The Conquest of Bread

First written in French and originally appearing as a series of articles in 1892, "The Conquest of Bread" is the most famous and enduring work by Peter Kropotkin, the Russian political philosopher and anarchist. In this widely influential and often cited work, Kropotkin presents his arguments against feudalism and capitalism. These economic systems rely on and perpetuate poverty, misery, and scarcity, while protecting and promoting the privilege of the few over the many. He advocated for a more decentralized and smaller-scale system that instead relied on cooperation and mutual assistance. Kropotkin persuasively argues that this voluntary system of localized anarchy already exists in many types of human society and is how humans evolved to live. His ideas were a rejection of the more formalized and centralized system of communism advocated by Karl Marx and advocated in contrast for the eventual elimination of money altogether as a necessary part of the social economy. Rather, society could become so advanced that every good and service would be shared equally and no one would be deprived of what they needed. Kropotkin’s work continues to have a profound effect on both political philosophers and revolutionaries, from the Spanish Civil War to the modern Occupy movement. This edition is printed on premium acid-free paper.

Pyotr Alexeyevich Kropotkin was a Russian anarchist and geographerknownas a proponent of anarchist communism. Born into an aristocratic land-owning family, Kropotkin attended a militaryschooland later served as an officer in Siberia, where he participated in several geologicalexpeditions. He was imprisoned for his activism in 1874 and managedtoescapetwoyears later. He spent the next 41 years in exile in Switzerland, France (wherehewasimprisoned for almost four years) and England. While in exile, he gave lecturesandpublished widely on anarchism and geography. Kropotkin returned toRussiaafterthe Russian Revolution in 1917, but he was disappointed by the Bolshevikstate. Kropotkin was a proponent of a decentralized communist society free fromcentralgovernment and based on voluntary associations of self-governing communitiesandworker-run enterprises. He wrote many books, pamphlets and articles, themostprominent being The Conquest of Bread and Fields, Factories, andWorkshops,with Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution being his principal scientific offering. Hecontributed the article on anarchism to the Encyclopædia BritannicaEleventhEdition and left an unfinished work on anarchist ethical