{"id":26,"date":"2025-10-14T18:21:51","date_gmt":"2025-10-14T18:21:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/anarchistfaq.org\/anarcho\/?p=26"},"modified":"2025-10-14T19:13:23","modified_gmt":"2025-10-14T19:13:23","slug":"introduction-to-kropotkins-words-of-a-rebel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/anarchistfaq.org\/anarcho\/introduction-to-kropotkins-words-of-a-rebel\/","title":{"rendered":"Introduction to Kropotkin\u2019s \u201cWords of a Rebel\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

My introduction to the 2022 PM Press edition of Peter Kropotkin\u2019s Words of a Rebel<\/em><\/a>. As well as the original 1885 book, it includes later prefaces (1904 Italian edition and the 1919 Russian edition) and Afterword to the 1919 Russian edition as well as supplementary material by Kropotkin on the labour movement from Le R\u00e9volt\u00e9 <\/em>written as the same time. The Bibliographical Sketch<\/em> has been updated to reflect new research on the first translations into English of its texts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Introduction: On the Terrain of the Economic Struggle<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\n

[T]he trade-union movement . . . will become a great power for laying the foundations of an anti-State communist society. If I were in France, where at this moment lies the centre of the industrial movement, and if I were in better health, I would be the first to rush headlong into this movement in favour of the First International\u2014not the Second or the Third, which only represent the usurpation of the idea of the workers\u2019<\/em> International for the benefit of a party which is not half composed of workers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2014Peter Kropotkin, May 1920[1]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Peter Kropotkin (1842\u20131921) needs little introduction. Born into the Russian aristocracy, he rejected his privileged background to become an anarchist activist and, eventually, the most famous and influential anarchist theorist of his age\u2014and beyond. Words of a Rebel<\/em> was the first of his many anarchist books. Edited by his friend and comrade Elis\u00e9e Reclus, it was published in 1885 while Kropotkin was in prison as a result of the Lyon show trial of 1883 and is made up of articles written between 1879 and 1882 for Le R\u00e9volt\u00e9<\/em> (The Rebel<\/em>), the journal which Kropotkin edited.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This period was just one of many in an eventful life. After becoming an anarchist on a trip to Western Europe in 1872, Kropotkin returned to his native Russia and was arrested and imprisoned for his activism in 1874. Two years later, he escaped from the prison hospital and he went into exile, only returning to Russia after the February Revolution of 1917. For over five decades he was at the heart of the European anarchist movement and contributed to all its debates, including championing libertarian communism and anarchist involvement in the labour movement. After the October Revolution, libertarians visiting Russia or deported there, like Emma Goldman, sought his opinions on the development of revolution. He died on 8 February 1921 and tens of thousands marched in his funeral procession along with anarchists carrying anti-Bolshevik banners, the last officially allowed protest against the regime until its fall in 1991.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet Kropotkin\u2019s life is not why Words of a Rebel<\/em> is important and should be essential reading for today\u2019s revolutionaries. Rather, it is the message of the book which is key as its critique of capitalist society and its analysis of the flawed State socialist alternative to it are still relevant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Le R\u00e9volt\u00e9<\/em>: Its Origins and Its Legacy<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Using the privileges of his scientific position, Kropotkin visited Switzerland in 1872 and took the opportunity to seek out the International he had read so much about. He visited both factions of the Swiss IWA, first to the non-anarchist wing at the Temple Unique in Geneva, where he was horrified to see its leaders manipulate a mass meeting in order stop a strike they considered harmful to the electoral chances of their candidate. He then visited the libertarian Jura Federation and the \u201cseparation between leaders and workers which I had noticed at Geneva in the Temple Unique did not exist in the Jura Mountains. There were a number of men who were more intelligent, and especially more active than the others; but that was all\u201d and soon \u201cmy views upon socialism were settled. I was an anarchist.\u201d[2]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

He then returned to Russia and took an active part of the blossoming populist movement. The group he joined\u2014the Chaikovsky Circle\u2014was discussing their future direction and whether it should be further socialist propaganda amongst the educated youth or to make contact with the workers and peasants. Kropotkin advocated the latter, for propaganda must be made \u201cunquestionably among the peasantry and urban workers\u201d for \u201cthe insurrection must proceed among the peasantry and urban workers themselves\u201d if it were to succeed. Revolutionaries \u201cmust not stand outside the people but among them, must serve not as a champion of some alien opinions worked out in isolation, but only as a more distinct, more complete expression of the demands of the people themselves.\u201d Moreover, a strike \u201ctrains the participants for a common management of affairs and for distribution of responsibilities, distinguishes the people most talented and devoted to a common cause, and finally, forces the others to get to know these people and strengthens their influence.\u201d[3]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This activity was cut short when he was arrested in 1874 and (like Bakunin before him) imprisoned in the infamous Peter-and-Paul Fortress. After two years his health failed, and he was transferred to the prison block of the St. Petersburg military prison. This was the opportunity he and his populist comrades were waiting for, and they organised his escape. Leaving Russia, he joined his comrades in Switzerland.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When Kropotkin had first encountered the Jura Federation it was during its peak in terms of activity and theory. Now, in 1877, its best days were behind it and it was essentially moribund. It still met, but the dynamic union organising and innovative thinking of the late 1860s and early 1870s were no more than an inspiration to remaining activists such as Kropotkin. However, he got involved in the movement and wrote articles for Bulletin de la F\u00e9d\u00e9ration Jurassienne<\/em> and L\u2019Avant-garde<\/em>. When these ended (in May 1878 and December 1878, respectively) he took the initiative in establishing with Georges Herzig and Fran\u00e7ois Dumartheray a new paper as the voice of the Francophone libertarian movement: Le Revolt\u00e9<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Launched on 22 February 1879, it was an immediate success, selling in a few days all two thousand copies (compared to a maximum of six hundred copies per issue for previous papers). This undoubtedly reflected it being \u201cmoderate in tone, but revolutionary in substance, and I did my best to write it in such a style that complex historical and economic questions should be comprehensible to every intelligent worker.\u201d Kropotkin rejected the idea that a socialist paper should be \u201cmere annals of complaints about existing conditions,\u201d the \u201coppression of the workers,\u201d and describing a \u201csuccession of hopeless efforts\u201d to change these as this would produce \u201ca most depressing influence upon the reader\u201d which the \u201cburning words\u201d of the editor tries to counteract. Instead \u201ca revolutionary paper must be, above all, a record of those symptoms which everywhere announce the coming of a new era, the germination of new forms of social life, the growing revolt against antiquated forms of social life\u201d. Ultimately, it \u201cis hope, not despair, which makes successful revolutions.\u201d[4]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Le Revolt\u00e9<\/em> was \u201cdestined to be the most influential anarchist paper since the disappearance of Proudhon\u2019s Le Peuple<\/em> in 1850\u201d[5]<\/sup><\/a> and played a key role in developing and popularising communist anarchism. Yet it must be stressed that while its most famous and persuasive advocate, Kropotkin did not invent anarchist communism\u2014it had developed within the libertarian wing of International while he was in prison in Russia.[6]<\/a> The term was first used in print by Dumartheray in the 1876 pamphlet Aux travailleurs manuels partisans de l\u2019action politique<\/em> (To Manual Workers who Support Political Action<\/em>)\u2014although James Guillaume had in 1874 foreseen the possibility that eventually \u201ceveryone will draw what he needs from the abundant social reserve of commodities, without fear of depletion\u201d.[7]<\/a> The concept was swiftly championed by \u00c9lis\u00e9e Reclus and members of the Italian section of the International such as Errico Malatesta and Carlo Cafero.[8]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Indeed, Kropotkin\u2019s earliest articles in Le Revolt\u00e9<\/em> saw him use the term collectivism and it was only in 1880 that he fully embraced the term communism.[9]<\/a> He later recalled, that, \u201c[t]hus, without knowing that the Italians had done this already at their last congress, I worked for the Jura Federation to call itself communist<\/em> at its Congress of 1880 [on 9\u201310 October at La Chaux-de-Fonds]. Elis\u00e9e, Cafiero, and I got in touch over this; it was accepted, and from then onwards our paper, Le Revolt\u00e9<\/em>, became communist anarchist. From that moment onwards dated the successes of anarchism in France.\u201d[10]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kropotkin rose to international note as a result of the Lyon show trial of 1883. An increase of anarchist activity in the Lyon region, as well as the outbreak of a bitter labour dispute in the mining town of Montceau-les-Mines, saw the authorities seek to clamp down on the rebels. The miners\u2019 struggle was marked by a secret organisation calling itself the Black Gang (Bande Noir<\/em>) which threatened to attack the bosses and which, in August, blew up religious symbols such as roadside crosses. The trial of twenty-three alleged members of the gang started in October 1882 but only nine were found guilty in December. No link was found to the anarchist movement. Then, in Lyon, two more explosions took place on 22 and 23 October and gave the authorities an excuse to blame the anarchists. Kropotkin summarised the situation:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

Montceau and all neighbouring regions are under siege. And the Chagots, scoundrels of every description . . . walk with their heads held high, refusing work to those who displease them, arresting those they fear, treating the workers as conquered slaves. In all the major industrial centres, and especially in the mining basins, the troops are massed, ready to fire if the people move. Everywhere the bourgeoisie is preparing to order new arrests. The pretext? It is as simple as it is convenient. It is the affiliation to the International Workers\u2019 Association. Affiliated or not, as long as you are a socialist and a man of action\u2014that suffices for you to be dragged to prison. . . . And then, it is so convenient. No Jury, therefore no possible acquittal . . .<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As long as the socialist agitation was confined to theories, words, phrases\u2014as long as it was not acted upon<\/em>, as they say themselves, they let it go. But, as soon as they realised that the propaganda was being acted upon<\/em>, that it led to the constitution of a party which has vowed hatred on the capitalist and which is organised to fight hand to hand with the one who derives the worker of the fruits of his labour; as soon as acts proved that for this party socialism is not an electoral manoeuvre, but a conviction\u2014oh, then, they started the hunt for men of action, and if they are allowed to do so, they do not will not be stopped by the numbers: they will send thousands of men to prison, they will guillotine, they will shoot if they find it useful for the maintenance of their domination . . .<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But, if the French workers accept the challenge, if in all the big cities of France they rise as one man to vigorously protest by speech, by writings, by demonstrations, by actions, against the vile methods of their exploiters\u2014the bourgeoisie will be forced to retreat, to declare themselves defeated.[11]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

This did not happen and soon fifty-one anarchists, including Kropotkin, were arrested (fourteen escaped arrest). That this was no more than an attempt to repress a growing anarchist influence can be seen from the lack of evidence against the accused (even with the involvement of agent provocateurs) and the charges brought against them:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

[T]here was no possibility of prosecuting the arrested anarchists for the explosions. It would have required bringing us before a jury, which in all probability would have acquitted us. Consequently, the government adopted the Machiavellian course of prosecuting us for having belonged to the International Workingmen\u2019s Association. There is in France a law, passed immediately after the fall of the [Paris] Commune, under which men can be brought before a simple police court for having belonged to that association. The maximum penalty is five years\u2019 imprisonment; and a police court is always sure to pronounce the sentences which are wanted by the government. . . . Not a word was said about the explosions; and when one or two of the Lyons comrades wanted to clear this point, they were bluntly told that they were not prosecuted for that but for having belonged to the International\u2014to which I alone belonged.[12]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

The trial took place between 8 and 19 January 1883 and was used very effectively by the defendants to propagate anarchist ideas. Unsurprisingly, the Police Correctional Court found them guilty and they were given a range of sentences, with Kropotkin receiving five years in prison along with a two thousand franc fine as well as ten years of surveillance and deprivation of civil rights for four years after release. The trial was reported internationally and Le Revolt\u00e9<\/em> dedicated a double issue to the trial on 20 January 1883 which included defendant testimony and their declaration on anarchism (drafted by Kropotkin). A pamphlet Compte-rendu du proc\u00e8s de Lyon<\/em> was immediately issued, and a more detailed account appeared later in the year in the form of a book by John Grave entitled Le Proc\u00e8s des anarchistes devant la police correctionnelle et la Cour d\u2019Appel de Lyon<\/em>.[13]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Words of a Rebel<\/em> was published in 1885 by Reclus, while Kropotkin was in prison, a few months before domestic and international pressure resulted in the four remaining imprisoned defendants\u2014along with anarchists Louise Michel and \u00c9mile Pouget who had been arrested for other reasons[14]<\/a>\u2014being released in January 1886. Once released, Kropotkin wrote about his experience in the article \u201cIn French Prisons\u201d for The Nineteenth Century<\/em> (March 1886)[15]<\/a> and then took up the invite to help work on an anarchist journal in London, co-founding Freedom<\/em> in October 1886. In stark contrast to the tiny meetings Kropotkin had attended in 1887, on the eve of his leaving France for London he gave a talk in Paris to thousands on 28 February 1886.[16]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Le Revolt\u00e9<\/em> continued publication first with Herzig as editor and then Jean Grave but in September 1887 \u201c[o]ur \u2018boy,\u2019 Le Revolt\u00e9<\/em>, prosecuted for anti-militarist propaganda, was compelled to change its title-page and now appeared under a feminine name,\u201d La R\u00e9volte<\/em> (Revolt<\/em>).[17]<\/a> It, too, was closed by the State in March 1894 after Grave was arrested as part of the repressions associated with the \u201cTrial of the Thirty.\u201d After the jury acquitted the accused anarchists, Grave sought to re-launch La R\u00e9volte <\/em>but Elis\u00e9e Reclus persuaded him to call the proposed paper Les Temps Nouveaux<\/em> (New Times<\/em>).<\/em> This journal ran from 4 May 1895 to 8 August 1914. In his Memoirs<\/em> Kropotkin stressed the continuity of all three papers by writing how Le R\u00e9volt\u00e9 <\/em>\u201ccontinues, at Paris, under the name of [Les<\/em>] Temps Nouveaux<\/em>.\u201d[18]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Continuity and Change in Anarchist Communism<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Words of a Rebel<\/em> was \u201cthe critical part\u201d of Kropotkin\u2019s \u201cwork on anarchism\u201d which he had \u201cto interrupt\u201d when he was arrested. On his release in 1886, he \u201cbegan to work out the constructive part of an anarchist-communist society\u2014so far as it can now be forecast\u2014in a series of articles\u201d which were later revised and incorporated into The Conquest of Bread<\/em> in 1892.[19]<\/sup><\/a> As such, La R\u00e9volte<\/em>\u2019s main legacy was Words of a Rebel<\/em> which laid the foundations for Kropotkin\u2019s later work and presented\u2014at least to French readers as an English-language translation of the 1885 edition did not appear until 1992 although a number of chapters were published as pamphlets\u2014a summation of what anarchists thought was wrong about the current system and the wrong ways (Parliamentarianism and Revolutionary Government) of ending it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reading Words of a Rebel<\/em> shows the continuity in Kropotkin\u2019s ideas and how many of its themes were explored and built upon in later work. Thus his critique of capitalism and the State is joined with discussions of ethics, the lessons of the French Revolution and the Paris Commune, as well as the rise of the State on the ruins of the Medieval Commune\u2014all subjects discussed throughout his political career and included in his final book, Modern Science and Anarchy,<\/em> published in 1913. Indeed, that work has a chapter entitled \u201cThe Means of Action\u201d which repeats the same arguments and vision of the revolutionary process postulated in \u201cThe Spirit of Revolt.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This does not mean that there were no changes, far from it. The major change between Words of a Rebel<\/em> and subsequent works by Kropotkin is that in the early 1880s he underestimated the stocks of food, products, and raw materials held in storage under capitalism which would immediately be available for use during a revolutionary situation. As he recounts in the Afterword written for the 1919 Russian edition, he only studied this issue in 1891;[20]<\/a> yet this did not undermine his arguments for he also argued in Words of a Rebel<\/em> that workers had to restart production under their own management as an essential part of a successful social revolution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thus we find Kropotkin noting that during the great railway strike in America of 1877 that it showed both the power of a general strike and the need to turn it as soon as possible into a general expropriation in order to restart<\/em> production and distribution under workers\u2019 control:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

So, when these days come\u2014and it is for you to hasten their coming\u2014in which a whole region and great cities with their suburbs will have got rid of their governments, our work is marked out; all industrial and other plants must be returned to the community, social property held by individuals must be returned to its true master\u2014which is all of us, so that each can have his full share of the goods available for consumption, so that production of all that is necessary and useful can continue, and that social life, far from being interrupted, can be carried on with the greatest energy. Without the gardens and fields that give us produce indispensable for life, without the granaries, the warehouses, the shops that gather together the products of work, without the factories and workshops that provide textiles and metalwork, without the means of defence, without the railways and other ways of communication that allow us to exchange our products with the neighbouring free communes and combine our efforts for resistance and attack, we are condemned in advance to perish.[21]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

He also noted that public support was lost when the strike disrupted the supply of essential goods and so stressed that a general strike was only the start of the revolution, for, as well as supplies, there was the pressing need for \u201cmeans of defence\u201d and to \u201ccombine our efforts for resistance and attack.\u201d Which, incidentally, belies Marxist claims\u2014repeating Marx and Lenin as if they were disinterested seekers after truth rather than polemicists seeking to win by any means\u2014that anarchists do not recognise the threat of counter-revolution. Rather than build a new State (with all the flaws inherent in centralised, hierarchical, top-down structures) anarchists \u201cfind new forms of organisation for the social functions that the State apportioned between its functionaries\u201d based on \u201cindependent communes for the territorial<\/em> groupings, and vast federations of trade unions for groupings by social functions<\/em>,\u201d both \u201cinterwoven and providing support to each [other] to meet the needs of society,\u201d including \u201cmutual protection against aggression, mutual aid, territorial defence.\u201d[22]<\/a> Unsurprisingly, Kropotkin stressed the need to go beyond the general strike into insurrection in his analysis of the lessons of the 1905 Russian Revolution.[23]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This means that we must be careful to differentiate between anarchist communism as a means and as a goal. The latter is the free, classless society which has moved beyond the legacies of class society (what is sometimes misleadingly termed a \u201cutopia\u201d). The former is how this is achieved, namely by the expropriation and socialisation of private property and the destruction of the State by means of communal and workplace federations as well as the defence of a free people against those seeking to re-enslave them. Both are related but distinct, for while the future society of our dreams guides how we achieve it, anarchists are well aware that this would take years to fully create: The legacies of thousands of years of class and statist systems cannot be removed in the space of a few hours, days, or even years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thus, \u201cthe sole fact of having laid hands on middle-class property implies the necessity of completely reorganising the whole of economic life in workshops, in dockyards, and in factories.\u201d[24]<\/a> The structure of industry, for example, reflects the decisions of the capitalist class to secure and maximise its profits and power, and while a revolution would inherit this and have to set it going under workers\u2019 control, this is not all it will do\u2014a free people would seek to transform this heritage of wage slavery from the start. Initially, this would be transforming working conditions and processes to make them fit for people rather than profit, but it will not stop there. In other words, expropriation is the start<\/em> not the end of the social revolution, it is \u201cthe beginning of social reorganisation.\u201d[25]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Words of a Rebel<\/em> may, at times, express the enthusiasm\u2014and often impatience\u2014of those who first embrace an idea, but alongside are more realistic perspectives which come to the fore in Kropotkin\u2019s later, more mature, works. So there is an occasional rhetorical flourish which, taken in isolation, could suggest that Kropotkin saw anarchist communism being introduced immediately after a revolution. However, looking at his writings as a whole\u2014and this includes Words of a Rebel<\/em> as a whole\u2014these few comments are not representative of his views.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thus, in 1879, he was well aware that \u201cthe revolution [had] to last several years\u201d to \u201cbear its fruits\u201d and that \u201cit is necessary that the revolutionary period should last several years, so that the propagation of new ideas is not confined solely to the great intellectual centres but penetrates to the most isolated hamlets.\u201d[26]<\/a> This is echoed in Words of a Rebel<\/em>: \u201cIt is a whole insurrectionary period of three, four, perhaps five years that we must traverse to accomplish our revolution in the property system and in social organisation.\u201d[27]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The notion of an overnight revolution is one alien to anarchism: \u201cNo fallacy more harmful has ever been spread than the fallacy of a \u2018one-day revolution.\u2019\u201d For Kropotkin such a perspective was only applicable for a political revolution and not for the social revolution envisioned by anarchists, as \u201cwe do not believe that in any one country the Revolution will be accomplished at a stroke, in the twinkling of an eye, as some socialists dream.\u201d[28]<\/a> This was for very obvious reasons:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

It is evident, as Proudhon has already pointed out, that the smallest attack upon property will bring in its train the complete disorganisation of the system based upon private enterprise and wage labour. Society itself will be forced to take production in hand, in its entirety, and to reorganise it to meet the needs of the whole people. But this cannot be accomplished in a day or a month; it must take a certain time thus to reorganise the system of production, and during this time millions of men will be deprived of the means of subsistence. . . . There is only one really practical<\/em> solution of the problem\u2014boldly to face the great task which awaits us, and instead of trying to patch up a situation which we ourselves have made untenable, to proceed to reorganise production on a new basis.[29]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Kropotkin, then, was an anarchist not because he saw the social revolution as easy, but precisely because he recognised how difficult it would be. As he indicated in Words of a Rebel<\/em>\u2014in \u201cRevolutionary Government\u201d and the 1919 Afterward written while the Bolshevik regime was confirming his analysis\u2014concentrating power into the hands of a few in a State would never solve the challenges and difficulties a revolution would face\u2014but it would create a new class system centred around the bureaucracy it would inevitably spawn.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, as in 1885, the preconditions for creating such a society\u2014namely, the expropriation of the means of life\u2014has to be started as soon as possible by the people themselves so that a revolution becomes a social revolution which, in turn, would eventually produce full libertarian communism: \u201cAs regards the substance of anarchism itself, it was [my] aim to prove that communism\u2014at least partial\u2014has more chances of being established than collectivism, especially in communes taking the lead, and that free, or anarchist-communism is the only form of communism that has any chance of being accepted in civilised societies.\u201d[30]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

So \u201cwe know that an uprising<\/em> may well topple and change a government in one day, whereas a revolution<\/em>, if it is to achieve a tangible outcome\u2015a serious, lasting change in the distribution of economic forces\u2015takes three or four years of revolutionary upheaval\u201d <\/em>and \u201cwere we to wait for the Revolution to display an openly communist or indeed collectivist character right from its initial insurrections, that would be tantamount to throwing the idea of Revolution overboard once and for all. For that to be a possibility, it would require that a large majority be already in agreement upon effecting a communist change, which is generally not the case, since it is primarily the turns taken by a revolution that can draw the masses over to communism.\u201d[31]<\/a> Hence Kropotkin\u2019s comments from 1913 when he suggested that \u201cthe political <\/em>form of the next revolution\u201d would be \u201cTHE COMMUNE\u2014free, independent and, very probably, communist.<\/em>\u201d[32]<\/a> Whether it was or not\u2014and how extensive the application of communist principles in every aspect of society\u2014was recognised as being dependent on numerous factors, not least the material conditions and the popular consciousness.[33]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This can be seen in Words of a Rebel<\/em> in which the general vision of revolution presented\u2014drawing upon the experience of the Great French Revolution\u2014 goes through stages. Initially, conditions are such that most people accept the current regime as inevitable, even just, and there are a few critics and struggles against it. However, over time more and more people start to oppose aspects of the system. This provokes individual acts and a few minor revolts, but these fan the flames of discontent, get more and more people to question more and more aspects of what they formerly took for granted. These rebellions grow in number and size as revolutionaries encourage the spirit of revolt until such time as a crisis comes and the State machine is effectively paralysed by mass disobedience. This stage was expected to last years, and during it the new social organisation created by the struggle, would spread and establish itself as the masses start to expropriate property and seize more and more functions monopolised by the State. Then a revolution takes place and ends both, allowing a free people to create a new society without the shackles of hierarchy holding them back, and transform the legacy left it by class society into one suitable for human beings to thrive in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thus, for Kropotkin, revolution was not an event\u2014albeit one undoubtedly marked by specific events such as general strikes and uprisings\u2014but a process. In a sense, then, the transition period started at that time, and so the \u201cgreat mass of workers will not only have to constitute itself outside the bourgeoisie, but it will have to take action of its own during the period which will precede the revolution,\u201d and \u201cthis sort of action can only be carried out when a strong workers\u2019 organisation<\/em> exists.\u201d[34]<\/a> This also explains the importance of local revolts in Kropotkin\u2019s theory of revolution and within the context of the socialist movement of the time which, in its Marxist form, urged restraint and discipline at all times and so disparaged local actions\u2014revolts, of course, but also at times strikes. For Kropotkin, such a position completely ignored the lessons of previous revolutions and so ensured that no future revolution would ever take place. In this he was completely right\u2014no revolution has ever occurred without local strikes and revolts which to engulf the regime (and the hostility and opposition of the \u201cprofessional\u201d revolutionaries who then struggle to catch up with the popular movement they had dismissed and discouraged).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All told, Kropotkin\u2019s ideas remained remarkably consistent during his time within the anarchist movement: in favour of organised anarchist participation within the labour and other popular movements, with the aim to paralyse the State in order to secure a general expropriation and placing economic and social power into the hands of the working masses.[35]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

From Here to There: Resistance Is Fertile<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Words of a Rebel<\/em> lays out a systematic critique of capitalist society along with lessons from previous revolts. If it has a significant lack, it is that it does not explicitly address what had to be done to facilitate the arrival of the social revolution\u2014a complaint which also applies to The Conquest of Bread<\/em>. As such it fails to discuss anarchist involvement in the labour movement and at best it is mentioned in passing.[36]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This edition seeks to rectify this omission by including relevant articles from Le R\u00e9volt\u00e9<\/em> by Kropotkin which address anarchist participation in the labour movement.[37]<\/a> However, it is wise to discuss this matter here as it is critical to understanding Kropotkin\u2019s ideas and debunking the all too common notion that he was an idealist with no notion of how to get to the society of his hopes, or that he\u2014indeed, anarchists in general\u2014advocated \u201cpropaganda by the deed\u201d (i.e. individual acts of terrorism such as assassinations and bombings) as the means.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kropotkin\u2019s most general\u2014most visionary, if you like\u2014writings were turned into pamphlets and included in books and later anthologies while those focused on tactics and the day-to-day struggles remained in the pages of newspapers, gathering dust in the archives. However, without these articles there is a significant gap in our understanding of his politics which corresponds to the gap between criticism of the current system and its revolutionary transformation. Sadly, this gap has all too often been filled by those whose grasp of anarchism is weak or simply reflects their prejudices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Indeed, ignorance of these articles and lacking an awareness of how the notion of \u201cpropaganda by the deed\u201d changed over time, making it far easier to accept the myth of Kropotkin (and anarchists in general) advocating terrorism as means of achieving anarchy. This is particularly important given how often it is repeated by opponents of anarchism, particularly Marxists, as a truism which apparently requires no research to assert. Indeed, Marxists rarely discuss anarchism; rather they discuss their assumptions about anarchism\u2014as gleaned, at best, from reading what Marx, Engels, and Lenin have asserted about it. Thus, for example, Trotskyist Tariq Ali[38]<\/a> uncritically repeats an account of a meeting in 1919 between Lenin and Kropotkin in which the former lectured the latter on the need to reject individual terrorism in favour of working within the masses\u2014both Lenin and Ali seem blissfully unaware that what they consider to be the \u201cMarxist\u201d position was in fact the anarchist<\/em> one raised by Bakunin in the International and which Kropotkin had been arguing for while Lenin was still at primary school.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Terrain of the Direct Struggle against Capital<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

As Kropotkin later recounted in Freedom<\/em>, \u201c[r]evolutionary Anarchist Communist propaganda within the Labour Unions had always been a favourite mode of action in the Federalist or \u2018Bakunist\u2019 section of the International Working Men\u2019s Association,\u201d and Le R\u00e9volt\u00e9 <\/em>followed this tradition as did the other newspapers he was associated with.[39]<\/a> This was expressed in Kropotkin\u2019s first major theoretical contribution in exile which saw him argue that \u201cthe best method of shaking this edifice [of the State] would be to stir up the economic struggle\u201d while also taking \u201cadvantage of every favourable opportunity to point out the incapacity, hypocrisy and class egoism of present governments.\u201d[40]<\/a> Subsequent articles built on this:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

We have to organise the workers\u2019 forces\u2014not to make them a fourth party in Parliament but to make them a formidable ENGINE OF STRUGGLE AGAINST CAPITAL. We have to group workers of all trades with this single purpose: \u201cwar on capitalist exploitation!\u201d And we must prosecute this war relentlessly, every day, by the strike, by agitation, by every revolutionary means<\/em> . . . once the workers of every land have seen this organisation at work, taking in its hands the defence of the workers\u2019 interests, waging an unrelenting war on capital . . . once the workers from all trades, from villages and towns alike, are united into a single union. . . . Then, but only then, will [they] emerge victorious, having crushed the tyranny of capital and State for good.[41]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Unlike parliamentarianism, this direct struggle against capital and State had a radicalising effect:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

[H]owever moderate the battle-cry may be\u2014provided that it is in the domain of the relations between capital and labour\u2014as soon as it is put into practice by revolutionary means, it will eventually deepen and inevitably lead to demanding the overthrow of the regime of property. Whereas a party which confines itself within parliamentary politics ends up abandoning its programme, however advanced it was in the beginning: it ends up merged with the parties of bourgeois opportunism.[42]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

As an alternative, he pointed to the Spanish anarchists as remaining \u201c[f]aithful to the anarchist traditions of the International, clever, active, energetic men are not about to set up a group to pursue their <\/em>petty ends: they remain within the working class, they struggle with it, for it. They bring the contribution of their energy to the workers\u2019 organisation and work to build up a force that will crush capital, come the day of revolution: the revolutionary trades association.\u201d[43]<\/a> Only this could create the potential for a revolution:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

The enemy on whom we declare war being capital, it is against it that we will direct all our efforts, without letting ourselves be distracted from our goal by the phony agitation of political parties. The great struggle we are preparing for being an essentially economic<\/em> struggle, it is on the economic terrain that our agitation must take place. . . . To be able to make the revolution, the mass of workers must be organised, and resistance and the strike are excellent means for organising workers. They have an immense advantage over those advocated at present (worker candidates, forming a workers\u2019 political party, etc.), namely not diverting the movement, but keeping it in constant struggle with the principal enemy, the capitalist. . . . It is a question of organising in every town resistance societies for all trades, to create resistance funds and to fight against the exploiters, to unify the workers\u2019 organisations of each town and trade and to put them in contact with those of other towns, to federate them across France, to federate them across borders, internationally. . . . It was by organising resistance against the boss that the International managed to group more than two million workers and to build up that force before which the bourgeoisie and governments trembled.[44]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

As well as including articles on current developments and the future of the labour and socialist movements, every issue Le R\u00e9volt\u00e9<\/em> had a column entitled Mouvement Social<\/em> which reported on the labour movement across the world, discussing the strikes, protests, and revolts which it saw as the means of creating a revolutionary situation and evidence that its position was no idle dream. Along with the articles on the labour movement, these are missing from Kropotkin\u2019s books and pamphlets, and so important context is lost. In addition, like other anarchists, Kropotkin supplemented his written propaganda with speeches at workers\u2019 organisations and events (he continued to do this in Britain when his ill health did not stop him). Unsurprisingly, then, Le R\u00e9volt\u00e9<\/em> reported a talk given by Kropotkin to the Geneva Carpenters Union on 1 December 1880:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

The speaker, comrade Kropotkin, made an overview of the economic situation in Europe and . . . showed . . . the terrible situation of the workers, and he contrasted these figures to the fabulous incomes and the scandalous spending of the holders of the capital. Large-scale industry, far from improving the lot of the masses, has only made it harder, and this situation will last as long as the worker does not render himself master of the workshops and factories.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

\n

The speaker ends with a call for the organisation of the workers\u2019 forces, for the struggle against capital and for the study of social questions. If the bourgeoisie continues, as it does today, to obstruct the workers\u2019 groups by persecuting the active members of the groups, then the workers will be forced to resort to the secret organisations. But in any case, the workers\u2019 forces must be organised in anticipation of the political and economic revolutions that will certainly break out in a few years in Europe.[45]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Thus, like Bakunin, Kropotkin advocated what would later be called syndicalism and rejected the idea that socialists should take part in elections to further the socialist cause or as the means to introduce socialism. This would only push the workers into a dead-end for it meant \u201cabandon[ing] the terrain of the economic struggle, of the worker against the capitalist, in order to become a docile tool in the hands of the politicians.\u201d[46]<\/a> As the subsequent evolution of Marxist parties across the world showed, this was a prescient analysis which he reiterated in numerous articles, pamphlets, and books. Needless to say, he warmly welcomed the rise of revolutionary syndicalism\u2014albeit with a few reservations.[47]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Role of Revolutionary Minorities<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

So, in terms of tactics, communist anarchism initially saw no major change from collectivism and it advocated the \u201cBakuninist\u201d tactics of labour struggle and insurrection. This, however, did not mean that there was no need for anarchist federations and propaganda (meetings, leaflets, journals, pamphlets, books) both within and outwith the labour movement to spread libertarian ideas and keep mass movements from pursuing tactics which would inevitably turn them reformist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The collectivists recognised that there was a pressing need for revolutionaries to organise in order to influence the class struggle and workers\u2019 unions towards libertarian tactics and structures. Such was the Alliance of Socialist Democracy, an anarchist organisation Bakunin helped create in 1868 and whose (former) members played a key role in the development of the International in Switzerland, Italy, France, and above all Spain. Kropotkin embraced this perspective on the need for both a militant labour movement and a grouping of revolutionaries to influence it:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

My opinion is absolutely that which was expressed by Malatesta. . . . The syndicate is absolutely necessary. It is the only form of worker\u2019s association which allows the direct struggle against capital to be carried on without a plunge into parliamentarianism. But, evidently, it does not achieve this goal automatically, since in Germany, in France and in England, we have the example of syndicates linked to the parliamentary struggle, while in Germany the Catholic syndicates are very powerful, and so on. There is need of the other element which Malatesta speaks of and which Bakunin always professed<\/em>.[48]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

As can be seen from Words of a Rebel<\/em>, Kropotkin regularly uses the term \u201cparty,\u201d a word anarchists later tended to avoid. However, he used the word in a wide sense to mean an organisation of those with similar ideas. Part of the conflict within the French socialist movement when he was writing was over whether, as urged by Marxists and others, to convert the existing socialist movement into an organisation which stood in elections (i.e., a party in the usual sense of the word). Kropotkin rejected this in favour of encouraging mass struggle\u2014particularly, but not exclusively, on the economic terrain\u2014along with the need for anarchists to work within popular movements in an organised fashion. As he suggested in his report on the 1877 railway strikes in America, t<\/strong>his was essential for a successful revolutionary movement:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

That it was not successful was to be expected. It is not by a single insurrection that the people will be able to overcome today\u2019s society . . . They act wonderfully but they do not set a marker for the future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why?\u2014Because let us note it well\u2014the American trades organisations . . . do not express all the aspirations of the people<\/em>. Confining themselves to the exclusive domain of wage questions, they are no longer the representatives of the main aspiration which is already penetrating the mass of the people, the aspiration for the fundamental reorganisation of society through social revolution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the other hand, we wonder what role the American Workingmen\u2019s Party has played in this movement . . . which, while propagating socialist ideas<\/em>, neglects their application and persists in eliciting in America, despite the general disgust of the people<\/em> for politics, a parliamentary movement? On the eve of the movement it spoke, as usual, of elections, of action on the legal terrain\u2014when a spark had already lit a revolutionary fire! Of elections when it was a question of organising the insurrection that was already roaring around them!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hence\u2014on the one hand, the organisation for revolutionary action without<\/em> broadly posing the principles of socialism; on the other\u2014the principle, but without revolutionary action<\/em> and with an organisation made to stop every affirmation of the revolutionary act: such are the causes which have prevented the American movement bearing all the fruits which it could have done, if the American workers\u2019 organisation had been a synthesis of the two present organisations: the principle with<\/em> the organisation necessary for achieving as much of it as possible, whenever the opportunity presents itself.[49]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

The need, then, was a \u201cparty\u201d which worked within the labour movement to infuse it with socialist aims and tactics. One without the other would never produce a social revolution particularly if that party was organised for electoral activity:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

In Chicago, communists of the democratic-socialist school tried to propagate their principles\u2014by words, when now it required to realise them in actions. Here is proof of what we have always reiterated, that everything that is organised on the terrain of legal agitation becomes a useless weapon, finds itself disorientated, the day when tired of waiting the people rises.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Suppose that, on the contrary, that we had had the good fortune to have anarchist sections of the International Workers\u2019 Association in America, in the places which had seen the momentarily triumphant of the popular insurrection? What would have happened? This: the people master of capital, factories, workshops, would have organised work for their own benefit; as master of the palaces, bourgeois houses, they would have installed the families of workers in them; they would have created, in a word, a \u2018Commune\u2019 as we understand it, and if they had suffered defeat, there would at least remain an immensely resounding act of propaganda for socialism.[50]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

The role of revolutionary minorities was clear\u2014to work within the mass movements of the working class to encourage struggle outside parliament in order to create the consciousness and power to overthrow capitalism and its State.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Spirit of Revolt against Propaganda by the Deed<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

The period of the early 1880s still influences some accounts about anarchism, particularly most Marxist diatribes about it. This narrative is simple and suggests that it was only after the failure of \u201cpropaganda by the deed\u201d (acts of individual terrorism) by the early 1890s that anarchists turned towards working within the labour movement. This narrative is reflected in George Woodcock\u2019s influential history of anarchism:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

The period from 1881 to 1894 had been a time of isolation, when the [French] anarchists wandered in a wilderness of marginal social groups and sought the way to a millennium in desperate acts on the one hand and idyllic visions on the other. The period from 1894 to 1914 saw a fruitful equilibrium between the visionary and the practical. . . . Anarcho-syndicalism . . . showed anarchism seeking constructive solutions.[51]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

The rise of syndicalism is often portrayed (usually by Marxists) as being inconsistent, or fundamentally incompatible, with anarchism, as individual acts are asserted to be the quintessential anarchist tactic.[52]<\/a> Yet even Woodcock had to admit that \u201cVarlin and the French Bakuninists had also recognised before the Paris Commune the role of the trade unions in the social struggle, and the general strike had been supported by the non-Marxist collectivists within the International.\u201d[53]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The question arises, though, of the relation of Kropotkin to the rhetoric of this period\u2014a rhetoric sometimes encouraged by the police themselves. Thus, for example, a certain Serreaux was a Belgian agent provocateur within the French anarchist movement who, between September 1880 and September 1881, edited the Paris-based weekly journal La R\u00e9volution Sociale,<\/em> which was financed by the Paris prefect of police (who also wrote articles for it). Unsurprisingly, it advocated extreme violence and although many anarchists, including Kropotkin, were suspicious of Serreaux and his paper, a few well-known anarchists did write for it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As Words of a Rebel<\/em> shows, Kropotkin eschewed the rhetoric and tactics associated with \u201cpropaganda by the deed.\u201d Yet we should remember that this term was originally associated with organising mass acts of revolt, with the Paris Commune initially used as an example (as it was argued that it had made the idea of communal federalism far better known than all of Proudhon\u2019s books on the subject). The best-known example of this initial version of the concept is the Benevento Uprising of April 1877 which saw around thirty armed Internationalists, including Malatesta and Cafiero, roam the Italian countryside unsuccessfully trying to inspire the peasants to join them in insurrection. When eventually brought to trial, the defendants used the opportunity to spread their ideas before being found not guilty by the jury.[54]<\/a> Under the influence of Paul Brousse, the concept became wider and eventually embraced every and all kinds of activity\u2014including acts of individual violence (assassinations or bombings).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While almost every political theory\u2014including Marxism, republicanism, and nationalism\u2014has seen its adherents commit such acts, anarchism has habitually been linked by its opponents with terrorism.[55]<\/a> For Marxists, this is for an obvious reason\u2014to discredit a rival and more appealing socialist theory\u2014and opponents of anarchism, whether Marxist or Liberal, follow Marx and Engels in attributing authorship of works written by Russian populist-Jacobin Sergey Nechayev to Bakunin, particularly the former\u2019s infamous Catechism of a Revolutionary<\/em>.[56]<\/a> In reality, terrorism was never advocated by Bakunin, and in a letter to Nechayev he refers to \u201cyour catechism\u201d while denouncing its amoral, Machiavellian, and Jesuitical notions. Moreover, Bakunin rejected the logic which underlay \u201cpropaganda by the deed\u201d by arguing that it was \u201cimpossible to arouse the people artificially. People\u2019s revolutions are born from the course of events\u201d and \u201ccannot be artificially induced.\u201d[57]<\/a> These and other awkward facts will, undoubtedly, not stop Bakunin being held responsible for a series of assassinations and bombings which started years after his death while his syndicalism goes unmentioned.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Similarly, Kropotkin has often been presented as an early advocate of \u201cpropaganda by the deed.\u201d Daniel Gu\u00e9rin, for example, mistakenly attributes \u201cL\u2019Action\u201d (Le R\u00e9volt\u00e9<\/em>, 25 December 1880) to Kropotkin before stating he \u201cdeserves credit for being one of the first to confess his errors and to recognise the sterility\u201d of individual action and \u201cproposed a return to mass trade unionism like . . . the First International.\u201d[58]<\/a> Carlo Cafiero, however, wrote this article, while Kropotkin, at this time, \u201cwas anxious to revive the International as an organisation for aggressive strike action to counteract the influence of parliamentary socialists on the labour movement.\u201d Indeed, Kropotkin was indignant when, in 1909, a Swiss-Italian anarchist paper (II Risveglio-Le R\u00e9veil<\/em>) republished Paul Brousse\u2019s article on propaganda by deed under his name: he wrote two letters to the editor denying he had anything to do with it.[59]<\/a> As he later recounted: \u201cI have always been against . . . this idea of propaganda by deed<\/em> . . . which I have always found false.\u201d[60]<\/a> Indeed, the fact that Le R\u00e9volt\u00e9<\/em> existed at all showed that Kropotkin did not discount the impact of propaganda by the word which advocates of propaganda by the deed disparaged.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Significantly, Kropotkin never embraced the term, and in fact coined \u201cthe Spirit of Revolt\u201d as an alternative. This did not exclude violence acts. This is unsurprising as, being a realistic revolutionary, he was fully aware that the bourgeoisie would seek to maintain its position by any means possible. As such, any movement which sought to free humanity from the shackles of capital would need to use violence, as the organised violence of its State would be used against it. Likewise, any revolution would require defending by the people armed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The difference between \u201cpropaganda by the deed\u201d and the \u201cspirit of revolt\u201d does not rest in violence. Rather, it lies in their dynamics. The former sought to inspire revolt by the actions of a few heroic individuals outwith the social struggle. The latter aimed to encourage popular revolt from within the people, with any actions an expression of the social movement rather than seeking to create it. In short, the former is \u201cfrom above\u201d while the latter is \u201cfrom below\u201d\u2014perhaps unsurprisingly Brousse, the person most associated with \u201cpropaganda by the deed,\u201d soon ended up embracing another \u201cfrom above\u201d tactic, namely electoral socialism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thus, violent acts were not to be encouraged by extreme rhetoric but neither were they to be disowned or dismissed, for they were an inevitable expression of popular revolt and discontent: \u201cAll really popular revolutions started in the same way: with isolated acts, such as those of Florian and Fournier, and with partial uprisings, such as those of Montceau and Blanzy.\u201d[61]<\/a> However, the focus was to fan the flames of discontent from within the masses rather than inspiring them by acts made in their name:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

It is the mass of workers we have to seek to organise. We, the little revolutionary groups, have to submerge ourselves in the organisation of the people, be inspired by their hatreds, their aspirations, and help them to translate those aspirations and hatreds into actions. When the mass of workers is organised and we are with it to strengthen its revolutionary idea, to make the spirit of revolt against capital germinate there\u2014and the opportunities for that will not be wanting\u2014then we shall be entitled to hope that the next revolution will not be conjured away as the revolutions of the past have been: then it will be the social revolution.[62]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

As Kropotkin put in 1891, \u201cif the development of the revolutionary spirit gains immensely by the deeds of heroic individuals, it is no less true (whatever the historians say) that it is not by these heroic deeds that revolutions are made. . . . Revolution, above all, is a popular movement . . . an edifice founded on centuries of history cannot be destroyed with a few kilos of explosives.\u201d Moreover, given that few people wish to die such heroic deaths \u201cnevertheless all<\/em> can contribute, in accordance with their strength, to fuelling the agitation (as we have tried to make clear in The Spirit of Revolt<\/em>).\u201d[63]<\/a> He stressed to the Russian anarchists after the 1905 Revolution that the \u201cmain difference between us and the political parties on the question of terror is that we do not think that terror can be used as a means to change the existing order, but see it as a natural feeling of an angry conscience, or of self-defence.\u201d[64]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The notion of Kropotkin having, to quote George Woodcock, a \u201crepute as a \u2018gentle\u2019 anarchist\u201d[65]<\/a> is a product of the likes of Woodcock himself painting a picture of Kropotkin more suited to his<\/em> changing politics (from revolutionary anarchist activist in London during the Second World War to a respected academic in Canada) than an accurate account of Kropotkin\u2019s ideas. For while the fiery language of the Le R\u00e9volt\u00e9<\/em> period does tend to disappear\u2014particularly in his English-language writings\u2014the underlying ideas are the same. Likewise, because he considered isolated acts of anger or revenge as an inevitable aspect of a rising revolutionary situation, he did not condemn them and so he could not publicly clarify his position in response to specific events: \u201cThe problem is that he refused to denounce \u2018propaganda by deed\u2019; because of the fear that such a denunciation would be interpreted as a condemnation of acts which though genuine acts of revolt had been wrongly described<\/em> as \u2018propaganda by deed.\u2019\u201d[66]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Indeed, most such acts were driven purely by revenge for legally approved crimes by those in authority and not<\/em> considered by the individuals involved as propaganda or as an inspiration for a popular insurrection.[67]<\/a> Nor should we forget that the victims of \u201cpropaganda by the deed\u201d are tiny<\/em> compared to the victims of both State and capital. The few violent acts of anarchists pales in comparison to the systemic violence of capitalism\u2014whether the direct violence of repressing strikes, protests, and revolts or the indirect violence (harm) caused by the hierarchies and inequalities which the direct violence maintains. Yet the systemic violence of State and capital goes unmentioned but that of a few anarchists is remembered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This association of anarchism with \u201cpropaganda by the deed\u201d ignores both that it was a short period and the other tendencies within the movement which coincided with it as well as predated and survived it. Thus, for example, the syndicalism of the International Working People\u2019s Association is ignored, downplayed, or (at worse) suggested to be non-anarchist in spite of its very obvious similarities with Bakunin\u2019s and Kropotkin\u2019s ideas. So while this period\u2014the early 1880s\u2014is often represented as one marked by \u201cpropaganda by the deed\u201d by anarchists and is used by some to conflate communist anarchism with it, the reality is different. While certain parts of the anarchist movement indulged in ultra-radical and ultra-violent rhetoric, others\u2014with Kropotkin at their head\u2014were pointing to a different path, one whose success can be seen from the rise of revolutionary syndicalism beginning in the early 1890s and then spreading across the globe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ironically, by the time the most well-known acts of \u201cpropaganda by the deed\u201d occurred, the period of infatuation with it in certain libertarian circles had mostly passed in favour of working within unions and other mass movements. Leading anarchists, including Kropotkin and Malatesta, had yet again raised the need for anarchist activity within the labour movement, using the 1889 London dock strike as an example of its revolutionary potential.[68]<\/a> The focus was again on revolutionary minorities working amongst the masses to develop the spirit of revolt\u2014above all in the labour movement as Kropotkin had stressed all along.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Conclusions<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

As Words of a Rebel<\/em> shows, Kropotkin\u2019s ideas are still relevant for revolutionaries today. Capitalism still has the problems he highlights in its pages\u2014more, as the ecological crisis we face is not touched upon in this work. Likewise, the alternative that he sketches is still appealing and remains the only viable means of creating a society fit for humans to flourish and thrive in. Merely surviving under the shackles of capital and State is not only bad for us, it may end up destroying the Earth as an inhabitable planet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It may be objected that while the anarchist movement in Kropotkin\u2019s time was\u2014and remains\u2014small, the social-democratic parties were\u2014and are\u2014much larger in terms of membership and support. True, but these parties did not remain socialist and ended up simply seeking\u2014easily reversible\u2014changes to make capitalism nicer rather than seek its abolition. Kropotkin\u2019s predictions have been proven true. While it is far easier to organise a political party and urge people to vote once every few years than it is to organise a union and wage constant resistance to governmental and employer power, it does not mean that this is not the best\u2014indeed sole\u2014means of transforming society. More: \u201cTo tell the workers that they will be able to introduce the socialist system while retaining<\/em> the machine of the State <\/em>and only changing the men in power; to prevent, instead of aiding, the mind of the workers progressing towards the search for new forms of life <\/em>that would be their <\/em>own\u2014that is in our eyes a historic mistake which borders on the criminal.\u201d[69]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ultimately, Marxism has done more than any other ideology to secure capitalism, whether directly (by social democracy, by saving capitalism from itself) or indirectly (by Bolshevism, by creating something even worse). It is time for socialists to learn from history rather than repeat it. Here Kropotkin remains essential for his analysis of previous revolutions\u2014particularly the Paris Commune\u2014allowed him to sketch a viable strategy of a future social revolution. While supporting the initial revolution, anarchists would then encourage the creation of popular self-organisation in the community and workplace rather than seeking to focus the struggle onto electing a few leaders to act on behalf of the working class. In other words, workers had to build their own class<\/em> organisations to influence events towards socialist goals directly rather than waiting for representatives to act on their behalf from within bourgeois institutions\u2014or ostensibly new social institutions organised in a similar manner as in the Russian Revolution. As he put it in the early 1880s:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

We believe that, if the next revolution is not to be conjured away by the bourgeoisie, a decisive blow will have to be administered to private property: from the beginning, the workers will have to proceed to take over all social wealth so as to put it into common ownership. This revolution can only be carried out by the workers themselves: it can only be made when the workers of the towns and the peasants, in revolt against any government, in each locality, in each town, in each village, take over themselves<\/em> the wealth belonging to the exploiters, without waiting for this benefit to be granted by some government or other.[70]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

This means that works such as Words of a Rebel<\/em> should not allowed to gather dust in libraries. We can learn from it\u2014particularly as we have over a hundred years of extra experiences to draw upon\u2014and, as Kropotkin would have been the first to stress, it is to be built upon rather than idolised and regurgitated. As with Kropotkin in 1879, our task is to create a libertarian movement and theory fit for the times we live in. While his works can help us to this, this task is ours alone\u2014whether we do or not is in our hands.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Iain McKay<\/p>\n\n\n\n

www.anarchistfaq.org<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Further Reading<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

A great many of Kropotkin\u2019s works are available online. In terms of published works, George Woodcock edited Kropotkin\u2019s Collected Works<\/em> shortly before his death in 1995. In eleven volumes, it includes all his major writings as well as numerous important essays (although some are edited).[71]<\/a> This collection is by no means complete, missing the articles collated in Act for Yourselves!<\/em> (Freedom Press, 1988) for example. It is also missing a very large number of articles in French and Russian anarchist papers which have never been translated, as well as many in Freedom<\/em> and other English language papers which have never appeared in book form.[72]<\/a> Nor does it contain the expanded 1913 French edition of his final book published in his lifetime, La Science moderne et l\u2019anarchie<\/em>, but this is now available as Modern Science and Anarchy<\/em> (AK Press, 2018). Many other editions of his most famous works\u2014such as The Conquest of Bread<\/em> and Mutual Aid<\/em>\u2014are also available.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Direct Struggle against Capital: A Peter Kropotkin Anthology<\/em> (AK Press, 2014) contains the most comprehensive selection of his writings. It includes extracts from all but one of his books as well as numerous newspaper articles and pamphlets (some available in book form or in English for the first time). It also includes a lengthy introduction discussing all aspects of Kropotkin\u2019s ideas, as well as a biographical sketch. A shorter collection of his pamphlets is available in Anarchism: A Collection of Revolutionary Writings <\/em>(Dover, 2002). This was formerly published as Kropotkin\u2019s Revolutionary Pamphlets<\/em> and contains much of his best short work, although most are abridged without indication of the edits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many general anarchist anthologies include works by Kropotkin. However, special notice must be given to Daniel Gu\u00e9rin\u2019s essential No Gods, No Masters: An Anthology of Anarchism<\/em> (AK Press, 2005) which has a section on Kropotkin, and volume one of Robert Graham\u2019s Anarchism: A Documentary History of Libertarian Ideas<\/em> (Black Rose Books, 2005), which has numerous extracts from his works.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In terms of Kropotkin\u2019s life, the most obvious starting place must be his own autobiography, Memoirs of a Revolutionist<\/em>, first published in 1899, which recounts his time in the Jura Federation, the creation of Le R\u00e9volt\u00e9,<\/em> and the Lyon trial of 1883. Caroline Cahm\u2019s Kropotkin and the Rise of Revolutionary Anarchism, 1872\u20131886<\/em> (Cambridge University Press, 1989) is essential reading, as it covers the development of Kropotkin\u2019s communist anarchist ideas when the articles included in Words of a Rebel<\/em> were written and provides essential context for this period. Both these works cover only part of his eventful life, so for those interested in an overview there are three biographies available. The one by George Woodcock and Ivan Avakumovic (The Anarchist Prince: a biographical study of Peter Kropotkin<\/em>) has been republished as Kropotkin: From Prince to Rebel<\/em> (Black Rose Books, 1989) as a supplement to the Collected Works<\/em> project. As this dates from 1950, it should be supplemented by Martin A. Miller\u2019s biography Kropotkin<\/em> (University of Chicago Press, 1976). The anarchist-geographer: an introduction to the life of Peter Kropotkin <\/em>(Genge, 2007) by Brian Morris is also a useful, if short, work on this subject.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For good introductions to Kropotkin\u2019s ideas by anarchists, Evolution and Revolution: An Introduction to the Life and Thought of Peter Kropotkin<\/em> (Jura Books, 1996) by Graham Purchase and Kropotkin: The Politics of Community<\/em> (PM Press, 2018) by Brian Morris should be consulted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A Bibliographical Sketch<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Words of a Rebel<\/em> is mostly made up of articles published in Le R\u00e9volt\u00e9<\/em> between 1879 and 1882. A few chapters (notably \u201cRepresentative Government\u201d and \u201cExpropriation\u201d) had substantial material added for publication in book form, while many had already been published as pamphlets. Only one chapter (\u201cWar\u201d) did not appear in the pages of Le R\u00e9volt\u00e9<\/em>, being written as a pamphlet entitled La Guerre<\/em> (Geneva: Le R\u00e9volt\u00e9<\/em>, 1882). The book is somewhat inconsistent in informing its readers when the chapters were originally written\u2014some do indicate initial publication dates, most do not, and those that do are not consistent in terms of where in the chapter these dates are provided.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While Kropotkin\u2019s first anarchist book, ironically it was the last to be fully translated into English. An attempt by Nicolas Walter to publish it fell through in the 1970s and it was 1992 before an edition appeared. Translated by George Woodcock as part of Kropotkin\u2019s Collected Works<\/em> series, like the wider project it was incomplete\u2014limiting itself to the original 1885 edition and excluding the 1904 and 1919 prefaces and 1919 afterward. In addition, as Walters noted, it is \u201crather badly translated . . . the language is sometimes so crude as to become a sort of Frenglish\u201d and as well as the missing prefaces and afterword, \u201cit isn\u2019t actually quite complete; some short passages have been omitted from the original text, presumably by mistake, as well as a couple of long footnotes, presumably on purpose.\u201d[73]<\/a> This edition includes all missing material as part of a complete new translation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While it remained untranslated until 1992, various chapters had appeared in English as pamphlets or in libertarian journals and newspapers. We have drawn upon Bibliographie de l\u2019anarchie<\/em> (Brussels\/Paris: Temps Nouveaux\/Stock, 1897) by anarchist historian Max Nettlau (1865\u20131944), amongst other sources, to indicate when the various chapters first appeared in French and in English.[74]<\/a> This edition includes articles and speeches published during this period which were either identified as being by Kropotkin, written under a known alias (Levachoff), or have been subsequently identified as being written by him.[75]<\/a> We have also included a letter written on 30 June 1886 to Georges Herzig, who helped start Le R\u00e9volt\u00e9<\/em>, shortly before leaving for Britain, which was later published in Le R\u00e9veil communiste-anarchiste<\/em> (3 January 1925).[76]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The following articles have also been identified as by Kropotkin, and almost all have so far not been translated into English:<\/p>\n\n\n\n