Peter Kropotkin
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
"Kropotkin" redirects here. For other uses, see Kropotkin (disambiguation).
This name uses Eastern Slavic naming customs; the patronymic is Alexeyevich and the family name is Kropotkin.
 Kropotkin, by Nadar | |
| Full name | Pyotr Alexeyevich Kropotkin |
|---|---|
| Born | December 9, 1842 Moscow, Russian Empire |
| Died | February 8, 1921 (aged 78) Dmitrov, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union |
| Era | Modern philosophy |
| School | Anarchist communism |
| Main interests | Anarchism, Agriculture, Mutualism, Evolution |
Contents[hide] |
[edit] Biography
[edit] Early life
Peter Kropotkin was born in Moscow. His father, Prince Alexei Petrovich Kropotkin, owned large tracts of land and nearly 1200 "souls" (male serfs) in three provinces. Kropotkin's male line traced to the legendary prince Rurik; his mother was the daughter of a Russian general. "[U]nder the influence of republican teachings," he dropped his princely title at the age of twelve, and "even rebuked his friends, when they so referred to him."[3]In 1857, at age 15, Kropotkin entered the Corps of Pages at St. Petersburg. Only 150 boys — mostly children of nobility belonging to the court — were educated in this privileged corps, which combined the character of a military school endowed with special rights and of a court institution attached to the imperial household. Kropotkin's memoirs detail the hazing and other abuse of pages for which the Corps had become notorious.
In Moscow, Kropotkin had developed an interest in the condition of the peasantry, and this interest increased as he grew older. In St. Petersburg, he read widely on his own account, and gave special attention to the works of the French encyclopædists and to French history. The years 1857-1861 witnessed a rich growth in the intellectual forces of Russia, and Kropotkin came under the influence of the new liberal-revolutionary literature, which largely expressed his own aspirations.
In 1862, Kropotkin was promoted from the Corps of Pages to the army. The members of the corps had the prescriptive right to choose the regiment to which they would be attached. For some time, he was aide de camp to the governor of Transbaikalia at Chita. Later he was appointed attaché for Cossack affairs to the governor-general of East Siberia at Irkutsk.
[edit] Expeditions
In 1867, he quit the army and returned to St. Petersburg, where he entered the university, becoming at the same time secretary to the geography section of the Russian Geographical Society. This action caused his father to disinherit him, "leaving him a 'prince' with no visible means of support."[4] In 1871, he explored the glacial deposits of Finland and Sweden for the Society. In 1873, he published an important contribution to science, a map and paper in which he proved that the existing maps entirely misrepresented the physical features of Asia; the main structural lines were in fact from south-west to north-east, not from north to south, or from east to west as had been previously supposed. During this work, he was offered the secretaryship of the Society, but he had decided that it was his duty not to work at fresh discoveries but to aid in diffusing existing knowledge among the people at large. Accordingly, he refused the offer and returned to St. Petersburg, where he joined the revolutionary party.[citation needed]
In 1874, Kropotkin delivered his report on the subject of Ice age, where he argued that it had existed in not as distant a past as originally thought. He was arrested by the Tsar's secret police the next day, on March 22, 1874, and charged with membership in the banned revolutionary society. He was incarcerated in the Peter and Paul Fortress. Despite the incarceration, Kropotkin was allowed to continue his scientific research, and he produced several new important papers there.
[edit] Activism
He visited Switzerland in 1872 and became a member of the International Workingmen's Association (IWA) at Geneva. It was there that he found that he did not like IWA's style of socialism. Instead, he studied the programme of the more radical Jura federation at Neuchâtel and spent time in the company of the leading members, and definitely adopted the creed of anarchism. On returning to Russia, he took an active part in spreading revolutionary propaganda through the nihilist-led Circle of Tchaikovsky.
In 1881 shortly after the assassination of Tsar Alexander II, the Swiss government expelled Kropotkin from Switzerland. After a short stay at Thonon (Savoy), he went to London, where he stayed nearly a year, and returned to Thonon in late 1882. Soon he was arrested by the French government, tried at Lyon, and sentenced by a police-court magistrate (under a special law passed on the fall of the Paris Commune) to five years' imprisonment, on the ground that he had belonged to the IWA (1883). The French Chamber repeatedly agitated on his behalf, and he was released in 1886. He settled near London, living at various times in Harrow – where his daughter, Alexandra, was born – Ealing and Bromley (6 Crescent Road 1886-1914).[5] He also lived for a number of years in Brighton.[6] While living in London, Kropotkin became friends with a number of prominent English-speaking socialists, including William Morris and George Bernard Shaw.
In 1902 Kropotkin published the book Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution, which provided an alternative view on animal and human survival, beyond the claims of interpersonal competition and natural hierarchy proffered at the time by some "social Darwinists", such as Francis Galton. He argued "that it was an evolutionary emphasis on cooperation instead of competition in the Darwinian sense that made for the success of species, including the human."[7]
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 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, 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.
– Peter Kropotkin, Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution (1902), Conclusion.
Kropotkin returned to Russia after the February Revolution and was offered the ministry of education in the provisional government; he rejected the post. His enthusiasm for the changes happening in the Russian Empire turned to disappointment when the Bolsheviks seized power in the October Revolution. "This buries the revolution," he said.[4] He thought that the Bolsheviks had shown how the revolution was not to be made; by authoritarian rather than libertarian methods.[4] He had spoken out against authoritarian socialism in his writings (for example The Conquest of Bread), making the prediction that any state founded on these principles would most likely lead to its breakup and the restoration of capitalism. This prediction preceded the Revolutions of 1989 by nearly 100 years.
He died on February 8, 1921, in the city of Dmitrov, and was buried at the Novodevichy Cemetery. Anarchists marched in his funeral procession carrying banners with anti-Bolshevik slogans, with Lenin's approval. This was the last march by anarchists until 1987, when glasnost saw them hold the first open free protest against Bolshevik state communism for over 60 years in Moscow.[citation needed]
[edit] Philosophy
| Part of the Politics series on |
| Anarchism |
|---|
 |
 Anarchism PortalPolitics portal |
In his book Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution, Kropotkin explored the widespread use of cooperation as a survival mechanism in human societies through their many stages, and animals. He used many real life examples in an attempt to show that the main factor in facilitating evolution is cooperation between individuals in free-associated societies and groups, without central control, authority or compulsion. This was in order to counteract the conception of fierce competition as the core of evolution, that provided a rationalization for the dominant political, economic and social theories of the time; and the prevalent interpretations of Darwinism. According to Kirkpatrick Sale:[7]
| “ | With Mutual Aid especially, and later with Fields, Factories, and Workshops, Kropotkin 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 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. | ” |
In another of his books, The Conquest of Bread, Kropotkin proposed a system of economics based on mutual exchanges made in a system of voluntary cooperation. He believed that should a society be socially, culturally and industrially developed enough to produce all the goods and services required by it, then no obstacle, such as preferential distribution, pricing or monetary exchange will stand as an obstacle for all taking what they need from the social product. The king pin in this idea is the eventual abolishment of money or tokens to exchange for goods and services. He further developed these ideas in Fields, Factories and Workshops.
Peter Kropotkin
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
"Kropotkin" redirects here. For other uses, see Kropotkin (disambiguation).
This name uses Eastern Slavic naming customs; the patronymic is Alexeyevich and the family name is Kropotkin.
Kropotkin, by Nadar | |
| Full name | Pyotr Alexeyevich Kropotkin |
|---|---|
| Born | December 9, 1842 Moscow, Russian Empire |
| Died | February 8, 1921 (aged 78) Dmitrov, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union |
| Era | Modern philosophy |
| School | Anarchist communism |
| Main interests | Anarchism, Agriculture, Mutualism, Evolution |
Contents[hide] |
[edit] Biography
[edit] Early life
Peter Kropotkin was born in Moscow. His father, Prince Alexei Petrovich Kropotkin, owned large tracts of land and nearly 1200 "souls" (male serfs) in three provinces. Kropotkin's male line traced to the legendary prince Rurik; his mother was the daughter of a Russian general. "[U]nder the influence of republican teachings," he dropped his princely title at the age of twelve, and "even rebuked his friends, when they so referred to him."[3]In 1857, at age 15, Kropotkin entered the Corps of Pages at St. Petersburg. Only 150 boys — mostly children of nobility belonging to the court — were educated in this privileged corps, which combined the character of a military school endowed with special rights and of a court institution attached to the imperial household. Kropotkin's memoirs detail the hazing and other abuse of pages for which the Corps had become notorious.
In Moscow, Kropotkin had developed an interest in the condition of the peasantry, and this interest increased as he grew older. In St. Petersburg, he read widely on his own account, and gave special attention to the works of the French encyclopædists and to French history. The years 1857-1861 witnessed a rich growth in the intellectual forces of Russia, and Kropotkin came under the influence of the new liberal-revolutionary literature, which largely expressed his own aspirations.
In 1862, Kropotkin was promoted from the Corps of Pages to the army. The members of the corps had the prescriptive right to choose the regiment to which they would be attached. For some time, he was aide de camp to the governor of Transbaikalia at Chita. Later he was appointed attaché for Cossack affairs to the governor-general of East Siberia at Irkutsk.
[edit] Expeditions
In 1867, he quit the army and returned to St. Petersburg, where he entered the university, becoming at the same time secretary to the geography section of the Russian Geographical Society. This action caused his father to disinherit him, "leaving him a 'prince' with no visible means of support."[4] In 1871, he explored the glacial deposits of Finland and Sweden for the Society. In 1873, he published an important contribution to science, a map and paper in which he proved that the existing maps entirely misrepresented the physical features of Asia; the main structural lines were in fact from south-west to north-east, not from north to south, or from east to west as had been previously supposed. During this work, he was offered the secretaryship of the Society, but he had decided that it was his duty not to work at fresh discoveries but to aid in diffusing existing knowledge among the people at large. Accordingly, he refused the offer and returned to St. Petersburg, where he joined the revolutionary party.[citation needed]
In 1874, Kropotkin delivered his report on the subject of Ice age, where he argued that it had existed in not as distant a past as originally thought. He was arrested by the Tsar's secret police the next day, on March 22, 1874, and charged with membership in the banned revolutionary society. He was incarcerated in the Peter and Paul Fortress. Despite the incarceration, Kropotkin was allowed to continue his scientific research, and he produced several new important papers there.
[edit] Activism
He visited Switzerland in 1872 and became a member of the International Workingmen's Association (IWA) at Geneva. It was there that he found that he did not like IWA's style of socialism. Instead, he studied the programme of the more radical Jura federation at Neuchâtel and spent time in the company of the leading members, and definitely adopted the creed of anarchism. On returning to Russia, he took an active part in spreading revolutionary propaganda through the nihilist-led Circle of Tchaikovsky. In 1881 shortly after the assassination of Tsar Alexander II, the Swiss government expelled Kropotkin from Switzerland. After a short stay at Thonon (Savoy), he went to London, where he stayed nearly a year, and returned to Thonon in late 1882. Soon he was arrested by the French government, tried at Lyon, and sentenced by a police-court magistrate (under a special law passed on the fall of the Paris Commune) to five years' imprisonment, on the ground that he had belonged to the IWA (1883). The French Chamber repeatedly agitated on his behalf, and he was released in 1886. He settled near London, living at various times in Harrow – where his daughter, Alexandra, was born – Ealing and Bromley (6 Crescent Road 1886-1914).[5] He also lived for a number of years in Brighton.[6] While living in London, Kropotkin became friends with a number of prominent English-speaking socialists, including William Morris and George Bernard Shaw.
In 1902 Kropotkin published the book Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution, which provided an alternative view on animal and human survival, beyond the claims of interpersonal competition and natural hierarchy proffered at the time by some "social Darwinists", such as Francis Galton. He argued "that it was an evolutionary emphasis on cooperation instead of competition in the Darwinian sense that made for the success of species, including the human."[7]
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 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, 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.
– Peter Kropotkin, Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution (1902), Conclusion.
Kropotkin returned to Russia after the February Revolution and was offered the ministry of education in the provisional government; he rejected the post. His enthusiasm for the changes happening in the Russian Empire turned to disappointment when the Bolsheviks seized power in the October Revolution. "This buries the revolution," he said.[4] He thought that the Bolsheviks had shown how the revolution was not to be made; by authoritarian rather than libertarian methods.[4] He had spoken out against authoritarian socialism in his writings (for example The Conquest of Bread), making the prediction that any state founded on these principles would most likely lead to its breakup and the restoration of capitalism. This prediction preceded the Revolutions of 1989 by nearly 100 years.
He died on February 8, 1921, in the city of Dmitrov, and was buried at the Novodevichy Cemetery. Anarchists marched in his funeral procession carrying banners with anti-Bolshevik slogans, with Lenin's approval. This was the last march by anarchists until 1987, when glasnost saw them hold the first open free protest against Bolshevik state communism for over 60 years in Moscow.[citation needed]
[edit] Philosophy
| Part of the Politics series on |
| Anarchism |
|---|
|
| Anarchism Portal Politics portal |
In his book Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution, Kropotkin explored the widespread use of cooperation as a survival mechanism in human societies through their many stages, and animals. He used many real life examples in an attempt to show that the main factor in facilitating evolution is cooperation between individuals in free-associated societies and groups, without central control, authority or compulsion. This was in order to counteract the conception of fierce competition as the core of evolution, that provided a rationalization for the dominant political, economic and social theories of the time; and the prevalent interpretations of Darwinism. According to Kirkpatrick Sale:[7]
| “ | With Mutual Aid especially, and later with Fields, Factories, and Workshops, Kropotkin 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 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. | ” |
In another of his books, The Conquest of Bread, Kropotkin proposed a system of economics based on mutual exchanges made in a system of voluntary cooperation. He believed that should a society be socially, culturally and industrially developed enough to produce all the goods and services required by it, then no obstacle, such as preferential distribution, pricing or monetary exchange will stand as an obstacle for all taking what they need from the social product. The king pin in this idea is the eventual abolishment of money or tokens to exchange for goods and services. He further developed these ideas in Fields, Factories and Workshops.
Kropotkin points out what he considers to be the fallacies of the economic systems of feudalism and capitalism, and how he believes they create poverty and scarcity while promoting privilege. He goes on to propose a more decentralised economic system based on mutual aid and voluntary cooperation, asserting that the tendencies for this kind of organisation already exist, both in evolution and in human society.
His focus on local production leads to his view that a country should strive for self-sufficiency – manufacture its own goods and grow its own food, lessening dependence on imports. To these ends he advocated irrigation and growing under glass to boost local food production ability.
[edit] Timeline
- 1842 – born in Moscow on December 9.
- 1857 – joins the Corps of Pages where he begins to develop a rebellious reputation.
- 1858 – Kropotkin's early writings show interest in political economy and statistics; begins contact with "real" peasants.
- 1861 – has his first prison experience as a result of participating in a student protest.
- 1862 – becomes disillusioned with royalty when as page de chambre to the Tsar he witnesses the extravagances of court life.
- 1862–1867 – at his own request serves with the military in Siberia. Witnesses the living conditions there, and the unwillingness of the corrupt administration to do anything to improve this.
- 1868–1870 – pursues survey and geographical studies.
- 1871 – becomes interested in the workers' movement and the events surrounding the Paris Commune.
- 1872 – travels to Switzerland, where he joins the International; returns to Russia with a quantity of prohibited socialist literature.
- 1873 – as a member of the Tchaikovsky Circle, he helps with re-writing pamphlets in a way that can be understood by the uneducated; he shows great ability for communicating with the workers.
- 1874 – Kropotkin is imprisoned in the Peter and Paul Fortress because of his revolutionary activities. At the intervention of the Geographical Society, he is given special dispensation to work on a paper on glacial periods.
- 1876 – escapes from a military hospital and moves to England.
- 1877 – returns to Switzerland to work with the Jura Federation. Attends the last meeting of the First International in Ghent.
- 1881 – attends the International Anarchist Congress in London. In his propaganda of the deed he supports the assassination of Tsar Alexander II on the grounds that an explosion is far more effective than a vote in encouraging the workers to revolution. This gets him kicked out of Switzerland. The Russian government is embarrassed when he discovers a plot to assassinate him in London.
- 1882 – shortly after moving to France he is arrested for his work in The First International and sentenced to five years in prison. He stays there until 1886 when he is released on condition that he leave France.
- 1886 – returns to England. Learns of his brother Alexander's suicide in Siberian exile for political activity. Becomes co-founder of British anarchist magazine Freedom.
- 1890s – spends most of his time writing. Visits Canada and the United States in 1897. The Atlantic Monthly agrees to publish his memoirs. In his books he attempts to develop an anarchist-communist view of society.
- 1901–1909 – writes material in Russian for readers in his homeland. He was very disappointed by the failure of the 1905 revolution.
- 1909–1914 – returns to Switzerland on condition that he refrain from anarchist activities. Tries to publicize the massacre of 270 workers at the Lena gold mines, but this activity is cut short by World War I. He then moved to the United Kingdom, where he spent some time in the Brighton area.
- 1914–1917 – actively supports the war against Germany, and coauthors the Manifesto of the Sixteen. This position, a strange and questionable one for an anarchist to take, alienated him from many of his associates, particularly Errico Malatesta.
- 1917 – returns to Petrograd where he helps Alexander Kerensky's government to formulate policy. He curtails his activity when the Bolsheviks come to power.
- 1921 – his funeral at the Novodevichy Cemetery, with Vladimir Lenin's approval, becomes the last mass gathering of anarchists in Russia until 1987.
[edit] Works
[edit] Books
- Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution (1955 paperback (reprinted 2005), includes Kropotkin's 1914 preface, Foreword and Bibliography by Ashley Montagu, and The Struggle for Existence, by Thomas H. Huxley ed.). Boston: Extending Horizons Books, Porter Sargent Publishers. ISBN 0-87558-024-6. Project Gutenberg e-text, Project LibriVox audiobook
- The Conquest of Bread Project Gutenberg e-text, Project LibriVox audiobook
- Fields, Factories and Workshops
- In Russian and French Prisons, London: Ward and Downey; 1887.
- Memoirs of a Revolutionist, London : Smith, Elder; 1899. Kropotkin's own memoirs, which were also published in the United States in the same year and have appeared in a number of modern editions.
- The Great French Revolution, 1789-1793, New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, London, William Heinemann, 1909, translated from the French by N.F. Dryhurst. e-text (in French)
- Russian Literature: Ideals and Realities (New York: A. A. Knopf, 1915). Available online at the Anarchy Archives,[8]
- Ethics (unfinished). Included as first part of Origen y evolución de la moral (Spanish e-text)
[edit] Articles
- "Research on the Ice age", Notices of the Imperial Russian Geographical Society, 1876.
- "The desiccation of Eur-Asia", Geographical Journal, 23 (1904), 722-741.
- Mr. Mackinder; Mr. Ravenstein; Dr. Herbertson; Prince Kropotkin; Mr. Andrews; Cobden Sanderson; Elisée Reclus, "On Spherical Maps and Reliefs: Discussion", The Geographical Journal, Vol. 22, No. 3. (Sep., 1903), pp. 294–299, JSTOR
- "Baron Toll", The Geographical Journal, Vol. 23, No. 6. (Jun., 1904), pp. 770–772, JSTOR
- "The population of Russia", The Geographical Journal, Vol. 10, No. 2. (Aug., 1897), pp. 196–202, JSTOR
- "The old beds of the Amu-Daria", The Geographical Journal, Vol. 12, No. 3. (Sep., 1898), pp. 306–310, JSTOR
[edit] Pamphlets
- An Appeal To The Young
- War.
- Law and Authority.
- The Place of Anarchy in Socialist Evolution.
- Revolutionary Government.
- Are Prisons Necessary? Chapter X from "In Russian and French Prisons" (1887)
- Anarchism : Its Philosophy and Ideal (1896)
- The State : Its Historic Role (1897)
- On Economics Selected Passages from his Writings (1898–1913)
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ Wilde, Oscar, "De Profundis", The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde, Collins.
- ^ "Kropotkin, Peter Alekseyevich." Encyclopaedia Britannica Ultimate Reference Suite. Chicago: Encyclopædia Britannica, 2010.
- ^ Roger N. Baldwin, "The Story of Kropotkin's Life," in Kropotkin's Anarchism: A Collection of Revolutionary Writings, ed. by Baldwin (Orig. 1927; Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, Inc., 1970), p. 13.
- ^ a b c Riggenbach, Jeff (2011-03-04) The Anarchism of Peter Kropotkin, Mises Institute
- ^ Bromley Council guide to blue plaques
- ^ Peter Marshall Demanding the Impossible: A History of Anarchism, London: Fontana, 1993, p.315
- ^ a b Sale, Kirkpatrick (2010-07-01) Are Anarchists Revolting?, The American Conservative
- ^ Russian Literature: Ideals and Realities entry at the Anarchy Archives
[edit] Further reading
 | This article's citation style may be unclear. The references used may be made clearer with a different or consistent style of citation, footnoting, or external linking. (September 2009) |
- The Anarchists by James Joll (2nd ed.) (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1980) LCCN 80-010503. ISBN 0674036417. [historical book]
- The Anarchist Prince: A Biographical Study of Peter Kropotkin by George Woodcock & Ivan Avakumovic (1950 & 1971).
- "Mutual Aid and the Foraging Mode of Thought: Re-reading Kropotkin on the Khoisan" by Barnard Alan, Social Evolution & History, Vol. 3, No. 1 (March 2004), pages 3–21.
- Kropotkin: the Politics of Community by Brian Morris (Humanity Press, 2004)
- The Anarchist Geographer: an Introduction to the Life of Peter Kropotkin by Brian Morris (Genge Press, 2007)
- Basic Kropotkin: Kropotkin and the History of Anarchism by Brian Morris, Anarchist Communist Editions pamphlet no.17 (The Anarchist Federation, October 2008).
- S.J.Gould: Kropotkin was no crackpot. Natural History 106 (June 1997): 12-21.
- The World That Never Was: A True Story of Dreamers, Schemers, Anarchists and Secret Police by Alex Butterworth (Pantheon Books, 2010)
[edit] External links
| Find more about Peter Kropotkin on Wikipedia's sister projects: | |
 | Images and media from Commons |
 | Quotations from Wikiquote |
 | Source texts from Wikisource |
- Works by Peter Kropotkin at Project Gutenberg
Free audiobooks of Peter Kropotkin at project LibriVox- The Anarchism of Peter Kropotkin at the Mises Institute
- Kropotkin Page at the Daily Bleed's Anarchist Encyclopedia
- The Peter Kropotkin text archive on libcom.org library
- BlackCrayon.com: People: Peter Kropotkin
- Peter Kropotkin entry at the Anarchy Archives with complete collected works
- Peter Kropotkin at (an)archive!
- Peter Kropotkin-Short Documentary on YouTube
- Summary of records in The National Archives and elsewhere, with a link to the National Register of Archives pages.
- Kropotkin's works at TheAnarchistLibrary.org
- Kropotkin's grave at Novodevichy Cemetery
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Categories: 1842 births | 1921 deaths | People from Moscow | Peter Kropotkin | Anarchism theorists | Anarchist communists | Burials at Novodevichy Cemetery | Members of the First International | Rurikids | Russian anarchists | Russian geographers | Russian expatriates in France | Russian explorers | Russian political writers | Narodniks | Russian writers | Russian zoologists
[edit] Timeline
- 1842 – born in Moscow on December 9.
- 1857 – joins the Corps of Pages where he begins to develop a rebellious reputation.
- 1858 – Kropotkin's early writings show interest in political economy and statistics; begins contact with "real" peasants.
- 1861 – has his first prison experience as a result of participating in a student protest.
- 1862 – becomes disillusioned with royalty when as page de chambre to the Tsar he witnesses the extravagances of court life.
- 1862–1867 – at his own request serves with the military in Siberia. Witnesses the living conditions there, and the unwillingness of the corrupt administration to do anything to improve this.
- 1868–1870 – pursues survey and geographical studies.
- 1871 – becomes interested in the workers' movement and the events surrounding the Paris Commune.
- 1872 – travels to Switzerland, where he joins the International; returns to Russia with a quantity of prohibited socialist literature.
- 1873 – as a member of the Tchaikovsky Circle, he helps with re-writing pamphlets in a way that can be understood by the uneducated; he shows great ability for communicating with the workers.
- 1874 – Kropotkin is imprisoned in the Peter and Paul Fortress because of his revolutionary activities. At the intervention of the Geographical Society, he is given special dispensation to work on a paper on glacial periods.
- 1876 – escapes from a military hospital and moves to England.
- 1877 – returns to Switzerland to work with the Jura Federation. Attends the last meeting of the First International in Ghent.
- 1881 – attends the International Anarchist Congress in London. In his propaganda of the deed he supports the assassination of Tsar Alexander II on the grounds that an explosion is far more effective than a vote in encouraging the workers to revolution. This gets him kicked out of Switzerland. The Russian government is embarrassed when he discovers a plot to assassinate him in London.
- 1882 – shortly after moving to France he is arrested for his work in The First International and sentenced to five years in prison. He stays there until 1886 when he is released on condition that he leave France.
- 1886 – returns to England. Learns of his brother Alexander's suicide in Siberian exile for political activity. Becomes co-founder of British anarchist magazine Freedom.
- 1890s – spends most of his time writing. Visits Canada and the United States in 1897. The Atlantic Monthly agrees to publish his memoirs. In his books he attempts to develop an anarchist-communist view of society.
- 1901–1909 – writes material in Russian for readers in his homeland. He was very disappointed by the failure of the 1905 revolution.
- 1909–1914 – returns to Switzerland on condition that he refrain from anarchist activities. Tries to publicize the massacre of 270 workers at the Lena gold mines, but this activity is cut short by World War I. He then moved to the United Kingdom, where he spent some time in the Brighton area.
- 1914–1917 – actively supports the war against Germany, and coauthors the Manifesto of the Sixteen. This position, a strange and questionable one for an anarchist to take, alienated him from many of his associates, particularly Errico Malatesta.
- 1917 – returns to Petrograd where he helps Alexander Kerensky's government to formulate policy. He curtails his activity when the Bolsheviks come to power.
- 1921 – his funeral at the Novodevichy Cemetery, with Vladimir Lenin's approval, becomes the last mass gathering of anarchists in Russia until 1987.
[edit] Works
[edit] Books
- Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution (1955 paperback (reprinted 2005), includes Kropotkin's 1914 preface, Foreword and Bibliography by Ashley Montagu, and The Struggle for Existence, by Thomas H. Huxley ed.). Boston: Extending Horizons Books, Porter Sargent Publishers. ISBN 0-87558-024-6. Project Gutenberg e-text, Project LibriVox audiobook
- The Conquest of Bread Project Gutenberg e-text, Project LibriVox audiobook
- Fields, Factories and Workshops
- In Russian and French Prisons, London: Ward and Downey; 1887.
- Memoirs of a Revolutionist, London : Smith, Elder; 1899. Kropotkin's own memoirs, which were also published in the United States in the same year and have appeared in a number of modern editions.
- The Great French Revolution, 1789-1793, New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, London, William Heinemann, 1909, translated from the French by N.F. Dryhurst. e-text (in French)
- Russian Literature: Ideals and Realities (New York: A. A. Knopf, 1915). Available online at the Anarchy Archives,[8]
- Ethics (unfinished). Included as first part of Origen y evolución de la moral (Spanish e-text)
[edit] Articles
- "Research on the Ice age", Notices of the Imperial Russian Geographical Society, 1876.
- "The desiccation of Eur-Asia", Geographical Journal, 23 (1904), 722-741.
- Mr. Mackinder; Mr. Ravenstein; Dr. Herbertson; Prince Kropotkin; Mr. Andrews; Cobden Sanderson; Elisée Reclus, "On Spherical Maps and Reliefs: Discussion", The Geographical Journal, Vol. 22, No. 3. (Sep., 1903), pp. 294–299, JSTOR
- "Baron Toll", The Geographical Journal, Vol. 23, No. 6. (Jun., 1904), pp. 770–772, JSTOR
- "The population of Russia", The Geographical Journal, Vol. 10, No. 2. (Aug., 1897), pp. 196–202, JSTOR
- "The old beds of the Amu-Daria", The Geographical Journal, Vol. 12, No. 3. (Sep., 1898), pp. 306–310, JSTOR
[edit] Pamphlets
- An Appeal To The Young
- War.
- Law and Authority.
- The Place of Anarchy in Socialist Evolution.
- Revolutionary Government.
- Are Prisons Necessary? Chapter X from "In Russian and French Prisons" (1887)
- Anarchism : Its Philosophy and Ideal (1896)
- The State : Its Historic Role (1897)
- On Economics Selected Passages from his Writings (1898–1913)
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ Wilde, Oscar, "De Profundis", The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde, Collins.
- ^ "Kropotkin, Peter Alekseyevich." Encyclopaedia Britannica Ultimate Reference Suite. Chicago: Encyclopædia Britannica, 2010.
- ^ Roger N. Baldwin, "The Story of Kropotkin's Life," in Kropotkin's Anarchism: A Collection of Revolutionary Writings, ed. by Baldwin (Orig. 1927; Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, Inc., 1970), p. 13.
- ^ a b c Riggenbach, Jeff (2011-03-04) The Anarchism of Peter Kropotkin, Mises Institute
- ^ Bromley Council guide to blue plaques
- ^ Peter Marshall Demanding the Impossible: A History of Anarchism, London: Fontana, 1993, p.315
- ^ a b Sale, Kirkpatrick (2010-07-01) Are Anarchists Revolting?, The American Conservative
- ^ Russian Literature: Ideals and Realities entry at the Anarchy Archives
[edit] Further reading
| This article's citation style may be unclear. The references used may be made clearer with a different or consistent style of citation, footnoting, or external linking. (September 2009) |
- The Anarchists by James Joll (2nd ed.) (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1980) LCCN 80-010503. ISBN 0674036417. [historical book]
- The Anarchist Prince: A Biographical Study of Peter Kropotkin by George Woodcock & Ivan Avakumovic (1950 & 1971).
- "Mutual Aid and the Foraging Mode of Thought: Re-reading Kropotkin on the Khoisan" by Barnard Alan, Social Evolution & History, Vol. 3, No. 1 (March 2004), pages 3–21.
- Kropotkin: the Politics of Community by Brian Morris (Humanity Press, 2004)
- The Anarchist Geographer: an Introduction to the Life of Peter Kropotkin by Brian Morris (Genge Press, 2007)
- Basic Kropotkin: Kropotkin and the History of Anarchism by Brian Morris, Anarchist Communist Editions pamphlet no.17 (The Anarchist Federation, October 2008).
- S.J.Gould: Kropotkin was no crackpot. Natural History 106 (June 1997): 12-21.
- The World That Never Was: A True Story of Dreamers, Schemers, Anarchists and Secret Police by Alex Butterworth (Pantheon Books, 2010)
[edit] External links
| Find more about Peter Kropotkin on Wikipedia's sister projects: | |
| Images and media from Commons |
| Quotations from Wikiquote |
| Source texts from Wikisource |
- Works by Peter Kropotkin at Project Gutenberg
- Free audiobooks of Peter Kropotkin at project LibriVox
- The Anarchism of Peter Kropotkin at the Mises Institute
- Kropotkin Page at the Daily Bleed's Anarchist Encyclopedia
- The Peter Kropotkin text archive on libcom.org library
- BlackCrayon.com: People: Peter Kropotkin
- Peter Kropotkin entry at the Anarchy Archives with complete collected works
- Peter Kropotkin at (an)archive!
- Peter Kropotkin-Short Documentary on YouTube
- Summary of records in The National Archives and elsewhere, with a link to the National Register of Archives pages.
- Kropotkin's works at TheAnarchistLibrary.org
- Kropotkin's grave at Novodevichy Cemetery
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Categories: 1842 births | 1921 deaths | People from Moscow | Peter Kropotkin | Anarchism theorists | Anarchist communists | Burials at Novodevichy Cemetery | Members of the First International | Rurikids | Russian anarchists | Russian geographers | Russian expatriates in France | Russian explorers | Russian political writers | Narodniks | Russian writers | Russian zoologists
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