Intro:

Peter Kropotkin (1842-1921) is probably one of the most well-known anarchist thinkers of all time.

My interest with him began with reading of a brilliant biography; The Anarchist Prince by George Woodcock and Ivan Avakumovic. He lived a truly fascinating life which is only enhanced by the dignified and principled way he chose to live it. However it’s not the purpose of this discussion to explain such a biographical study.

Kropotkin was a very prolific writer and I could have called upon any one of his works in preparation for this undertaking. The sources were the following;

Anarchism A Collection of Revolutionary Writings- this book is made up of a number of Kropotkin's smaller essays of which I read the following; Anarchist Communism: Its Basic and Principles, Anarchist Morality, Anarchism: Its Philosophy and ideal and Modern Science and Anarchism.

In addition I read his book simply called Ethics. Sadly he was unable to fully complete such a work due to ill health and eventually death.

Those familiar with his work will rightly realise that such sources do not include his most famous and influential works – The Conquest of Bread or Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution. Therefore this discussion should not be considered as any exhausted exploration of his ideas. In fact my focus is primarily round his moral philosophy. However it is worth noting that his work the Ethics is really a continuation of his best known work Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution.

Overall thoughts of undertaking such a project

The first thing to say is that Kropotkin's work is very well written and accessible. There is no academic pretence instead only his sincere desire to convince the reader of his claims.
This was epitomised by the eerie sync feeling I felt when his arguments and ideas presented themselves to me.

In aid of this he also expenses a lot of energy documenting the historical and theoretical context of the arguments he is presenting; always tipping his hat to those he thinks deserve accolades.
As already stated I was interested in investigating Kropotkin's moral outlook. What surprised me was that Kropotkin's ideas and views around morality actually play an integral role in his wider political thought.

In the process of compiling this set of discussions I have become truly won over by Kropotkin's arguments and now have adopted many of them into my own roster.

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