On 12/9/15, juan <juan.g71@gmail.com> wrote:
What about Kropotkin and Bakunin - were they 'middle class'? =P
Great references thanks - I'll assume for the moment that you are referring to Bakunin the anarchist and not Bakunin the Russian football player :) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Kropotkin Extremely apropos for me. Thank you. I am slowly learning little bits of history. It's ironic given the potential for influence he could have had at that time, that he refused the Education Ministry on his welcome back from exile, to Russia in 1917 after the February Revolution. Who knows - perhaps he was told he could not rewrite the school curriculum to inculcate a base of anarchist ideals? But we don't know his mind and considerations at that time. Some succinct snippets (to me): "His enthusiasm for the changes happening in the Russian Empire turned to disappointment when the Bolsheviks seized power in the October Revolution. "This buries the revolution," he said.[22] He thought that the Bolsheviks had shown how the revolution was not to be made; by authoritarian rather than libertarian methods.[22] He had spoken out against authoritarian socialism in his writings (for example The Conquest of Bread), making the prediction that any state founded on these principles would most likely see its own breakup and the restoration of capitalism.[citation needed]" "Kropotkin did not deny the presence of competitive urges in humans, but did not see them as the driving force of history (as did capitalists and social Darwinists).[39]:262 He did believe that at times seeking out conflict proved socially beneficial, but only during attempts to destroy unjust, authoritarian institutions such as the State or the Church, which he saw as stifling human creativity and freedom and impeding humans' instinctual drive towards sociality and cooperation.[40]" "With Mutual Aid especially, and later with Fields, Factories, and Workshops, Kropotkin was able to move away from the absurdist limitations of individual anarchism and no-laws anarchism that had flourished during this period and provide instead a vision of communal anarchism" Now to read Wikipedia's Bakunin summary... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikhail_Bakunin Thanks again, Zenaan