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   schalken (schalken@kolektiva.social)'s status on Tuesday, 26-Dec-2023 19:04:03 JST schalken

   Kropotkin has popped up in my timeline a couple times as of late.

   I get it. He looks like Santa. And, personally, Conquest of Bread is one of the three books that most influenced my politics. Cool guy.

   But.

   We should remember that Kropotkin completely betrayed internationalism and the working class when he sided with Russia and the Allied Powers in the First World War.

   We remember this not so that we can tear down Kropotkin, but as a lesson that _class_ has to be the fundamental focus of anyone who calls themselves a revolutionary.

   As Alexander Berkman wrote at the time:

   """
   It is a most painful shock to us to realize that even Kropotkin, clear thinker that he is, has in this instance fallen a victim to the war psychology now dominating Europe. His arguments are weak and superficial. In his letter to Gustav Steffen he has become so involved in the artificialities of "high politics" that he lost sight of the most elemental fact of the situation, namely that the war in Europe is not a war of nations, but a war of capitalist governments for power and markets. Kropotkin argues as if the German people are at war with the French, the Russian, or English people, when as a matter of fact it is only the ruling and capitalist cliques of those countries that are responsible for the war and alone stand to gain by its result.

   ...

   In the letter to Professor Steffen, Kropotkin strangely fails to mention the _working classes_ of the contending powers. He speaks a great deal of the military ambitions of Prussia, of the menace of German invasion and similar governmental games. But where do the workers come in in all this? Are the economic interests of the working classes of Europe involved in this war, do they stand to profit in any way by whatever result there might be, and is international solidarity furthered by sending Russian and French workers to slaughter their brother workers in German uniform? Has not Kropotkin always taught us that the solidarity of labor throughout the world is the cornerstone of all true progress and that labor has no interest whatever in the quarrels of their governmental or industrial masters?

   ...

   We regret deeply, most deeply, Kropotkin's changed attitude. But not even the great European catastrophe can alter our position on the international brotherhood of man. We unconditionally condemn _all_ capitalist wars, with whatever sophisms it may be sought to defend the one or the other set of pirates and exploiters as more "libertarian." We unalterably hold that war is the game of the masters, always at the expense of the duped workers. The workers have nothing to gain by the victory of the one or the other of the contending sides. Prussian militarism is no greater menace to life and liberty than Tsarist autocracy. Neither can be destroyed by the other. Both must and will be destroyed only by the social revolutionary power of the united international proletariat.
   """

   #Anarchism #Kropotkin #Communism #Socialism #Berkman