Peter Kropotkin

PETER KROPOTKIN (1842-1921) : Peter Kropotkin was a Russian geographer and anarchist theorist. Kropotkin's writings are vivid and interesting and display a scientific temper as well as a breadth of sympathy. His doctrine of anarchism was imbued with the scientific spirit and based upon a theory of evolution that provided an alternative to Darwin's. By seeing mutual. aid as the principal means of human and animal development he claimed to provide an empirical basis for both anarchism and communism. Kropotkin's major works include Mutual Aid (1897) Fields, Factories and workshops (1901) and the Conquest of Bread (1906). The son of a noble family who first entered the service of Tsar Alexander-II Kropotkin encountered anarchist ideas while working in the Jura region on the French Swiss border. After imprisonment in St. Petersburg in 1874, he travelled widely in Europe returning to Russia after the 1917 Revolution.

Kropotkin sought to give evolutionary and historical bases to his doctrines. He maintained that the method of the natural science was the only way to reach conclusions as to the nature of man and society. He was a student of biology and human geography and some of his anarchist propositions are stated in terms of generalizations in these fields. He represented his doctrine as based not on metaphysical conceptions of natural rights but on ideas of the actual course of human evolution. He held the view that the laws of natural evolution apply like to animals and their groupings and to men and human society. They define the processes of an increasing adaptation to surrounding conditions of life- the development of organs, faculties and habits that render more complete the accommodations of individuals and groups to their environment.

Kropotkin placed distinctive emphasis upon two phases of this evolution. He contended that in both individual and social life natural evolution takes place not solely through a process of steady development but also, at times, through accelerated, abrupt, apparently disruptive transformations. In the normal course of the life of an individual, vital forces operate in an orderly manner. Likewise in social life there is a slow and steady progress from lower to higher forms of organization, but there are also quick and revolutionary movements forward. New ideas that appear naturally and that are necessary for the continued progress of mankind, attempt to come forth into the actual life of society but their action is sometimes blocked by the inertia of the ignorant and indifferent or by the perverted aims of those who have selfish interests in retaining old traditions and conditions.

The second, and more important principle in Kropotkin's evolutionary theory is found in his conception of the predominate part played in evolution by the co-operative as distinguished from the competitive attributes of animals and men. According to him, the law of organic evolution is primarily a law of mutual aid, not of conflict Individuals and species that survive are those endowed with the most effective faculties for co-operative in the struggles to adapt themselves to their environment. He argued that the law of mutual aid manifests itself in social life, in a principle of equality, justice and social solidarity, which is nothing but the golden rule.

According to Kropotkin, the hindrances to the progress of human society are the state, private property and religion. Religious authority, according to him, is the servant of political oppression and economic privilege. The state is without any natural or historical justification It is opposed to man’s natural cooperative instincts. Its structure and manner of action are determined by the fallacious assumption that men’s characteristic and prevailing impulses are competitive and unsocial so that restraint and compulsion are necessary in order to maintain society. Men lived together for ages without any politically enforced rules. The state is of relatively late historical origin having displaced the freer, more natural associations of earlier civilization, when the relations of men were regulated by habits and usages learned, like hunting and agriculture, from the years of childhood. Laws in their earliest forms were simply the customs that served to maintain society. State enacted laws appeared only when society became divided by economic conditions into mutually hostile classes, one of them seeking to exploit the other. As political authority developed laws came more and more to be merely rules confirming the customs that proved advantageous to the ruling groups and gave permanence to their economic supramacy.

Kropotkin argued that history reveals both the state's incompetence for the achievement of any high purpose and its positive contribution to human suffering and injustice. The state has not protected the factory workers and the peasant from exploitation by capitalists and land owners or secured food for the needy or work for the unemployed. It has not been the guardian of inherent rights of the individual' freedom of the press and association, the inviolability of the home and all the rest are respected only so long as the people make no use of them against the privileged classes. Neither the protective nor the beneficent services of the state are either necessary or effective. He believed that the people can defend them selves against domestic brigands and foreign aggressors' history shows that standing armies have always been defeated by citizen armies and that invasion is most effectively wasted by popular uprising. Finally the cultural and benevolent activities of government are superfluous; when men are released from their economic and political dependence, voluntary activity will supply all that is needed for both education and charity.

Kropotkin believed these facts to be true of all forms of state. The transformation of absolute monarchies into parliamentary governments have effected no change in the essential character of the state. A representative system based on universal suffrage is now unworkable. According to

Kropotkin, the evil equality of private property is inherent in its essential character and manifest in its actual effect. Actual social conditions reveal the consequences of private property; among the masses - want and misery, millions unemployed, children of retarded growth, constant debts for the farmers. Historically the parasitic institutions of state and property entered together into the midst of the free institution of our ancestors; and the whole reason for the existence of political authority today lies in its function of protecting property.

Kropotkin`s picture of future society is in many details, like the one drawn by Bakunin. Men will continue to live together but they will no longer be held together by governmental authority. Free association will prevail throughout society. Individuals prosecuting the same ends will combine into groups and these groups into large associations, the course of organization proceeding from the simple to the complex according to the actual needs and desires. As the demands appear groups will be formed to build houses, construct roads, make tools, conducts schools etc. These groups will join into leagues and unions with various blending as economic and social interests dictate. All associations will be formed through voluntary contracts, whose observance will in general be assured by the necessity felt by every one for friendly co-operation with his neighbors. Within each group those exceptional individuals who fail to live up to their obligations will be expelled from membership. Disputes will be settled by voluntarily established courts of arbitration. Since the social order is based upon principles of freedom and justice, the incitement to antisocial acts will largely disappear. Where such acts occur, moral influence and sympathetic intervention will normally suffice to suppress them.

Economically the new order will be that of complete communism. So far as ownership is concerned there will be no discrimination between goods as production and goods for consumption. Kropotkin regarded as fallacious and impracticable the doctrine that productive goods – machines, raw materials, land, means of transportation should be the property of the community while finished products should remain under private ownership. Every normal individual will be driven into some association both by his natural impulse to labour when his work can be done under conditions which he regards as just and by the natural willingness of a society of workers to share the products of its labours with those who refuse to work. Every labour will be permitted to satisfy freely his needs from all that is abundant. Under such an organization of production and distribution the quantity of goods, Kropotkin believed, will be sufficient for all to live in comfort and the goods will be of better quality than under the present system.

Kropotkin believed that the natural course of events was moving towards the goal he pictured. It is no longer a matter of faith, it is a matter for scientific discussion. Already he argued the part played by government is becoming less important as compared with the co-operative activities in which citizens voluntarily engage. Millions of transaction; are now entered into and executed daily without any governmental intervention; agreements are faithfully kept not under the incentive of fear of punishment, but because of desire to retain the confidence and respect of one's neighbors or a natural habit of keeping one's word.

Although Kropotkin believed that the inevitable trend of social evolution was towards the anarchist goal, he did not believe that the goal could be reached through a wholly gradual and peaceful process. The evolution must culminate in a revolution. The revolution will be with first phase destructive and violent, existing governors must be deposed, prisons and forts demolished, the spirit of mutual aid revived. After the basic instruments of coercive authority are forcibly removed, the people will proceed to expropriate private property, peasants expelling landowners workers driving out factory owners, those having inadequate homes moving into dwellings that contain surplus space Then they must follow the work of a constructive reshaping of society. This will be through a purely voluntary procedure. No government no transitional dictatorship, will be required that would mean death to the revolution.

Kropotkin considered some of the common criticisms of anarchism and offered answers to them. He insisted generally that anarchism does not means chaos or confusion. It means hostility to the state and to the peculiar social relations which the state sustains, but it is not true that where there is no government there is disorder. More over, order that is merely the consequence of the strong arm of government is of doubtful benefit. He considered more specifically the objections that in the absence of political authority men would fail to keep agreements, refused to work and commit antisocial acts.

According to Kropotkin , agreements are, in the first place essentially ,of two kind forced and voluntary, In the former case, the agreement is accepted by one of the parties out of sheer necessity as when a workman sells his labour to an employer because otherwise his family would starve; the fear of political authority is necessary to guarantee the observance of such an agreement but the agreement itself is unjust in the case of agreements entered into voluntary basis, no force is necessary to secure observance, they would be carried out as faithfully in an anarchist society as in a political society.

Secondly, Kropotkin argued that distaste for work is not the natural disposition of man. Man normally prefer work to idleness. Thirdly there is no natural disposition in men to violate the useful customs of society. The antisocial deeds that are perpetrated now are the consequences of perverted social rules: Most crimes are directly or indirectly to the injustices of the existing system of production and distribution, not to the perversion of human nature. When a man himself and his family in need of the bare existence of life, others about him living in superfluous case and luxury-commits a crime, he does so under the impulsion of conditions that will disappear when anarchism prevails. For the future society will not only remove existing incentive to crime, it will so develop social health competence and a general regard for one another's interests that positive incentives to good conduct will be firmly established and there will be no need for organized repression.

The anarchists are bitter critics of religion. Kropotkin rejected conventional religion on both scientific and spiritual grounds. Religion, he believed is either a primitive cosmogony , “a rude attempt at explaining nature” or it is an ethical system which through its appeal to the ignorance and superstition of the masses, cultivates among them a tolerance of the injustice they suffer under the existing political and economic arrangements. He was willing, however, to apply the term religion to his conception of a social morality that develops spontaneously among the masses of the people. Such a natural religion is necessary for any society, in the sense that no society can exist without certain moral habits and rules that evolve unconsciously and as consequence of which men respect one another's interests and rely upon one another words. A morality of this sort is anterior to and independent of formal religious creeds. It grows out of the social conventions that begin as soon as men begin to live together. Habits of mutual support and of self-sacrifice to the common well-being are necessary conditions for the welfare of the group in its struggle for life. The individuals who survive and thrive are those who best accustom themselves to a life in society. He wrote that, a “morality which has become instructive is the true morality, the only morality which endures while religious and systems of philosophy pass away”.

Kropotkin placed much emphasis upon man's sense of social responsibility, his feeling of human brotherhood, and his disposition to engage in labours that satisfy both and impulse to create and a desire to see commodities produced in amounts sufficient to meet the needs of his fellowmen. He regarded these natural human attributes as adequate guarantees of peace, order and fair dealing in a society that has got rid of the unnatural institutions of private property and political co ercision.

The numerous and devoted followers of Bakunin and Kropotkin added no essentially new ideas; Prominent among these disciples have been Elisee Reclus, Jean Grave, and Emile Gautier in France, Enrico Malatesta in Italy, and Emma Goldman, a Russian American. Reclus who was a distinguished geographer is the most important of his group. Although he drew from Kropotkin the principal counts in his indictment of the modern political and economic order, he showed some originality in presenting the evidences. He proposed briefly negative and pacific measures for getting rid of political authority.

The doctrines of Bakunin and Kropotkin were spread among the working men of Europe through numerous journals, some of them ably edited, most of them very short lived. Some anarchists contend that violence is inadmissible even as a means of resistance or revolution. The most celebrated among recent advocate of anarchism was Count Leo Tolstoy, probably the most widely Russion of the later 19th century and one of the greatest literary figures of recent times. Tolstoy's doctrine has been called Christian anarchism. He rejected many of the traditional dogmas of Christianity - particularly, the trinity, the divinity of Christ, and personal immortality but he was thoroughly Christian in his outlook. Tolstoy described Christianity as a simple code of moral rules, offering the one adequate solution for the problems of human conduct. Both the state and private property are, in Tolstoy’s theory incompatible with true Christianity. The state based on force and executes its will through armed men- police men and soldiers, trained to kill.

Tolstoy said little as to the future organization of society. He laid stress upon individual regeneration and regarded most institutional schemes for reforming society as futile. He was emphatic in condemning force as a means of social reconstruction. The only effective methods are those of enlightenment. He wrote thus: Awaken the conscience of the people; live according to the principles of love and equality, practice passive resistance; refuse obedience to the clearly un-Christian commands of a government;'.

CRITICISMS

The anarchist doctrines of Bakunin and Kropotkin have been subjected to severe criticisms by various schools of political thought. Major criticism of anarchism is that in the absence of political authority, men would fail to keep agreements refuse to work and commit anti social activities. As Hobbes has rightly pointed out in his well known work Leviathan, "Covenants without the swords are but words; and of no strength to secure a man at all”. The communists criticise the anarchist theory on the ground that an unorganized and unplanned revolution can never be successful. A revolution can be accomplished only under the leadership of a highly dedicated and disciplined political party and with the help of a large mass of people.