Peter Kropotkin, Words of a Rebel , 1885.

Introduction to the First French Edition

by Elisee Reclus

For the last two and a half years, Peter Kropotkin has been in prison, cut off from the society of his fellows. His punishment is harsh, but the silence that has been imposed on him relating to the subjects nearest his heart is painful in another way: his captivity would weigh less heavily if he were not gagged. Months and years will doubtless flow by before the power of communicating is restored to him and he will be able to resume his interrupted conversation with his comrades.

The period of forced meditation which our friend is suffering will certainly not be to him time lost, but to us it seems very long! Life runs quickly, and we sadly watch the weeks and months flow by while that proud and honest voice remains unheard. Instead, what banalities will be dinned into us! What lying words will insult our minds! What mercenary half-truths will echo in our ears! We wait to hear again that sincere and unrestrained voice which so boldly proclaimed what is right.

But if the prisoner of Clairvaux no longer has the freedom to communicate with his comrades from the depths of his cell, at least they can remember their friend and put together his past writings. It is a duty I am able to fulfil and to which I gladly devote myself. The articles Kropotkin wrote between 1879 and 1882 in the anarchist paper, Le Revolte, seem to be suitable for publication as a collection; they are not dominated by the chance succession of daily events, but follow each other in a logical thematic order, while the vehemence of thought they project gives them the necessary unity of a book.

Faithful to his scientific method, the author exposes first the general situation of society, its schemes and vices, its elements of discord and war; he studies the symptoms of decay that the states display to us, and reveals the cracks that are opening in their structures and turning them to ruins. Then he shows what the clues offered by the experience of contemporary history have to offer us in our search for an anarchist evolution of society; he reveals their precise meaning and draws out the lessons they convey. Finally, in the chapter entitled "Expropriation," he sums up his ideas, drawn as they are from observation and experience, and calls on people of good will not to be content with knowledge only, but to bring themselves to action.

There is no need for me to sing the author's praises on this occasion. He is my friend, and if I said everything good that I know of him, I might be suspected of blindness or accused of partiality. It is enough to evoke the opinions of his judges and even of his jailers. Among those who have observed his life from near or far, there is nobody who does not respect him, who does not bear witness to his great intelligence and his heart overflowing with goodwill; there is nobody who will not acknowledge his nobility and purity of nature. And indeed, is it not for these very qualities that he has become forcibly acquainted with exile and captivity? His crime has been to love the poor and the powerless; his offense has been to plead their cause. Public opinion is unanimous in respecting this man, and yet it is not surprised to see the prison door close firmly upon him, so natural does it seem that superiority should be ill repaid and that devotion should be accompanied by suffering. It is impossible to see Kropotkin in the grip of the prison system and to offer a greeting to him, without asking oneself: "And why am I free? Why am I not also in prison? Is it perhaps because I am not worthy of it?"

Yet the readers of this book have less reason to concern themselves with the author as a person than with the value of the ideas he offers. I submit these ideas with confidence, to the kind of fair-minded people who do not pass judgement on a book until they have read it, or form an opinion about it before they have understood it. Put aside your prejudices, learn to disengage yourself from your interests, and read these pages simply in search of the truth without immediately becoming concerned with its application. The author asks only one thing of you, to share for a brief while his ideal, the welfare of all, not that of a privileged few. If this willingness, however fleeting it may be, is truly sincere and not a mere caprice of fantasy, an image that does no more than pass before your eyes, it is likely that you will soon find yourselves in agreement with the writer. And if you come to share his hopes, you will understand his words. But you will also know in advance that these ideas will not load you with honours; they will never make you the recipient of a position with great perquisites; more likely they will draw down on you at best the distrust of your old friends, and at worst some more brutal blow from on high. If you go in search of justice, be prepared to suffer iniquities.

At the moment when this book is being published, France is in the midst of an electoral crisis. I am not simple enough to recommend that the candidates should read this book -- they have other "duties" to fulfil -- but I do invite the voters to pick up Words of a Rebel, and I especially recommend to them the chapter entitled "Representative Government." There they will learn how much their confidence is justified in these men who appear from all sides to court the honour of representing in parliament their fellow citizens. Just at present everything is made to look well. The candidates are of course omniscient and infallible, but what will they become once they have received their mandates? When they have eventually achieved their fragments of kingly power, will they not inevitably be seized by the exaltation of office and, like real monarchs, see themselves as exempt from the need to show either wisdom or virtue? Even if they had any intent of keeping the promises which they lavished before being elected, how could they hope to sustain their integrity once they were surrounded by the mob of patronage seekers and interested advisers? Even if one can imagine a man being unspoilt on the day he entered the Chamber of Deputies, how can one hope that he would emerge uncorrupted? In this setting dominated by intrigue we see such men turning to right and left as if they were drawn by some dominating machine. At best they become time-servers who put on a good face and make a quick impression, only to turn their backs soon afterwards and pitifully allow themselves to be pushed to the wall.

Our salvation does not lie in the choice of new masters. As anarchists and enemies of Christianity, we must remind a whole society that pretends to be Christian of these words spoken by a man they made into a God: "Say unto no man, Master, Master." Let everyone remain his own master. Do not turn towards those who sit in office, or to the noisy demagogues in your search for a true message of freedom. Listen rather to the voices that come from below, even if they have to pass through the bars of a prison cell.

Elisee Reclus
Clarens, Switzerland
1st October, 1885