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Preface to the Conquest of Bread, 1913 Edition
by Peter Kropotkin.
One of the current objections to Communism, and Socialism
altogether, is that the idea is so old, and yet it has never
been realized. Schemes of ideal States haunted the thinkers
of Ancient Greece; later on, the early Christians joined in
communist groups; centuries later, large communist
brotherhoods came into existence during the Reform movement.
Then, the same ideals were revived during the great English
and French Revolutions; and finally, quite lately, in 1848,
a revolution, inspired to a great extent with Socialist
ideals, took place in France. "And yet, you see" we are
told "how far away is still the realization of your schemes.
Don't you think there is some fundamental error in your
understanding of human nature and its needs?"
At first sight, this objection seems very serious. However,
the moment we consider human history more attentively, it
loses its strength. We see, first, that hundreds of
millions of men have succeeded in maintaining amongst
themselves, in their village communities, for many hundreds
of years, one of the many elements of Socialism - the common
ownership of the chief instruments of production, the land,
and the apportionment of the same according to the labour
capacities of the different families; and we learn that if
the communal possession of the land has been destroyed in
Western Europe, it was not from within, but from without, by
the governments which created a land monopoly in favour of
the nobility and the middle classes. We learn, moreover,
that the medieval cities succeeded in maintaining in their
midst,for several centuries in succession, a certain
socialized organization of production and trade; that these
centuries were periods of a rapid intellectual, industrial,
and artistic progress; while the decay of these communal
institutions came mainly from the incapacity of men of
combining the village with the city, the peasant with the
citizen, so as jointly to oppose the growth of the military
states, which destroyed the free cities. The history of
mankind, thus understood, does not offer, then, an argument
against communism. It appears, on the contrary, as a
succession of endeavours to realize some sort of communist
organization, endeavours which were crowned here and there
with a partial success of a certain duration; and all we are
authorized to conclude is, that mankind has not yet found
the proper form for combining, on communistic principles,
agriculture with a suddenly developed industry and a rapidly
growing international trade. The latter appears especially
as a disturbing element, since it is no longer individuals
only, or cities, that enrich themselves by distant commerce
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and export; but whole nations grow rich at the cost of those
nations which lag behind in their industrial development.
These conditions, which began to appear by the end of the
eighteenth century, took, however, their full development in
the nineteenth century only, after the Napoleonic wars Caine
to an end. And modern Communism has to take them into
account. It is now known that the French Revolution, apart
from its political significance, was an attempt made by the
French people, in 1793 and 1794, in three different
directions more or less akin to Socialism. It has, first,
the equalization of fortunes, by means of an income tax and
succession duties, both heavily progressive, as also by a
direct confiscation of the land in order to sub-divide it,
and by heavy war taxes levied upon the rich only. The second
attempt was a sort of Municipal Communism as regards the
consumption of some objects of first necessity, bought by
the municipalities, and sold by them at cost price. And the
third attempt was to introduce a wide national system of
rationally established prices of all commodities, for which
the real cost of production and moderate trade profits had
to be taken into account. The Convention worked hard at this
scheme, and had nearly completed its work, when reaction
took the upper hand. It was during this remarkable
movement, which has never yet been properly studied, that
modern Socialism was born--Fourierism with L'Ange, at Lyons,
and authoritarian Communism with Buonarotti, Babeuf, and
their comrades. And it was immediately after the Great
Revolution that the three great theoretical founders of
modern Socialism--Fourier, Saint Simon, and Robert Owen, as
well as Godwin (the No-State Socialism)--came forward; while
the secret communist societies, originated from those of
Buonarroti and Babeuf, gave their stamp to militant,
authoritarian Communism for the next fifty years. To be
correct, then, we must say that modern Socialism is not yet
a hundred years old, and that, for the first half of these
hundred years, two nations only, which stood at the head of
the industrial movement, i.e., Britain and France, took part
in its elaboration. Both bleeding at that time from the
terrible wounds inflicted upon them by fifteen years of
Napoleonic wars, and both enveloped in the great European
reaction that had come from the East. In fact, it was only
after the Revolution of July, 1830, in France, and the
Reform movement of 1830-1832 in this country, had begun to
shake off that terrible reaction, that the discussion of
Socialism became possible for a few years before the
revolution of 1848. And it was during those years that the
aspirations of Fourier, St. Simon, and Robert Owen, worked
out by their followers, took a definite shape, and the
different schools of Socialism which exist nowadays were
defined. In Britain, Robert Owell and his followers worked
out their schemes of communist villages, agricultural and
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industrial at the same time; immense co-operative
associations were started for creating with their dividends
more communist colonies; and the Great Consolidated Trades'
Union was founded-the forerunner of both the Lahour Parties
of our days and the International Workingmen's Association.
In France, the Fourierist Considerant issued his remarkable
manifesto, which contains, beautifully developed, all the
theoretical considerations upon the growth of Capitalism,
which are now described as "Scientific Socialism." Proudhon
worked out his idea of Anarchism and Mutualism, without
State interference. Louis Blanc published his Organization
of Labour, which became later on the programme of Lassalle.
Vidal in France and Lorenz Stein in Germany further
developed, in two remarkable works, published in 1846 and
1847 respectively, the theoretical conceptions of
Considerant; and finally Vidal, and especially Pecqueur,
developed in detail the system of Collectivism, which the
former wanted the National Assembly of 1848 to vote in the
shape of laws. However, there is one feature, common to all
Socialist schemes of that period, which must be noted. The
three great founders of Socialism who wrote at the dawn of
the nineteenth century were so entranced by the wide
horizons which it opened before them, that they looked upon
it as a new revelation, and upon themselves as upon the
founders of a new religion. Socialism had to be a religion,
and they had to regulate its march, as the heads of a new
church. Besides, writing during the period of reaction which
had followed the French Revolution, and seeing more its
failures than its successes, they did not trust the masses,
and they did not appeal to them for bringing about the
changes which they thought necessary. They put their faith,
on the contrary, into some great ruler, some Socialist
Napoleon. He would understand the new revelation; he would
be convinced of its desirability by the successful
experiments of their phalansteries, or associations; and he
would peacefully accomplish by his own authority the
revolution which would bring well-being and happiness to
mankind. A military genius, Napoleon, had just been ruling
Europe, Why should not a social genius come forward, carry
Europe with him and translate the new Gospel into life? That
faith was rooted very deep, and it stood for a long time in
the way of Socialism; its traces are even seen amongst us,
down to the present day. It was only during the years
1840-48, when the approach of the Revolution was felt
everywhere, and the proletarians were beginning to p]ant the
banner of Socialism on the barricades, that faith in the
people began to enter once more the hearts of the social
schemers: faith, on the one side, in Republic and Democracy,
and on the other side in free association, in the organising
power of the working-men themselves.
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Upon another point they also were agreed. It was that the
labour unions themselves would have to get hold of the
instruments of production, and organize production
themselves. The French idea of the Fourierist and Mutualist
"Association" thus joined hands with Robert Owen's idea of
"The Great Consolidated Trades' Union", which was extended
now, so as to become an International Working-men's
Association.
Again this new revival of Socialism lasted but a few years.
Soon came the war of 1870- 71, the uprising of the Paris
Commune--and again the free development of Socialism was
rendered impossible in France. But while Germany accepted
now from the hands of its German teachers, Marx and Engels,
the Socialism of the French "forty-eighters" that is, the
Socialism of Considerant and Louis Blanc, and the
Collectivism of Pecqueur,--France made a further step
forward. In March, 1871, Paris had proclaimed that hence
forward it would not wait for the retardatory portions of
France: that it intended to start within its Commune its own
social development. The movement was too short-lived to
give any positive result. It remained communalist only; it
merely asserted the rights of the commune to its full
autonomy. But the working-classes of the old International
saw at once its historical significance. They understood
that the free commune would be henceforth the medium in
which the ideas of modern Socialism may come to realization.
The free agro-industrial communes, of which so much was
spoken in England and France before 1848, need not be small
phalansteries, or small communities of 2000 persons. They
must be vast agglomerations, like Paris, or, still better,
small territories. These communes would federate to
constitute nations in some cases, even irrespectively of the
present national frontiers (like the Cinque Ports, or the
Hansa). At the same time large labour associations would
come into existence for the inter-communal service of the
railways, the docks, and so on. Such were the ideas which
began vaguely to circulate after 1871 amongst the thinking
working-men, especially in the Latin countries. In some
such organization, the details of which life itself would
settle, the labour circles saw the medium through which
Socialist forms of life could find a much easier realization
than through the seizure of all industrial property by the
State, and the State organization of agriculture and
industry. These are the ideas to which I have endeavoured
to give a more or less definite expression in this book.
Looking back now at the years that have passed since this
book was written, I can say in full conscience that its
leading ideas must have been correct. State Socialism has
certainly made considerable progress. State railways, State
banking, and State trade in spirits have been introduced
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here and there. But every step made in this direction, even
though it resulted in the cheapening of a given commodity,
was found to be a new obstacle in the struggle of the
working-men for their emancipation. So that we find growing
amongst the working-men, especially in Western Europe, the
idea that even the working of such a vast national Property
as a railway-net could be much better handled by a Federated
Union of railway employees, than by a State organisation.
On the other side, we see that countless attempts have been
made all over Europe and America, the leading idea of which
is, on the one side, to get into the hands of the working-
men themselves wide branches of production, and, on the
other side, to always widen in the cities the circles of the
functions which the city performs in the interest of its
Inhabitants Trade-unionism, with a growing tendency towards
organizing the different trades internationally, and of
being not only an instrument for the improvement of the
conditions of labour, but also of becoming an organisation
which might, at a given moment, take into its hands the
management of production; Co-operation, both for production
and for distribution, both in industry and agriculture, and
attempts at combining both sorts of co-operation in
experimental colonies; and finally, the immensely varied
field of the so-called Municipal Socialism --these are the
three directions in which the greatest amount of creative
power has been developed lately. Of course, none of these
may, in any degree, be taken as a substitute for Communism,
or even for Socialism, both of which imply the common
possession of the instruments of production. But we
certainly must look at all these attempts as upon
experiments--like those which Owen, Fourier, and Saint Simon
tried in their colonies --experiments which prepare human
thought to conceive some of the practical forms in which a
communist society might find its expression. The synthesis
of all these partial experiments will have to be made some
day by the constructive genius of some one of the civilised
nations. But samples of the bricks out of which the great
synthetic building will have to be built, and even samples
of some of its rooms, are being prepared by the immense
effort of the constructive genius of man.
BRIGHTON. January, 1913.