The Conquest of Bread by Peter Kropotkin

Those who withhold capital constantly reduce the output by restraining production.[1]

The rich limit the output of production to increase profits via inflation. Labor is wasted on vanity projects, and factories remain idle, with millions of people desiring work but finding none. These problems cannot be cured by legislation but through social revolution. Such thinking coincides with Marx and Engles; where they discuss that, for the first time in mankind's history, there is still poverty while overproduction exists.[2] Vladimir Lenin went one step further by declaring that the State was primarily founded to keep class struggle in check, which morphed into the State controlling and enslaving the lower classes of society. This state machine, ever-expanding, serves only its interests.[3]

Through this line of thinking, Kropotkin and Lenin conclude that anarchy leads to Communism and vice versa. Societies based on Individualism are compelled towards Communism because both attempts to fight against the State through capital. Commodities are evidence of Socialist ideals. The ideal Communism is Anarchist Communism – a society without a State. Kropotkin explains that:

In Europe, in 1871, the proletariat did not constitute the majority of the people in any country on the Continent. A "people's" revolution, one actually sweeping the majority into its steam, could be such only if it embraced both the proletariat and the peasants. These two classes then constituted the "people". These two classed are united by the fact that the "bureaucratic-military state machine" oppresses, crushes, exploits them. To smash this machine, to break it up, is truly in the interest of the "people", of their majority, of the workers and most of the peasants, is "the precondition" for a free alliance of the poor peasant and the proletarians, whereas without such an alliance democracy is unstable and socialist transformation is impossible.[4]

Here, Kropotkin lays out the true enemy of the people: the corrupt ruling class and their laws corrupting society. Kropotkin furthers his analysis of the evils of the State through the reduction of wages, equalizing the entirety of the country, and making organs devised for control unnecessary.[5]

However, Kropotkin seems to contradict himself. He proclaims that if one announces "Bread for all," the revolution will prosper. The only practical solution is a robust and centralized government or Anarchist Communism. Order must be maintained at all costs. His argument comes from the idea that it is man's right to have bread, and whoever establishes this as a human right will succeed.[6] To accomplish this feat, however, representatives of Collectivism must be appointed to ensure equality for all.[7]

Man is not satisfied with gleaning only what is needed to survive. He requires luxury, particularly those developed in a Collectivist environment. Kropotkin proclaims that leisure must become the supreme aim after the bread has been secured.[8] Such thinking was parodied in House Resolution 109, the infamous "Green New Deal" proposed by New York Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. In the bill, Cortez requests to be placed into law guarantees on:

Ensuring a commercial environment where every businessperson is free from unfair competition and domination by domestic or international monopolies: and providing all people of the United States with –

i)             High-quality health care;

ii)            Affordable, safe, and adequate housing;

iii)           Economic security; and

iv)           Clean water, clean air healty and affordable food, and access to nature.[9]

The previous demonstrates that Kropotkin's thoughts on societal justice is still being theorized, and solutions are coming from his ideas to this day.

Kropotkin proclaims that agreeable work extends to the home. Women are not the brood-mares of the State. Kropotkin continues by saying that there is an ever-enlarging number of women who desire to go into the arts, politics, literature, and the workforce. While Kropotkin admits there are a few women willing to submit to what he dubs "apron-slavery," he proposes that machinery will one day take over women's work in the household. Therefore, it will be more suitable for women to work outside the house.[10]

Kropotkin explains that one's labor is not dependent of their profession. Poverty created Capitalism, and Capitalism created inequality. He goes against the idea of rent through explaining:

As long as labour-notes can be exchanged for Jewels or carriages, the owner of the house will willingly accept them for rent.[11]

Kropotkin concludes his book by stating that Capitalists undermine Collectivists by Colonialization and that trade encourages decentralization.

Overall, Kropotkin's book is an important one. A wiser man than either Marx or Engles, Kropotkin gets to the root of the issue for Collectivists: the system which causes inequality in the first place. Since trade is determined through funds and exchange of goods, those without anything valuable to trade will be caught into an interesting Catch-22. If the peasantry are without money, they cannot afford to live; if they cannot afford to live, that is due to peasants not being paid enough money to do so! However, Kropotkin assumes that robust and centralized governance will be impregnable to selfishness, that the rich only get richer by stealing and withholding wealth from the poor, and that the ultimate aim in life is leisure. It is here that Kropotkin no longer makes any sense. If all there is to life is leisure, then why would anyone do any work for anything ever? It would stand to reason that anything outside of pleasure would be a waste of time. Productivity, self-actualization, and art creation would serve no purpose without capital. Kropotkin's flaw in his perspective continues to be peddled by people today, primarily due to greed, which is ultimately the problem with Collectivism. No matter how much or little someone has, they will always want more. It is Liberality, not Capitalism, that breeds contempt.

[1] Peter Kropotkin, The Conquest of Bread (Columbia: Independent Press, 2021), 19.

[2] Karl Marx and Frederick Engles, The Communist Manifesto (New York: International Publishers, 1948), 30-31.

[3] Vladimir Lenin, State and Revolution (The Leftist Public Domain, 2019), 9-11.

[4] Kropotkin, The Conquest of Bread, 32.

[5] Ibid, 35.

[6] Ibid, 52.

[7] Ibid, 56.

[8] Ibid, 93.

[9] Congress.gov. "H.Res.109 - 116th Congress (2019-2020): Recognizing the duty of the Federal Government to create a Green New Deal." February 12, 2019. https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/house-resolution/109.

[10] Kropotkin, The Conquest of Bread, 108-109.

[11] Ibid, 142.

State and Revolution by Vladimir Lenin

The means of production are no longer the private property of individuals. The means of production belong to the whole of society. - Lenin

Written in 1917, Lenin’s State and Revolution describes the role of the state, and the means to overthrow bourgeois rule. By Lenin’s observations, the ruling class maintained their power through the oppression of the proletariat. By this exploitation, individuals were utilized to produce excess, which would be sold to the global market, leaving the worker with barely enough resources to survive. By harrying workers with longer hours and less pay, the bourgeois maintained their dominance. Instead of allocating the wealth, the opulent kept all but the table scraps. Instead of allowing citizens to keep their grain, work in meaningful occupations for themselves, and make available a society which exists outside of Capitalist wealth, the bourgeois insisted upon ability to work being the most important concept within culture. By downplaying the magnitude of individual kith and kin’s needs, the collective wealthy remained in power. Lenin would agree with the perception that both demons and humans are willing to perpetrate atrocities for their own profit. Lenin ensured the people that, if they rose against the oppressive bourgeois, the proletariat could, one day, erect a utopia. Instead of division through ability, communal life would be the necessity.

Lenin’s thought on government was that the State was principally founded to keep class struggle in check, which morphed into the State domineering, and eventually, enslaving the lower-classes of society. Lenin further claimed that the State machine is ever-expanding, filled with corruption, only serving its own interests.[1] Sentiments of this kind were shared by Peter Kropotkin, who contended that the decadent rich limit the output of production to increase profits via inflation. Labor is wasted on vanity projects while factories remain idle, with millions of people desiring work, but finding none.[2] Both of these men agreed that such issues could not be solved through legislation, but rather through a social revolution, as the state operated utilizing only mala fide means.

            Lenin makes the argument that “true” Marxism is not about class struggle, but about the destruction of class entirely. Such a society, he claims, can only be erected through the Dictatorship of the Proletariat.[3] Marx defines this change as Feudal Socialism, where the proletariat retorts and assumes governance.[4] Both men agreed upon the concept of the destruction of class entirely, though Lenin differed with Marx in that he believed that such a revolution could only be achieved through the colossal usurpation of power.

            Communes as collectives seemed to prove that a Socialist platform was effective. The United States was not inoculated from Communalism. Hippies created the largest number of intentional communes in the history of the United States, forming alternative, egalitarian farms and homesteads in Northern California, Colorado, New Mexico, New York, Tennessee and other states.[5] The idea was, with all wages being equal and all privileges being the same, the leadership faded into the background and became true communism. Today, in order to spread this doctrine to others, the majority must push against bourgeois policies which enslave the proletariat.[6]

            National unity must be erected by the destruction of the bourgeois State. Marx does not specify the idea of federalism as opposed to centralism; rather, he speaks about smashing the bourgeois machine which exists in all bourgeois countries. The aim is to tear down the state power, which Marx sees as parasitic.[7]

            The proletariat only needs anarchy long enough to establish the state, and only needs the State temporarily. The revolution gains authority through force and dissolves by its own means.[8]

            To Lenin, freedom in the Capitalist model was freedom for the slave owners. It is democracy designed only for the rich. In addition, the oppressed are targeted by exclusions and exceptions for the rich’s expense. There is no freedom where there is suppression, law can never be higher than the economic structure of society, and once socialism converts private property into common property, bourgeois law disappears. However, it is difficult to say whether or not his utopia would ever come to pass, since Communism has never worked in any place which it has been tried.

[1] Vladimir Lenin, State and Revolution (The Leftist Public Domain Project, 2019), 9-11.

[2] Peter Kropotkin, The Conquest of Bread (Columbia: Independent Press, 2021), 18-27.

[3] Lenin, State and Revolution, 26-27.

[4] Karl Marx and Frederic Engles, The Communist Manifesto (New York: International Publishers, 1948), 32-42.

[5] Turner, Fred (2006), From Counterculture to Cyberculture: Stewart Brand, the Whole Earth Network, and the Rise of Digital Utopianism, University Of Chicago Press, ISBN 0-226-81741-5

[6] Lenin, State and Revolution, 34-35.

[7] Lenin, State and Revolution, 41-44.

[8] Lenin, State and Revolution, 50-52.