Peter Kropotkin

Peter Kropotkin
Kropotkin c. 1900 (aged 57)
Born	Pyotr Alexeyevich Kropotkin (1842-12-09)December 9, 1842 Moscow, Russian Empire
Died	February 8, 1921(1921-02-08) (aged 78) Dmitrov, Russian SFSR
Alma mater	Saint Petersburg Imperial University (no degree)
Era	19th-century philosophy 20th-century philosophy
Region	Russian philosophy Western philosophy
School	Anarchist communism
Main interests	Authority Cooperation Politics Revolution Labor Economics Agriculture Evolution Geography Literature Science Philosophy Ethics
Notable ideas	Founder of anarchist communism Mutual aid Abolition of wage-labor Four-hour workday Voluntary communes The Conquest of Bread Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution Fields, Factories and Workshops
Influences Bakunin, Darwin, Freud, Kessler, Marx, Nietzsche, Proudhon
Influenced Berkman Malatesta Wilde Tolstoy Kafka Makhno Rocker Kōtoku Brown Ward Galleani Goldman Woodcock Bookchin Black Chomsky Gould
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Prince Pyotr Alexeyevich Kropotkin (/kroʊˈpɒtkɪn, krə-/;Russian: Пётр Алексе́евич Кропо́ткин; December 9, 1842 – February 8, 1921) was a Russian activist, scientist, and philosopher, who advocated anarchism. Kropotkin was a proponent of a decentralised communist society free from central government and based on voluntary associations of self-governing communities and worker-run enterprises. He wrote many books, pamphlets and articles, the most prominent being The Conquest of Bread and Fields, Factories and Workshops, and his principal scientific offering, Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution. He also contributed the article on anarchism to the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, and left unfinished a work on anarchist ethical philosophy.

Kropotkin was born in Moscow, into the second-highest level of the Russian aristocracy. His mother was the daughter of a Cossack general. His father, Alexei Petrovich Kropotkin, was a prince in Smolensk, of the Rurik dynasty which had ruled Russia before the rise of the Romanovs. Kropotkin's father owned large tracts of land and nearly 1,200 male serfs in three provinces.