Date: Fri, 25 Sep 1998 10:10:04 -0500 (CDT)
Subject: Re: AUT:Peter Kropotkin


Pyotr Kropotkin is probably (along with Bakunin) the most famous of all
the Russian Anarchists. He was born into nobility, sat on the Czar's knee,
sent to an elite military academy and then headed off to Siberia as a
geologist. Besides doing some pathbreaking work on Siberian geology he
studied animal and human societies in the area and was profoundly
impressed with patterns of mutual aid in various species that contradicted
the usual representation of Darwinian evolution as a war of all against
all. This would lead to his book Mutual Aid years later. In Switzerland he
met the anarchist watchmakers of the Jura and their ideology meshed with
his own views developed in Siberia. He became an anarchist --often called
the Anarchist PRince. He was an important figure in what is called
"anarcho-communism" and much of his work is similar to threads within
autonomist Marxism. I wrote a paper on the similarities and differences
for the conference in Russia back in 1992 celebrating the aniversary of
his birth --the first overt anarchist public event in Russia since he died
shortly after the revolution. It was a great conference, took place over
seven days in three different cities. He wrote lotsa books and quite a bit
has been written about him. He wrote well and is easy to read. Enjoy.

Harry

On Fri, 25 Sep 1998 LrdoVomit-AT-aol.com wrote:

> Has anyone ever heard of Peter Kropotkin??? The Russian Anarchy Theorist
> 
> 
>      --- from list aut-op-sy-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
> 

............................................................................
Harry Cleaver
Department of Economics
University of Texas at Austin
Austin, Texas 78712-1173  USA
Phone Numbers: (hm)  (512) 478-8427
               (off) (512) 475-8535   Fax:(512) 471-3510
E-mail: hmcleave-AT-eco.utexas.edu
Cleaver homepage: 
http://www.eco.utexas.edu/faculty/Cleaver/index.html
Chiapas95 homepage:
http://www.eco.utexas.edu/faculty/Cleaver/chiapas95.html
Accion Zapatista homepage:
http://www.utexas.edu/students/nave/
............................................................................



     --- from list aut-op-sy-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---