Kropotkin: Reviewing the Classical Anarchist Tradition

Kropotkin Reviewing the Classical Anarchist Tradition Ruth Kinna © Ruth Kinna, 2016 Edinburgh University Press Ltd The Tun – Holyrood Road 12 (2f) Jackson’s Entry Edinburgh EH8 8PJ www.euppublishing.com Typeset in 11/13 Adobe Sabon by IDSUK (DataConnection) Ltd, and printed and bound in Great Britain by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon CR0 4YY A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN 978 0 7486 4229 8 (hardback) ISBN 978 1 4744 1041 0 (webready PDF) ISBN 978 1 4744 0501 0 (epub) The right of Ruth Kinna to be identifi ed as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 and the Copyright and Related Rights Regulations 2003 (SI No. 2498). Contents Acknowledgements iv Introduction 1 Part 1 Portrait of the Anarchist as an Old Man 1. Out with the Old, in with the New 9 2. From New Anarchism to Post-anarchism 25 Conclusion to Part 1 45 Part 2 Coming Out of Russia Introduction to Part 2: (A Beautiful White Christ) Coming Out of Russia 49 3. Nihilism 55 4. Mapping the State 79 Conclusion to Part 2 105 Part 3 Revolution and Evolution Introduction to Part 3: The General Idea of Anarchy 119 5. Anarchism: Utopian and Scientifi c 127 6. The Revolution Will Not Be Historicised 155 Conclusion to Part 3 185 Reviewing the Classical Anarchist Tradition 197 Notes 205 Bibliography 237 Index 259 iii Acknowledgements I would like to thank Edinburgh University Press (EUP) for supporting this project, particularly James Dale who fi rst talked to me about the book and Nicola Ramsey and Michelle Houston who took the project over. The number of editors involved is a measure of the time it has taken to complete the writing and I’m extremely grateful to colleagues at EUP for their patience and willingness to agree two extensions for the delivery of the manuscript. It has been a pleasure working with everyone involved. I owe particular thanks to a number of colleagues: Constance Bant- man for generously sharing her research notes on the Grave-Kropotkin correspondence. I’m grateful to Dominique Miething for kindly letting me read his doctoral research on Nietzscheanism and anarchism and to Kristian Williams who corresponded with me about Wilde, Kropotkin and prisons. Süreyyya Evren played a central part in developing ideas about the anarchist canon and George Woodcock’s Anarchism, A His- tory of Libertarian Ideas and Movements. Bert Altena has been a fantas- tic critical friend for a number of years, pushing me to answer diffi cult questions about Kropotkin’s nationalism and his response to the First World War. He has also helpfully drawn my attention to archival material relevant to that debate. I’ve benefi ted enormously from Saul New- man’s research, especially his work on Stirner and anarchist utopianism. He will likely dispute the treatment of egoism and interpretation of the classical tradition as it is presented here, but I’m grateful to him for opening up my eyes to a philosophy that is too easily dismissed and side- lined in anarchist histories. Carl Levy’s tireless organisation of a series of anarchist history workshops at Goldsmiths, University of London encouraged me to think about Kropotkin’s science and his understanding of colonialism and to clarify my ideas about his conception of the state. Carl has also offered words of support when it seemed as if the project was stalling. Peter Ryley has shared ideas about Kropotkin and his comments on the manuscript helped me think about the coherence of Kropotkin’s anti-militarism. I’m grateful to Nathan Fretwell for his feed- back on the draft material and, in particular, for his insights on Stirner. iv acknowledgements As well as reading some of the manuscript, Alex Prichard has talked me through a number of debates in international relations theory and nineteenth-century geo-politics, has been a brilliant guide to Proudhon and shared ideas about republicanism and anarchism that have contributed to the formulation of some of the arguments about slavery and freedom set out here. Hugs to Frances and Michel, who entrusted Georg and Christa’s copy of the Paroles d’un Révolté to my care – a wonderful, treasured gift – and to Robert, Andrew, Pam and David who are always even dearer to me than Kropotkin. v Introduction Peter Kropotkin has an unenviable reputation for being one of the fore- most anarchist thinkers of the nineteenth century. Keeping company with Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, famous for adopting the epithet ‘anarchist’ to describe his political views and Mikhail Bakunin, Marx’s fi ercest foe, he is also often said to be the most accessible anarchist. There are a number of reasons for this: he left a substantial body of work that gives a good account of his conception of anarchism; he published a substantial part of this work in English; and perhaps above all, he took a leading role in the propagation of anarchist ideas and exercised a profound infl uence on nineteenth- and twentieth-century activist movements. Pre-eminence in a political tradition is not typically disadvantageous to an individual, except where the tradition itself is outlawed. Kropotkin’s reputation as one of anarchism’s central fi gures and canonical writers is unenviable nevertheless, not just because his work has attracted sustained attention from critics and protagonists within and outside the anarchist movement, but also because he has assumed a representative status as an anarchist of a particular type. Probably more than any other anarchist, Kropotkin defi nes classical anarchism. The primary aim of this book is to rescue Kropotkin from the frame- work of classical anarchism and highlight aspects of his political thought that have been lost as a result of the interest that his science has generated, particularly the theory of mutual aid. The chapters situate his thought in the context of late nineteenth-century debates and show how he helped shape anarchism as a distinctive politics that was quite different to the philosophy ascribed to him. Like his friend Élisée Reclus, Kropotkin was part of a European movement that, as Marie Fleming argues, ‘developed in response to specifi c social-economic grievances in given historical cir- cumstances’.1 Kropotkin contributed enthusiastically to the formation of an anarchist tradition and even endorsed Paul Eltzbacher’s dispassionate, analytical study Anarchism: Seven Exponents of the Anarchist Philoso- phy.2 However, his understanding of anarchism was more fl uid and open than Eltzbacher’s and instead of seeking to defi ne a set of characteristic core concepts, Kropotkin identifi ed anarchism with a tradition of political thought and a set of political practices. By presenting an analysis of Kropotkin’s work that does not treat the science of mutual aid as the key 1 kropotkin to this anarchism, the discussion shows how he understood this tradition and located himself within it. A second aim of this book is to explain Kropotkin’s politics. As well as being regarded as one of the key theorists of classical anarchism, Kropotkin is remembered for his controversial decision to support the Entente powers against Germany. This choice is often described as a betrayal of principle that refl ects his virulent Germanophobia, on the one hand, and potent Russian nationalism on the other. I argue that Kropotkin’s alignment, and his subsequent defence of constitutionalism in Russia in 1917, is explicable in terms of his anarchism and that his consistent application of principle exposes some important differences within anarchism about internationalism and the idea of the state. These differences support very different ideas about the nature of solidarity and anti-militarism, for example, as well as competing conceptions of class. The analysis builds on the existing political biographies and studies of Kropotkin’s political thought to contextualise Kropotkin’s thought and provides a textual analysis of published and unpublished work to offer an interpretation that highlights the revolutionary impetus and political thrust of his writing. This study has been motivated by a number of concerns. One is to counter the marginalisation of Kropotkin’s anarchism in radical political theory, just when space for more sustained refl ection seems to be available. Anarchists are notable by their absence in mainstream histories of ideas and have found only a place on the fringe in most histories of socialist thought. Post-anarchist critique of classical anarchism, albeit sympathetic, risks sidelining a set of ideas that were certainly signifi cant in their time and that continue to resonate in a range of political and cultural movements. The point of hovering over Kropotkin’s work for a while is not to elicit lessons for twenty-fi rst century action or produce an authoritative ideal-type against which ‘real’ anarchists may benchmark their affi nity. The point is to shed light on a set of ideas that have been badly misread and distorted and to challenge what is rapidly becom- ing a casual dismissal of a rich body of work as naive, incoherent and outmoded. A second objective for this study is to test the exclusionary cast- ing of anarchism. One result of classical anarchist critique has been to reinstate thinkers typically neglected in the canon, notably Gustav Landauer and Max Stirner, by introducing a philosophical or epistemo- logical test on what counts as usefully anarchist. This move not only prioritises an approach to anarchist theory that is contestable, it has also contributed to the politicisation of anarchism, placing a particular current of libertarianism at the heart of anarchist politics. The result has 2 introduction been to encourage a debate about anarchism’s ideological boundaries.

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