For those wondering, Kropotkin was a Russian anarchist philosopher. He’s most famous for “The Conquest of Bread”.

He was also a biologist, countering Darwin by stating there is as much (or more) cooporation in nature as there is conflict

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutual_Aid:_A_Factor_of_Evol...

He went further, arguing that mutual aid is the practice/axiom that enabled most societies (human or otherwise) to survive and evolve thus far.

He countered social Darwinism, not Darwin (don’t think Darwin fell for these fallacies).

Yes and I also find the term “libertarian communist” useful to describe him (and myself).

Those two things seem at odds to me.. how do you consider yourself both libertarian and communist?

Well in the history of communism, both were synonyms until Marx and Lenin popularized the "dictatorship of the proletariat". The 1871 Paris Commune (150y anniversary this year!) although it had some minor authoritarian components was profoundly anti-authoritarian and its massacre gave birth to the modern anarchist movement and the famous black flag (as worn by Louise Michel to commemorate the dozens of thousands of civilians and Communards executed by French army).

The common understanding of communism used to be (and still is in many cultures/circles) the redistribution/decentralization of power and resources. The February "revolution" in 1917 in Russia was famously very decentralized with "soviets" (base assemblies) popping up everywhere (as trade unions, as local councils, etc) and organizing from the bottom up without a central authority. That is, until the october revolution during which Lenin and Trotsky and their power-hungry friends started literally hunting down all the anarcho-communists with their secret police in order to build their State-capitalist dystopia.

If you're curious about more details about anarcho-communism and its varied history, I would recommend Emma Goldman's autobiography (which goes into great lengths about propaganda vs reality in bolshevik Russia) or Martha Ackelsberg's account of the Spanish revolution (1936) "Free women of spain". There's of course a lot more to be read on that topic if you're curious, but i found these two books to be very broad introductions to anarchism although they don't cover all the topics that intersect with anarchist politics (eg. anti-colonialism).

Here's an introduction to the term [1]. For the slightly more general concept of anarcho-communism, i.e. the main strain of anarchism in the world, [2]. For the even broader concept of libertarian socialism, see here [3].

1. https://libcom.org/library/libertarian-communism-introductio...

2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarcho-communism

3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarian_socialism

You probably don’t want to watch a 52 minute video on that exact question but I did recently make one:

https://youtu.be/KFcd5EQgMEQ

But there have always been communists who want to organize production communally using purely voluntary means. I want to get together with other people like me and build and operate a “means of production” we control as I believe it is in our benefit to do so. But I have no interest in and explicitly oppose using force to coerce anyone into participating.

That’s exactly what Peter Kropotkin thought too, way back in the late 1800’s. I am opposite from authoritarian communists who believe that a powerful state should be used to force communism on people. I, like Kropotkin, oppose that.

Libertarian became co-opted to mean the modern “right-libertarian” only in the 1960s; before that it basically meant anarchist.

For more precision, the term "libertarian" (libertaire) was popularized in French language following the Lois scélérates outlawing any anarchist propaganda (1890s) under the 3rd republic [0] at a time when a few anarchists were openly murdering some of our overlords for their crimes against the people and such practice had widespread popular support (except in the bourgeoisie of course). There's even entire songs dedicated to the dynamite as a tool of emancipation against our masters, and to popular heroes like Ravachol (who bombed corrupt judges) and Emile Henri (who accidently, that's the funny part, bombed the commissariat in La rue des bons enfants).

So yes in the english-speaking world since the 50s/60s with Hayek and Randt) "libertarian" started to take a capitalist meaning. But it's worth noting that this doesn't expand to other parts of the world: in french-speaking cultures the capitalist libertarian movement is almost non-existent, and we use the distinct "libertarien-ne" word borrowed back from english for when we actually need to the american movement: "libertaire" certainly refers to the anti-authoritarian anticapitalist movement to this day.

[0] Yeah if you believe France is the country of human rights, that's just a myth. The 3rd republic had the same slogan (Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité) and flag (the Paris red & blue holding tight the royalist white) than the 5th, yet had widespread slavery and apartheid (following the "code de l'Indigénat") and women had no civil rights. French public schools was famously established in the 1880s as a means to expand the French colonial empire's reach. Don't even get me started on how broken/racist the 5th republic (since De Gaulle) is! :)

Which has even less to do with communism though.

On the contrary, both in anarchist and marxist philosophy communism is defined as a society without State and social classes. While anarchists believe (and practice!) in dismantling the established social order here and now by systematically questioning power structures, marxist-leninists promoted the idea that building a "dictatorship of the proletariat" was a necessary step for a revolution to seize the repression means of the bourgeois State to make sure to go towards communism. This disagreement is what led to the fork of the 1st Internationale in the late 19th century.

As history has shown, reestablishing the old forms of power (centralized State, political police, prisons, work) for the sake of the revolution didn't help to achieve any communism ever (USSR was profoundly anti-communist beyond the appearances: the secret police fought against all self-organized communes like Cronstadt or the peasant soviets of Ukraine). That's why anarchists to this day refer to marxism-leninism (what capitalists call "communism") as State-capitalism: it has the same structures and power balance than capitalism, with the difference that power is held not by the bourgeoisie but by a so-called avant-garde. But for the common people, the situation is very similar, as the promised Stateless/classless society is nowhere to be seen.

Marx eventually clarified that he thought the “dictatorship of the proletariat” would not be a dictatorship, but instead rather radical democracy. With the benefit of hindsight, we can say that the anarchists’ criticism of Marx and his dictatorship of the proletariat were spot on, and that such structures rapidly became authoritarian and self serving.

Not really, Anarcho-Communism, while not Marxist, is communist insofar as it is one of the remaining strains of "Idealistic Communism" as Marx and Engels would call the various worker's movements from before Marx' Scientific Materialism.

Kropotkin described himself as an anarchist communist in the 1890’s. There is a lot of historical meaning in the combination of those terms.

Communism != Marxism.

In principle i agree, yet there is a distinction to make. There are anti-authoritarian marxists who argue that by the end of his life Marx himself had become critical of his own theories (eg. dictatorship of the proletariat).

But yes, we'll agree that the most widely-known brand of marxism is in fact the very opposite of communism (as defined by a Stateless/classless society).

Then you might be delighted to find out that the aristocrat Oscar Wilde took that one step further and even considered himself both hedonist and (libertarian-)socialist. Much odds!!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Soul_of_Man_Under_Socialis...

Hedonist libertarian socialist makes perfect sense to me and describes me and many of my friends. A lot of socialists want collective power so we can reduce working hours and spend more time with each other having a good time.

None of those terms are on opposition.

It’s also worth mentioning that “libertarian” was a left wing term until it was self consciously co-opted by a right wing American in the early 20th century. So how Kropotkin would understand that word and how we understand it varies significantly.

Thanks, I had heard of the philosopher though didn't know anything about him. What I was getting at though, was that the misleading title made me think Kropotkin was somneone who had escaped, like, yesterday. And I thought "Kropotkin who?". There has been some Biden-Putin theater in the news lately that I haven't paid attention to, so I thought Kropotkin being locked up must have something to with that.

TLDR: Dan G, can you fix the title to say Kropotkin escaped from prison in 1876 rather than just now? Thanks.

Besides being an Anarchist and philosopher, Kropotkin was also:

1. A (minor) prince.

2. A Geographer and Zoologist.