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    The State - Its Historic Role: With an Excerpt from Comrade Kropotkin by Victor Robinson
    The State - Its Historic Role: With an Excerpt from Comrade Kropotkin by Victor Robinson
    The State - Its Historic Role: With an Excerpt from Comrade Kropotkin by Victor Robinson
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    The State - Its Historic Role: With an Excerpt from Comrade Kropotkin by Victor Robinson

    By Peter Kropotkin and Victor Robinson

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    In “The State - Its Historic Role”, Kropotkin explores the concept of the State and how it has influenced society throughout history. A fascinating treatise by one of the most important Russian thinkers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Pyotr Alexeyevich Kropotkin (1842–1921) was a Russian writer, activist, revolutionary, economist, scientist, sociologist, essayist, historian, researcher, political scientist, geographer, geographer, biologist, philosopher and advocate of anarcho-communism. He was a prolific writer, producing a large number of pamphlets and articles, the most notable being “The Conquest of Bread and Fields, Factories and Workshops” and “Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution”. This classic work is being republished now in a new edition complete with an excerpt from “Comrade Kropotkin” by Victor Robinson.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRead & Co. Books
    Release dateMay 26, 2020
    ISBN9781528790192
    The State - Its Historic Role: With an Excerpt from Comrade Kropotkin by Victor Robinson
    Author

    Peter Kropotkin

    Peter Kropotkin (1842–1921) was the foremost theorist of the anarchist movement. Born a Russian Prince, he rejected his title to become a revolutionary, seeking a society based on freedom, equality, and solidarity. Imprisoned for his activism in Russia and France, his writings include The Conquest of Bread; Fields, Factories, and Workshops; Anarchism, Anarchist-Communism, and the State; Memoirs of a Revolutionist; and Modern Science and Anarchism. New editions of his classic works Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution; Words of a Rebel; and The Great French Revolution, 1789–1793 will be published by PM Press to commemorate his life and work on the centennial of his death.

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      Book preview

      The State - Its Historic Role - Peter Kropotkin

      1.png

      THE STATE

      ITS HISTORIC ROLE

      By

      PETER KROPOTKIN

      WITH AN EXCERPT FROM

      Comrade Kropotkin

      BY VICTOR ROBINSON

      First published in 1908

      This edition published by Read Books Ltd.

      Copyright © 2019 Read Books Ltd.

      This book is copyright and may not be

      reproduced or copied in any way without

      the express permission of the publisher in writing

      British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

      A catalogue record for this book is available

      from the British Library

      Contents

      In Later Life by Victor Robinson

      The Man (1842-1921)

      SECTION I

      SECTION II

      SECTION III

      SECTION IV

      SECTION V

      SECTION VI

      SECTION VII

      SECTION VIII

      SECTION IX

      SECTION X

      In Later Life

      by Victor Robinson

      "There are at this moment only two great Russians who think for the Russian people, and those thoughts belong

      to mankind, - Leo Tolstory and Peter Kropotkin"

      -

      Georg Brandes

      Such are some of the scenes in the life of Peter Kropotkin- imprisoned by governments, pursued by police, followed by spies, hounded by agents of autocracy.

      This peace-loving man whose name is synonym for kindness, this tender soul as modest as Newton, as gentle as Darwin, has been hunted from frontier to border-line. Against none of his persecutors does he utter a single invective. He is the epitome of mildness, the incarnation of humaneness.

      Ask anyone who has seen Kropotkin for an hour or has known him for a generation, to describe his most characteristic trait, and the invariable answer will be: simplicity. His is a great spirit- it has cast out flam. Kropotkin is one of the most sincere and frank of men, says Stepniak. "He always says the truth, pure and simple, without any regard for the amour propre of his hearers, or for any consideration whatever. This of his character. Every word he says may be absolutely believed. His sincerity is such, that sometimes in the ardour of discussion an entirely fresh consideration unexpectedly presents itself to his mind, and sets him thinking. He immediately stops, remains quite absorbed for a moment, and then begins to think aloud, speaking as tho he were an opponent. At other times he carries on this discussion mentally, and after moments of silence, turning to his astonished adversary, smilingly says, 'You are right.' This absolute sincerity renders him the best of friends, and gives especial weight to his praise and blame."

      AN EXCERPT FROM

      Comrade Kropotkin

      The Man

      (1842-1921)

      Prince Peter Alexeivitch Kropotkin, revolutionary and scientist, was descended from the old Russian nobility, but decided, at the age of thirty, to throw in his lot with the social rebels not only of his own country, but of the entire world. He became the intellectual leader of Anarchist-Communism; took part in the labor movement; wrote many books and pamphlets; established Le Révolté in Geneva and Freedom in London; contributed to the Encyclopedia Britannica; was twice imprisoned because of his radical activities; and twice visited America. After the Bolshevist revolution he returned to Russia, kept himself apart from Soviet activities, and died true to his ideals.

      SECTION I

      In taking the State and its historic role as the subject for this study, I think I am satisfying a much felt need at the present time: that of examining in depth the very concept of the State, of studying its essence, its past role and the part it may be called upon to play in the future.

      It is above all over the question of the State that socialists are divided. Two main currents can be discerned in the factions that exist among us which correspond to differences in temperament as well as in ways of thinking, but above all to the extent that one believes in the coming revolution.

      There are those, on the one hand, who hope to achieve the social revolution through the State by preserving and even extending most of its powers to be used for the revolution. And there are those like ourselves who see the State, both in its present form, in its very essence, and in whatever guise it might appear, an obstacle to the social revolution, the greatest hindrance to the birth of a society based on equality and liberty, as well as the historic means designed to prevent this blossoming. The latter work to abolish the State and not to reform it.

      It is clear that the division is a deep one. It corresponds with two divergent currents which in our time are manifest in all philosophical thought, in literature as well as in action. And if the prevailing views on the State remain as obscure as they are today, there is no doubt whatsoever that when - and we hope, soon - communist ideas are subjected to practical application in the daily life of communities, it will be on the question of the State that the most stubborn struggles will be waged.

      Having so often criticized the State as it is today, it behoves one to seek the reason for its emergence, to study in depth its past role, and to compare it with institutions that it has replaced.

      * * * * *

      Let us, first of all, be agreed as to what we wish to include by the term 'the State'.

      There is, of course, the German school which takes pleasure in confusing State with Society. This confusion is to be found among the best German thinkers and many of the French who cannot visualize Society without a concentration of the State; and it is for this reason that anarchists are generally upbraided for wanting to destroy society' and of advocating a return to 'the permanent war of each against all'.

      However to argue in this way is to overlook altogether the advances made in the domain of history in the past thirty or so years; it is to overlook the fact that Man lived

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