Tucker , who opposed age of consent laws , believing they would benefit predatory men. A historical current that arose and flourished during 1890 and 1920 within anarchism was free love . In contemporary anarchism, this current survives as a tendency to support polyamory , relationship anarchy , and queer anarchism . Free love advocates were against marriage, which they saw as

21000-549: Was a notable feature of the international syndicalist movement. In China , small groups of students imported the humanistic pro-science version of anarcho-communism. Tokyo was a hotspot for rebellious youth from East Asian countries, who moved to the Japanese capital to study. In Latin America, Argentina was a stronghold for anarcho-syndicalism , where it became the most prominent left-wing ideology. During this time,

21150-440: Was able to move away from the absurdist limitations of individual anarchism and no-laws anarchism that had flourished during this period and provide instead a vision of communal anarchism , following the models of independent cooperative communities he discovered while developing his theory of mutual aid. It was an anarchism that opposed centralized government and state-level laws as traditional anarchism did, but understood that at

21300-539: Was based on her own experience with her husband at Clairvaux prison. She created an archive in Moscow dedicated to his works before her death in 1941. Their only child, Alexandra , was born in London in 1887. Kropotkin was reserved about his private life. As an individual, Kropotkin was known for having exceptional integrity and moral character that matched his beliefs. Henry Hyndman , an ideological adversary, recalled Kropotkin's charm and sincerity. These traits, wrote Stepnyak-Kravchinsky, contributed to Kropotkin's power as

21450-470: Was first formulated as such in the Italian section of the First International . It was later expanded upon in the theoretical work of Peter Kropotkin , whose specific style would go onto become the dominating view of anarchists by the late 19th century. Anarcho-syndicalism is a branch of anarchism that views labour syndicates as a potential force for revolutionary social change, replacing capitalism and

21600-554: Was first to cross in the Siberian Patom Highlands was named for him, as was a peak in East Antarctica . Anarchist Anarchism is a political philosophy and movement that is against all forms of authority and seeks to abolish the institutions it claims maintain unnecessary coercion and hierarchy , typically including the state and capitalism . Anarchism advocates for the replacement of

21750-477: Was indifferent towards the Kropotkin children and had a streak of jealous vindictiveness, going through great lengths to remove the memory of Kropotkin's mother. With his father mostly absent, Kropotkin and his older brother, Alexander, were raised by their German nurse. Kropotkin developed an enduring compassion for the estate's servants and serfs who cared for him and relayed stories of his mother's kindness. He

21900-710: Was introduced to the Jura Federation 's James Guillaume and Adhémar Schwitzguébel . The Jura were the main internal opposition to the Marxist-controlled First International , as followers of Mikhail Bakunin . Kropotkin was quickly impressed and was instantly converted to anarchism by the group's egalitarianism and independence of expression, but narrowly missed meeting the leading anarchist, Bakunin, while there. Kropotkin visited Belgium's movement before returning to Russia in May with contraband literature. Back in St. Petersburg, Kropotkin joined

22050-474: Was no cleavage between the man and his world. He spoke and acted in all things as he felt and believed and wrote. Kropotkin was a whole man. Rudolf Rocker Kropotkin married Sofia , a Ukrainian Jewish student, in Switzerland in October 1878. She was over a decade younger than Kropotkin. Kropotkin references her as a primary source of criticism and feedback. Her published story, "The Wife of Number 4,237",

22200-461: Was no longer an editor. Several of Kropotkin's books began as journal articles. His writings on anarchist communist social life were printed in the French successor to Le Révolté and later revised into The Conquest of Bread in 1892. Kropotkin's writings on decentralizing production and industry against the countervailing trend of centralized industrialization were compiled into his Fields, Factories, and Workshops in 1899. His research throughout

22350-532: Was raised in the family's Moscow mansion and an estate in Nikolskoye, Kaluga Oblast , outside Moscow. At the age of eight, Kropotkin attended Tsar Nicholas I 's Royal Ball. Commending the child's costume, the tsar chose Kropotkin for his Page Corps , an elite school in St. Petersburg that combined military and court education and produced the tsar's imperial attendants. Kropotkin joined the Page Corps as

22500-655: Was spurred by the 1871 Paris Commune and trial of Sergey Nechayev . He and his brother attended meetings on the Franco-Prussian War and revolutionism. Likely at the encouragement of a Swiss extended family member and his own desire to see the socialist worker's movement, Kropotkin set out to see Switzerland and Western Europe in February 1872. Over three months, he met Mikhail Sazhin in Zurich, worked and fell out with Nikolai Utin 's Marxist group in Geneva, and

#965034