Title:Kropotkin and the Rise of Revolutionary Anarchism, 1872-1886
Author/Artist: Caroline Cahm
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Media: Book
Reviewer: Pan
This political biography of Kropotkin, by Caroline Cahm, aims to explore the evolution of his ideas and activity and, specifically, to place this in the context of the evolution of anarchist communist theory and practice. This was a period in which anti-statist socialism was a major current within the First International and was only just beginning to accept the label of Anarchist. It was also a period which was characterised by profound theoretical disagreements between different tendencies within the libertarian movement, reflected both in terms of different political activities within the wider socialist movement but also by differences within different countries.
Kropotkin's ideas evolved considerably during the 14-years covered by this book, and central to this evolution was his immersion in the activities of the working class groups that he had contact with, chiefly in the Jura region of Switzerland and in Lyons. There is a popular image of Kropotkin as a principally theorist and writer, but as this Cahm makes abundantly clear during this period he was a propagandist and activist first and foremost. Anarchism was not a theoretical system that he created in the solitude of a library or study, but a set of political beliefs that he found within the working class activists that he lived and worked with.
Many of the disputes of the time are as relevant now as they were then. In a period when anarchism was under attack from social-democrats and reformists on one hand and from repressive regimes on the other, the primary question that had to be faced was how to proceed. In the face of these attacks there were some who responded with political assasination and the bomb. The ideas of 'propaganda by deed' were much debated at the time, and in the course of these arguments Kropotkin's arguments were more subtle than is generally believed.
The crux of the matter lay in what type of activity anarchists should adopt in the fight against reformism on the one hand and massive repression on the other. As Cahm makes clear, Kropotkin saw a need for anarchism to be based in working class communities, to be rooted in everyday struggle. Conspiracies and assasination did nothing to build communities of resistance, and in the end such activity did much harm to anarchism. It was not a simple case of violence versus non-violence, and those liberals who harbour illusions about the anarchist Prince are liable for a shock should they read some of his writing from this period.
Why is this at all relevant now? Because for all the successes of the anti-globalisation movement, we find that the political vacuum created by the divorce between leftist politics and the working class has been most successfully filled by the far-Right. To make a real difference, anarchism must be rooted in the struggle taking place in working class communities and not in the big show-case confrontations between the police and anti-globalisation protesters. Fighting to save a local play-ground might not be as exciting as facing the cops protecting the WTO, but it's just as necessary.
If there's a criticism of what is a readable and interesting book it's that what's missing, for somebody like me who knows very little of Kropotkin's life, are the broader biographical details. That wasn't the focus of the book, but at times it would have been useful. Perhaps it's time there was a popular biography of the man, the interest is almost certainly there now.
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