Kropotkin's Revolutionary Pamphlets - Libcom

78 KROPOTKIN'S REVOLUTIONARY PAMPHLETS
come. There is only one way of avoiding it. We should
derstand that as soon as a revolutionary movement begins
In any country the only possible way out will consist in the
workingm
n and peasant from the beginning taking the
whole natIonal economy Into their hands and organizing it
themselves with a view to a rapid increase in production.
But they will not be convinced of this necessity except
when all responsibility for national economy, today in the
hands
f a
ultitude of ministers and committees, is presented
In a Slmple form to each village and city, in every
factory and shop, as their own affair, and when they understand
that they must direct it themselves.
NOTE FOil "ANAllCHIST MOB.ALITY"
This study of the origin and function of what we call "morality"
was written for pamphlet publication as a result of an
amusing situation. An anarchist who ran a store in England
found that his comrades in the movement regarded it as perfectly
right to take his goods without paying for them. "To
each according to his need" seemed to them to justify letting
those who were best able foot the bills. Kropotkin was appealed
to, with the result that he not only condemned such doctrine,
but was moved to write the comrades this sermon.
Its conception of morality is based on the ideas set forth
in Mutual Aid and later developed in his Ethics. Here they
are given specific application to "right and wrong" in the
business of social living. The job is done with fine feeling
and with acute shafts at the shams of current morality.
Kropotkin sees the source of all so-called moral ideas in
pnmltlve superstltlons. The real moral sense which guides
our social behavior is instinctive, based on the sympathy
and unity inherent in group life. Mutual aid is the condition
of successful social living. The moral base is therefore
the good old golden rule "Do to others as you would have
others do to you in the same circumstances," -which disposed
of the ethics of the shopkeeper's anarchist customers.
This natural moral sense was perverted, Kropotkin says,
by the superstitions surrounding law, religion and authority,
deliberately cultivated by conquerors, exploiters and priests
for their own benefit. Morality has therefore become the
instrument of ruling classes to protect their privileges.
He defends the morality of killing for the benefit of mankind,-as
in the assassination of tyrants,-but never for self.
Love and hate he regards as greater social forces for controlling
wrong-doing than punishment, which he rejects as
useless and evil. Account-book morality,--doing right only
to receive a benefit,-he scores roundly, urging instead the
satisfactions and joy of "sowing life around you" by giving
yourself to the uttermost to your fellow-men. Not of course
to do them good, in the spirit of philanthropy, but to be
one with them, equal and sharing.
79