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       Preface to the Conquest of Bread, 1913 Edition

       by Peter Kropotkin.

       One of the current objections to Communism, and Socialism
       altogether, is that the idea is so old, and yet it has never
       been realized.  Schemes of ideal States haunted the thinkers
       of Ancient Greece; later on, the early Christians joined in
       communist groups; centuries later, large communist
       brotherhoods came into existence during the Reform movement.
       Then, the same ideals were revived during the great English
       and French Revolutions; and finally, quite lately, in 1848,
       a revolution, inspired to a great extent with Socialist
       ideals, took place in France.  "And yet, you see" we are
       told "how far away is still the realization of your schemes.
       Don't you think there is some fundamental error in your
       understanding of human nature and its needs?"

       At first sight, this objection seems very serious.  However,
       the moment we consider human history more attentively, it
       loses its strength.  We see, first, that hundreds of
       millions of men have succeeded in maintaining amongst
       themselves, in their village communities, for many hundreds
       of years, one of the many elements of Socialism - the common
       ownership of the chief instruments of production, the land,
       and the apportionment of the same according to the labour
       capacities of the different families; and we learn that if
       the communal possession of the land has been destroyed in
       Western Europe, it was not from within, but from without, by
       the governments which created a land monopoly in favour of
       the nobility and the middle classes. We learn, moreover,
       that the medieval cities succeeded in maintaining in their
       midst,for several centuries in succession, a certain
       socialized organization of production and trade; that these
       centuries were periods of a rapid intellectual, industrial,
       and artistic progress; while the decay of these communal
       institutions came mainly from the incapacity of men of
       combining the village with the city, the peasant with the
       citizen, so as jointly to oppose the growth of the military
       states, which destroyed the free cities.  The history of
       mankind, thus understood, does not offer, then, an argument
       against communism. It appears, on the contrary, as a
       succession of endeavours to realize some sort of communist
       organization, endeavours which were crowned here and there
       with a partial success of a certain duration; and all we are
       authorized to conclude is, that mankind has not yet found
       the proper form for combining, on communistic principles,
       agriculture with a suddenly developed industry and a rapidly
       growing international trade. The latter appears especially
       as a disturbing element, since it is no longer individuals
       only, or cities, that enrich themselves by distant commerce











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       and export; but whole nations grow rich at the cost of those
       nations which lag behind in their industrial development.
       These conditions, which began to appear by the end of the
       eighteenth century, took, however, their full development in
       the nineteenth century only, after the Napoleonic wars Caine
       to an end. And modern Communism has to take them into
       account.  It is now known that the French Revolution, apart
       from its political significance, was an attempt made by the
       French people, in 1793 and 1794, in three different
       directions more or less akin to Socialism. It has, first,
       the equalization of fortunes, by means of an income tax and
       succession duties, both heavily progressive, as also by a
       direct confiscation of the land in order to sub-divide it,
       and by heavy war taxes levied upon the rich only. The second
       attempt was a sort of Municipal Communism as regards the
       consumption of some objects of first necessity, bought by
       the municipalities, and sold by them at cost price. And the
       third attempt was to introduce a wide national system of
       rationally established prices of all commodities, for which
       the real cost of production and moderate trade profits had
       to be taken into account. The Convention worked hard at this
       scheme, and had nearly completed its work, when reaction
       took the upper hand.  It was during this remarkable
       movement, which has never yet been properly studied, that
       modern Socialism was born--Fourierism with L'Ange, at Lyons,
       and authoritarian Communism with Buonarotti, Babeuf, and
       their comrades. And it was immediately after the Great
       Revolution that the three great theoretical founders of
       modern Socialism--Fourier, Saint Simon, and Robert Owen, as
       well as Godwin (the No-State Socialism)--came forward; while
       the secret communist societies, originated from those of
       Buonarroti and Babeuf, gave their stamp to militant,
       authoritarian Communism for the next fifty years.  To be
       correct, then, we must say that modern Socialism is not yet
       a hundred years old, and that, for the first half of these
       hundred years, two nations only, which stood at the head of
       the industrial movement, i.e., Britain and France, took part
       in its elaboration. Both bleeding at that time from the
       terrible wounds inflicted upon them by fifteen years of
       Napoleonic wars, and both enveloped in the great European
       reaction that had come from the East.  In fact, it was only
       after the Revolution of July, 1830, in France, and the
       Reform movement of 1830-1832 in this country, had begun to
       shake off that terrible reaction, that the discussion of
       Socialism became possible for a few years before the
       revolution of 1848. And it was during those years that the
       aspirations of Fourier, St. Simon, and Robert Owen, worked
       out by their followers, took a definite shape, and the
       different schools of Socialism which exist nowadays were
       defined.  In Britain, Robert Owell and his followers worked
       out their schemes of communist villages, agricultural and











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       industrial at the same time; immense co-operative
       associations were started for creating with their dividends
       more communist colonies; and the Great Consolidated Trades'
       Union was founded-the forerunner of both the Lahour Parties
       of our days and the International Workingmen's Association.
       In France, the Fourierist Considerant issued his remarkable
       manifesto, which contains, beautifully developed, all the
       theoretical considerations upon the growth of Capitalism,
       which are now described as "Scientific Socialism." Proudhon
       worked out his idea of Anarchism and Mutualism, without
       State interference. Louis Blanc published his Organization
       of Labour, which became later on the programme of Lassalle.
       Vidal in France and Lorenz Stein in Germany further
       developed, in two remarkable works, published in 1846 and
       1847 respectively, the theoretical conceptions of
       Considerant; and finally Vidal, and especially Pecqueur,
       developed in detail the system of Collectivism, which the
       former wanted the National Assembly of 1848 to vote in the
       shape of laws.  However, there is one feature, common to all
       Socialist schemes of that period, which must be noted. The
       three great founders of Socialism who wrote at the dawn of
       the nineteenth century were so entranced by the wide
       horizons which it opened before them, that they looked upon
       it as a new revelation, and upon themselves as upon the
       founders of a new religion.  Socialism had to be a religion,
       and they had to regulate its march, as the heads of a new
       church. Besides, writing during the period of reaction which
       had followed the French Revolution, and seeing more its
       failures than its successes, they did not trust the masses,
       and they did not appeal to them for bringing about the
       changes which they thought necessary.  They put their faith,
       on the contrary, into some great ruler, some Socialist
       Napoleon. He would understand the new revelation; he would
       be convinced of its desirability by the successful
       experiments of their phalansteries, or associations; and he
       would peacefully accomplish by his own authority the
       revolution which would bring well-being and happiness to
       mankind. A military genius, Napoleon, had just been ruling
       Europe, Why should not a social genius come forward, carry
       Europe with him and translate the new Gospel into life? That
       faith was rooted very deep, and it stood for a long time in
       the way of Socialism; its traces are even seen amongst us,
       down to the present day.  It was only during the years
       1840-48, when the approach of the Revolution was felt
       everywhere, and the proletarians were beginning to p]ant the
       banner of Socialism on the barricades, that faith in the
       people began to enter once more the hearts of the social
       schemers: faith, on the one side, in Republic and Democracy,
       and on the other side in free association, in the organising
       power of the working-men themselves.












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       Upon another point they also were agreed. It was that the
       labour unions themselves would have to get hold of the
       instruments of production, and organize production
       themselves. The French idea of the Fourierist and Mutualist
       "Association" thus joined hands with Robert Owen's idea of
       "The Great Consolidated Trades' Union", which was extended
       now, so as to become an International Working-men's
       Association.

       Again this new revival of Socialism lasted but a few years.
       Soon came the war of 1870- 71, the uprising of the Paris
       Commune--and again the free development of Socialism was
       rendered impossible in France. But while Germany accepted
       now from the hands of its German teachers, Marx and Engels,
       the Socialism of the French "forty-eighters" that is, the
       Socialism of Considerant and Louis Blanc, and the
       Collectivism of Pecqueur,--France made a further step
       forward.  In March, 1871, Paris had proclaimed that hence
       forward it would not wait for the retardatory portions of
       France: that it intended to start within its Commune its own
       social development.  The movement was too short-lived to
       give any positive result. It remained communalist only; it
       merely asserted the rights of the commune to its full
       autonomy. But the working-classes of the old International
       saw at once its historical significance. They understood
       that the free commune would be henceforth the medium in
       which the ideas of modern Socialism may come to realization.
       The free agro-industrial communes, of which so much was
       spoken in England and France before 1848, need not be small
       phalansteries, or small communities of 2000 persons. They
       must be vast agglomerations, like Paris, or, still better,
       small territories. These communes would federate to
       constitute nations in some cases, even irrespectively of the
       present national frontiers (like the Cinque Ports, or the
       Hansa). At the same time large labour associations would
       come into existence for the inter-communal service of the
       railways, the docks, and so on.  Such were the ideas which
       began vaguely to circulate after 1871 amongst the thinking
       working-men, especially in the Latin countries.  In some
       such organization, the details of which life itself would
       settle, the labour circles saw the medium through which
       Socialist forms of life could find a much easier realization
       than through the seizure of all industrial property by the
       State, and the State organization of agriculture and
       industry.  These are the ideas to which I have endeavoured
       to give a more or less definite expression in this book.
       Looking back now at the years that have passed since this
       book was written, I can say in full conscience that its
       leading ideas must have been correct. State Socialism has
       certainly made considerable progress. State railways, State
       banking, and State trade in spirits have been introduced











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       here and there. But every step made in this direction, even
       though it resulted in the cheapening of a given commodity,
       was found to be a new obstacle in the struggle of the
       working-men for their emancipation. So that we find growing
       amongst the working-men, especially in Western Europe, the
       idea that even the working of such a vast national Property
       as a railway-net could be much better handled by a Federated
       Union of railway employees, than by a State organisation.
       On the other side, we see that countless attempts have been
       made all over Europe and America, the leading idea of which
       is, on the one side, to get into the hands of the working-
       men themselves wide branches of production, and, on the
       other side, to always widen in the cities the circles of the
       functions which the city performs in the interest of its
       Inhabitants Trade-unionism, with a growing tendency towards
       organizing the different trades internationally, and of
       being not only an instrument for the improvement of the
       conditions of labour, but also of becoming an organisation
       which might, at a given moment, take into its hands the
       management of production; Co-operation, both for production
       and for distribution, both in industry and agriculture, and
       attempts at combining both sorts of co-operation in
       experimental colonies; and finally, the immensely varied
       field of the so-called Municipal Socialism --these are the
       three directions in which the greatest amount of creative
       power has been developed lately.  Of course, none of these
       may, in any degree, be taken as a substitute for Communism,
       or even for Socialism, both of which imply the common
       possession of the instruments of production.  But we
       certainly must look at all these attempts as upon
       experiments--like those which Owen, Fourier, and Saint Simon
       tried in their colonies --experiments which prepare human
       thought to conceive some of the practical forms in which a
       communist society might find its expression.  The synthesis
       of all these partial experiments will have to be made some
       day by the constructive genius of some one of the civilised
       nations. But samples of the bricks out of which the great
       synthetic building will have to be built, and even samples
       of some of its rooms, are being prepared by the immense
       effort of the constructive genius of man.

       BRIGHTON.  January, 1913.

















