Showing results by author "Peter Kropotkin" in All Categories

This 1902 essay collection by the Russian naturalist and anarchist philosopher Peter Kropotkin explore the role of mutually beneficial cooperation and reciprocity in the animal kingdom and human societies. It is an argument against theories of social Darwinism that emphasize competition and survival of the fittest, and against the romantic views of writers such as Jean-Jacques Rousseau who thought that cooperation was motivated by universal love.

This book contains the fundamental works of Marxism, Anarchism and Bolshevism: The Communist Manifesto, originally the Manifesto of the Communist Party, by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels; Reform or Revolution by Rosa Luxemburg; The Conquest of Bread by the Russian anarcho-communist Peter Kropotkin; Anarchism: What it Really Stands For by Emma Goldman; The State and Revolution by Vladimir Lenin; Fascism: What It Is and How To Fight It by Leon Trotsky.

Anarchism claims that there's no need for a state and that it would be better to have a society without central government. Anarchists dislike the authority of the state, but the dream of the stateless society is not a simple matter.

The Peter Kropotkin Anthology includes The Conquest of Bread, Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution, Fields, Factories and Workshops, Appeal to the Young, and an original biography of Kropotkin titled The Life of Kropotkin. Kropotkin was a thought leader in communist anarchism and tirelessly approached a cause which he believed would benefit humanity and continued to inspire his fellow countrymen to join the movement until his death in 1921.

Pyotr Alexeyevich Kropotkin (1842-1921) was a Russian activist, writer, revolutionary, scientist, economist, sociologist, historian, essayist, researcher, political scientist and philosopher who advocated anarcho-communism. Kropotkin was a proponent of a decentralised society based on voluntary associations of self-governing communities and worker-run enterprises. 

Originally written in French, The Conquest of Bread first appeared as a series of articles in the anarchist journal Le Révolté. It was first published in Paris with a preface by Élisée Reclus, who also suggested the title. Between 1892 and 1894, it was serialized in part in the London journal Freedom, of which Kropotkin was a co-founder. In the work, Kropotkin points out what he considers to be the defects of the economic systems of feudalism and capitalism and why he believes they thrive on and maintain poverty and scarcity.

he Conquest of Bread is an 1892 book by the Russian anarcho-communist Peter Kropotkin. It first appeared as a series of articles in the French anarchist journal Le Révolté. Kropotkin points out what he considers to be the defects of the economic systems of feudalism and capitalism and why he believes they thrive on and maintain poverty and scarcity.

Kropotkin's Law and Authority (1900) is a classic statement of anarchist thought. Considering prisons as “schools of crime”, he presents an anarchist critique of the law and the criminal-justice system.  

In this brilliantly enjoyable, challenging rallying-cry of a book, Kropotkin lays out the heart of his anarchist beliefs—beliefs which surged around the world in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and which have a renewed relevance and poignancy today. Humane, thoughtful—but also a devastating critique of how modern society is organized (with the brutal, narrow few clinging onto their wealth and privileges at the expense of the many), The Conquest of Bread is a book to be argued over, again and again.

The Conquest of Bread  is an 1892 book by the Russian anarcho-communist Peter Kropotkin. Peter Kropotkin was born a Russian prince whose father owned 1,200 serfs. But he became  a Russian activist, writer, revolutionary, scientist, economist, sociologist, historian, essayist, researcher, political scientist, biologist, geographer and philosopher. The Conquest of Bread has become a classic of political anarchist literature. It was heavily influential on both the Spanish Civil War and the Occupy movement.

An Appeal to the Young is a passionate tract by the anarchist philosopher Peter Kropotkin, which was translated from the Russian in 1884 by HM Hyndman. The next year it was published in San Francisco with the title To Young People by the International Workingmans Association (IWMA) in a translation by Marie LeCompte. It would be regularly reprinted in English language pamphlets in the years that followed, including editions in Australia, India, and elsewhere. The pamphlet is imbued with a fierce morality and by times earnest, scathing, condemnatory and passionate.

In this work, Kropotkin points out what he considers to be the defects of the economic systems of feudalism and capitalism, and how he believes they thrive on and maintain poverty and scarcity, as symbol for richness and in spite of being in a time of abundance thanks to technology, 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. He also talks about details of revolution and expropriation in order...