Peter Kropotkin
Peter Kropotkin
Prince Pyotr Alexeyevich Kropotkinwas a Russian activist, scientist, and philosopher, who advocated anarchism. Kropotkin was a proponent of a communist society free from central government and based on voluntary associations between workers. He wrote many books, pamphlets and articles, the most prominent being The Conquest of Bread and Fields, Factories and Workshops, and his principal scientific offering, Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution. He also contributed the article on anarchism to the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition...
NationalityRussian
ProfessionRevolutionary
Date of Birth9 December 1842
CountryRussian Federation
War is the usual condition of Europe.
A national movement, which does not include in its platform the demand for an economical change advantageous to the masses has no chance of success unless supported by foreign aid.
He objected, though, to indiscriminate reading. 'One must have some question,' he wrote, 'addressed to the book one is going to read.
Lenin is not comparable to any revolutionary figure in history. Revolutionaries have had ideals. Lenin has none.
We take men for what they are worth - and that is why we hate the government of man by man, and that we work with all our might - perhaps not strong enough - to put an end to it.
Revolutions, we must remember, are always made by minorities.
Of all parties I now see only one party- The Anarchist- which respects human life, and loudly insists upon the abolition of capital punishment, prison torture and punishment of man by man altogether.
If you want to know the people of a nation, I am sure you can judge a great deal more about them from their cooking and eating traditions than you can from the words and actions of their public officials.
But what right had I to these highest joys, when all around me was nothing but misery and struggle for a moldy bit of bread; when whatsoever I should spend to enable me to live in that world of higher emotions must needs be taken from the very mouths of those who grew the wheat and had not bread enough for their children?
Vladimir Ilyich [Lenin], your concrete actions are completely unworthy of the ideas you pretend to hold.
You know how I always believe in the future... Without disorder, the revolution is impossible; knowing that, I did not lose hope, and I do not lose it now.
All this we see, and, therefore, instead of inanely repeating the old formula, Respect the law, we say, Despise law and all its Attributes! In place of the cowardly phrase, Obey the law, our cry, is Revolt against all laws!
But how do European railways manage without them? How do they continue to convey millions of travellers and mountains of luggage across a continent? If companies owning railways have been able to agree, why should railway workers, who would take possession of railways, not agree likewise? And if the Petersburg-Warsaw Company and that of Paris-Belfort can act in harmony, without giving themselves the luxury of a common commander, why, in the midst of our societies, consisting of groups of free workers, should we need a Government?
The law is an adroit mixture of customs that are beneficial to society, and could be followed even if no law existed, and others that are of advantage to a ruling minority, but harmful to the masses of men, and can be enforced on them only by terror.