He's so CUTE!!


 

Pyotr Kropotkin is symbolic of the more noble, good and gentle sides of Anarchism. He discarded the conspiratory methods of, among others, Bakunin, and concentrated on drawing ideals for a future society.

Kropotkin wanted to see a decentralised society, built on the humans' inborn instinct of mutual help. For Kropotkin the "free association of groups" was the organisational form of the future, and not parliamentarism.

When confronted with military service, Kropotkin chose not to make a career in the garrisons of European Russia, but went to the far east, where he spent many years in the Siberian taiga, studying nature closely. As opposed to Darwin's followers, who saw the struggle for existence as the leading principle in nature, Kropotkin realised that it was actually cooperation and mutual help that dominated in nature. It was through cooperation, and not struggle, that the species assured their survival.  
This applies, of course, also on humans. Humans are highly social creatures, and "not even the appearance of such constraining institutions as the national state have been able to break down the voluntary cooperation among individuals". Kropotkin concludes that if the urge to form societies didn't exist, not even the most highly organised state could keep from falling apart.

In his works, the emphasis is on solidarity: "from each one according to his ability, to each one according to his needs." (A phrase that has also been widely used outside of Anarchism, and which about 50 % of American citizens thought was written in the American Constitution, according to a survey in 1976 ...)

 

 

The links below lead to the complete books at Anarchist Archives.

Fields, Factories and Workshops (1899)

Modern Science and Anarchism (1901)

Mutual Aid - a Factor of Evolution (1902)

The Conquest of Bread (1906)

 


 

 

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