Kropotkin and Revolution

Abstract

Anarchists, and Kropotkin in particular, are often depicted as optimists who lack a realistic view of how to achieve fundamental social change. This article counters this narrative by reconstructing Kropotkin's views on revolution and the arguments he used to justify it. In particular, I demonstrate that Kropotkin developed complex theories about how revolutions arise, what form a revolution must take in order to succeed, and how anarchists should act to achieve their goals. Kropotkin did not ignore or downplay the difficulties that any revolution would encounter.Instead, he considered the potential obstacles and developed coherent arguments for why the methods of anarchism were best suited to overcome them.