Akademik

(1842–1921)

Russian nobleman, and main proponent of anarchocommunism. Kropotkin believed that Darwin's theory of evolution, properly applied, showed that human beings are social creatures who flourish best in small communities cemented together by mutual aid and voluntary associations (see altruism ). The centralized state with its apparatus of coercion represents a backward step, or obstacle to the implementation of this ideal. Kropotkin's works include Mutual Aid (1897) and Fields, Factories, and Workshops (1901). He lived largely in England, but died in Russia.