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Thinkers

Peter Kropotkin

Anarchist · Europe · 1842 to 1921

Russian prince and scientist who argued that animals and people survive by mutual aid, and that society could run without a state.

What it is

Peter Kropotkin (1842 to 1921) was a Russian geographer and anarchist thinker, born into an aristocratic family. He is best known for arguing that cooperation, not only competition, drives the survival of animals and people, and that a society could be organised through voluntary cooperation without a state.

Kropotkin was educated at the Corps of Pages in St Petersburg and served as an officer in Siberia, where he explored and studied the land. He turned down a post at the Russian Geographical Society and gave himself to the cause of social justice. In 1872 he visited the Jura region of Switzerland. He was imprisoned in Russia in 1874, escaped two years later, and spent decades in exile in Switzerland, France and England. He returned to Russia in 1917 and died there in 1921.

The main ideas

  • Mutual aid. Against the view that evolution is a struggle in which only the fittest survive, he argued that cooperation within a species is a major factor in its survival. He looked for it in animals and in human societies.
  • Voluntary cooperation. He thought a society could rest on voluntary associations of mutual support rather than on a state.
  • Decentralisation. He proposed a society of decentralised, cooperative communities in place of the state.
  • Anarchist communism. He is known for this theory of a communist society without a central government, in which goods are shared freely and private property no longer rules.

What it looks like in practice

Imagine a neighbourhood after a flood. People bring food, share tools, take in families whose houses are damaged, and nobody asks who is in charge. Kropotkin would point to this as ordinary mutual aid, and ask why we expect it only in emergencies. This is an illustration of his argument, not a passage from his writing.

Books and moments

  • The Conquest of Bread (1892) sets out his picture of anarchist communist life.
  • Fields, Factories and Workshops (1899) argues for decentralising production and industry.
  • Memoirs of a Revolutionist (1899) is his own account of his life.
  • Mutual Aid (1902) is his main scientific work, on cooperation in nature and in human history.
  • The anarchism article. He wrote the article on anarchism for the eleventh edition of a major English-language encyclopedia.
  • The First World War. He supported the Allied side, and this divided the anarchist movement, which had been against war.

Questions and criticism

  • Nature and cooperation. He found cooperation widespread among animals. It is fair to ask how much of nature's pattern he left out, and what a fair weighing of cooperation and competition would look like.
  • Need as the rule. Free sharing without a state asks a lot of trust. It is fair to ask how such a society would handle people who take more than they give.
  • The war. His backing of one side in the First World War was seen by many fellow anarchists as a break with their own principles. It is fair to ask whether his reasons were consistent with his thinking.

Close neighbours

The pages on Proudhon and Bakunin cover two earlier anarchist thinkers, and the page on Marx covers the socialist thinker they argued with. The page on Spencer covers a thinker who applied evolution to society in a very different way.

Written by epchē in our own words, and checked against independent sources on 29 October 2026. The sources are listed below.

Who they connect to

Influenced by

  • Mikhail Bakunin · He joined the anarchist movement that Bakunin had led and carried its ideas forward.
  • Pierre-Joseph Proudhon · He took up the anarchist tradition that Proudhon began.

Other Anarchist thinkers

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