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On ‘Anarchism: Its Philosophy and Ideal,’ an undelivered Speech by Peter Kropotkin
Adam J.R. Tallman
It is my impression that the common view in the West is that the outcome of the Russian Revolution was the concrete establishment of an inherently flawed ideology, called communism or Marxism, depending on the person. Besides being an extreme oversimplification and misinterpretation of Marxist thought, this view conveniently stifles any debate concerning any economic or political ideas which oppose what is considered its only logical alternative; called capitalism (or, euphemistically, “free enterprise,” for all you cheerleaders out there.)
I will not attempt to defend either of these ideas or to explain the complexity of varying and sometimes intersecting ways in which these two systems, or ideologies, have actually been put into practice. I am merely going to briefly discuss an undelivered speech by the Russian anarchist Peter Kropotkin, the general idea of which is one of many alternatives to the commonly contrasted systems of Western state capitalism and communism.
This speech was supposed to be given in March 1896 in Paris before Kropotkin was stopped from doing so by the French Government. He was promptly told that he was exiled and was sent to England.
It must first be noted that Kropotkin uses the word “communism” simply to refer to any co-operative system that involves individuals sharing resources equally with one another. Anarchism is a philosophy that is used to envision and then act for the eventual goal of communism.
He compares the development of the ideal of anarchism with the development of “the exact sciences.” Just as the subject matter of astrology has gone from focusing on the sun and the large planets to “the little swarms of matter, invisible, infinitely small when taken separately, but all powerful in their numbers,” so too, as Kropotkin believes, has the study of wealth and economy of nations shifted to the study of the individuals that drive the wealth and economy of those nations.
The next part of his speech is a common-sense criticism of society in which he challenges the fundamental premise of the legitimacy of state power; that people need the state to have liberty, which he views simply as a contradiction. He dismisses as a circular argument the view that society cannot function without a centralized and hierarchical base. The very human nature under question is, in reality, just a product of the oppressive society that has created it.
Kropotkin gives an example from his times: “It is so easy to hang a man — especially when there is an executioner who is paid so much for each execution — and it relieves us of thinking of the cause of the crimes.” The rest of his discussion gravitates towards the inevitability of the corruption of institutions formed by a statist political organization. He relies mainly on a vague reliance on the spontaneity of the masses and, from our society’s point of view, an ecstatically optimistic view of the common individual.
Despite this, I think the ideas he presents in his speech are extremely important to consider even in our times, though our laws are not as Draconian as they were a hundred years ago. Although execution is not legislated as commonly as it once was, there are evident parallels in our world today (Guantanamo Bay, for example).
The speech is meant less to be a grandiose explanation of an ideal society (developed in some of his other writings), but more an approach for criticizing our own. This invokes a feeling in the reader that the problem is not that the world cannot be changed for the better but rather that we are full of prejudices that make us think that it cannot change and therefore it does not.
One only needs to consider the effects of a society that demands submission to corporatism and whose main values are “success” defined in terms of economic stability that seems to cause such relentless anxiety for the common citizen planning for his or her future. A natural reaction for such a citizen to make is to dismiss Kropotkin’s ideas as “too beautiful, too lofty for a society not composed of superior beings.”
To this effect Kropotkin has an uncompromising response: “Far from living in a world of visions and imagining men better than they are, we see them as they are; and that is why we affirm that the best of men is made essentially bad by the exercise of authorities.”
After these two views have been juxtaposed, the decision of which side to choose might simply be seen as a matter of faith, another form of the nature/nurture debate, perhaps. Maybe the rat race is completely normal. And by extension, maybe the proposed injustices of globalization are really just part of the harsh realities of existence. Maybe some are just meant to be “jealous of our freedom.” But I encourage the reader to discover this for themselves. I think it only requires a little honesty, and perhaps, as Kropotkin puts it, you will “read the trials, glance behind the scenes, push your analysis further than the exterior façade of law courts, and you will come out sickened.”
