Pierre Kropotkine

Pierre (Piotr) Alekseïevitch Kropotkine (in; ), born on November 27th of the Calendar Julien/December 9th 1842 with Moscow and dead the February 8th 1921 with Dmitrov, close to Moscow, is a Anarchiste Communiste, geographer and scientist.

Biography

Resulting from the Muscovite nobility, it integrates the army starting from 1857 and is affected, as officer of the Cosaques, in Siberia. Starting from 1867, it leaves the army to make studies of mathematics and geography to the Université of Saint-Pétersbourg. It publishes several work on the septentrional Asia and explores the Scandinavian peninsula . Starting from 1872 It belongs to the Jurassic federation of the First International. It sets out again in Saint-Petersbourg where it undertakes an activity of clandestine militant. He is imprisoned in 1874 and escapes two years later. He takes refuge then in Great Britain then returns in Suisse, takes again his militant activity and publishes several political works. He founds in 1879 the newspaper “revolted the” . He is stopped again in 1883 following the strikes of the Lyons silk trade. He is held with Lyon and is amnestied in 1886, thanks to the intervention, in particular, several personalities of which Victor Hugo. He settles then in England and publishes various works of geography and policy. Its work the mutual aid, a factor of evolution will make of it a scientist internationally respected. He collaborates in particular in the Universal Géographie of Elisee Reclus like with the Chambers Encyclopædia and the Encyclopædia Britannica . In 1916, the signature of the Manifeste of the 16 is worth to him on behalf of his/her former friends the small name of “anarchist of government”. It turns over in Russia in 1917 and refuses a post of minister, proposed by Aleksandr Kerenski. It takes a critical attitude with respect to the capacity Bolchévique in particular of the personality of Lénine and the authoritative methods of the news the USSR.

Its death constitutes the last anarchistic public demonstration in the USSR. More than one million people took part in the funeral procession on February 13rd, 1921.

In 1902, Kropotkine published its book the mutual aid, a factor of the evolution which proposed an alternative vision of human and animal survival, exceeding the theses of the “survival of most suited” defended at the time by some social darwinists such as Thomas Henry Huxley (see on this subject the writings of the anarchist Murray Bookchin on social ecology and the Sociobiologie).

Extract of the work:

In the animal world we saw that the great majority of the species live in company and that they find in association their best weapons in the fight for survival: of course and in a direction largely darwinien, it is not a question simply of a fight to make sure of the means of subsistence, but of a fight against the unfavourable natural conditions with the species. The animal species in which the individual fight was to the minimum reduced and where practice of the mutual assistance reached its greater development invariably more, more prosperous and are opened with progress. The mutual protection obtained in this case, the possibility of reaching a golden age and of accumulating experience, the most intellectual development and the positive development of the social practices, ensure the maintenance of the species, their extension and their future trend. The asocial species, on the contrary, are condemned to die out|Pierre Kropotkine. mutual aid, a factor of the evolution (1902), Conclusion.

Principal works

1867 Summarized Orography of the Siberia
Words of one revolted , (1895), collection of writings published in the newspaper Revolted the ,
anarchistic morals , (1889), where it rejects traditional morals, nun or not, basing his on solidarity and equity.
the conquest of the bread , (1892), Republished into 2006 with the editions of the Sextant
anarchy , (1896), Republished in 2006
the organization of justice, called vindication , (1901),
mutual aid, a factor of the evolution , (1902),
Communism and anarchy , (1903),
the great revolution , (1909),
Around a life (Memories of a revolutionist) http://kropot.free.fr/Kropotkine-Vie.htm,
the anarchistic principle , (1913).

See too

External bonds

Biography by an anarchistic site
Two texts of Kropotkine on infokiosques.net
Biography by the biographical dictionary imago mundi
Various texts

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