He was the og tankie, how else you think he managed to conquer every moscovite bakery by the turn of the century
Conquering bread sounds pretty red fash to me, hmmmmmmmmmm?
I read it as Kropotkin calling bread a conquistador and warning us of its right-wing tendencies and ratcheting effects, which is why he writes that there's "a right to bread" and how, with it, "the Revolution will be on the right road". Contrariwise, "great cities are left without bread".
He also points to its pernicious indoctrinating ways: "the worker’s child must go without bread!" and lurking omnipresence: "two departments round Paris could find ample bread"
He was telling us to be on the lookout and that getting rid of it was of the utmost importance: "the question of bread must take precedence of all other questions", "suppress the possibility of obtaining anything besides the bread", "is necessary to deliver the bread", "bread must be found", "produce the bread". Fortunately this shouldn't be too hard: "less than 6 half-days’ work could procure bread".
In desperate times, we should not just eat the rich: "in times of Revolution one can dine contentedly enough on a bit of bread and cheese" (cheese being identified as a collaborator).
The concerning parts of the book for me are:
- the disregard for prison abolition—as he writes of how people will be better off once they "know that their daily bread is secured"—and the preoccupation with Russians as jailers: "But as soon as the Revolution comes, the Russian peasant will keep bread". However, at least we can have a party after: "After bread has been secured, leisure is the supreme aim", and the sentence is not especially long: "to have bread for a whole year". Also, while it seems that he does believe in people's justice to an extent: "give bread to everyone; to transform this execrable society", the people are a vengeful mob: 'which old institutions will fall under the proletarian axe, voices will cry out: "Bread';
- the sinophobia and racism: "Let us make sure of bread to begin with, we shall see to china and velvet later on." (I think Velvet is one of those old-timey names like "Ceylon".)
I fucked a loaf of bread onceWe love our Anarchist ComradesGotta say that I spent a number of years as a teenage boy and of all the objects i considered making sweet love to, bread was never one of them.
When he was a boy, he watched in horror as bread murdered his family and from that moment he swore to conquer and destroy every bread in the world.
confirmed stupid. He wrote that you shouldn't take the words written by old men 100 years ago as gospel, yet the book was published in 1892... uh ohh 😱
It is in much the same fashion that the shrewd heads among the middle classes reason when they say, “Ah, Expropriation! I know what that means. You take all the overcoats and lay them in a heap, and every one is free to help himself and fight for the best.”
But such jests are irrelevant as well as flippant. What we want is not a redistribution of overcoats, although it must be said that even in such a case, the shivering folk would see advantage in it. Nor do we want to divide up the wealth of the Rothschilds. What we do want is so to arrange things that every human being born into the world shall be ensured the opportunity in the first instance of learning some useful occupation, and of becoming skilled in it; next, that he shall be free to work at his trade without asking leave of master or owner, and without handing over to landlord or capitalist the lion’s share of what he produces. As to the wealth held by the Rothschilds or the Vanderbilts, it will serve us to organize our system of communal production.
The day when the labourer may till the ground without paying away half of what he produces, the day when the machines necessary to prepare the soil for rich harvests are at the free disposal of the cultivators, the day when the worker in the factory produces for the community and not the monopolist — that day will see the workers clothed and fed, and there will be no more Rothschilds or other exploiters.
No one will then have to sell his working power for a wage that only represents a fraction of what he produces.
“So far so good,” say our critics, “but you will have Rothschilds coming in from outside. How are you to prevent a person from amassing millions in China and then settling amongst you? How are you going to prevent such a one from surrounding himself with lackeys and wage-slaves — from exploiting them and enriching himself at their expense?”
“You cannot bring about a revolution all over the world at the same time. Well, then, are you going to establish custom-houses on your frontiers to search all who enter your country and confiscate the money they bring with them? — Anarchist policemen firing on travellers would be a fine spectacle!”
But at the root of this argument there is a great error. Those who propound it have never paused to inquire whence come the fortunes of the rich. A little thought would, however, suffice to show them that these fortunes have their beginnings in the poverty of the poor. When there are no longer any destitute there will no longer be any rich to exploit them.
