The people -- Revolution and Socialism Equal rights of all to land "Communism" -- Situation not clearly understood by people -- Hatred of poor towards aristocracy and clergy -- Hatred of feudalism -- People's readiness to take up arms But what of the people? What was their idea? The people, too, had felt to a certain extent the influence of the current philosophy. By a thousand indirect channels the great principles of liberty and enfranchisement had filtered down to the villages and the suburbs of the large towns. Respect for royalty and aristocracy was passing away. Ideas of equality were penetrating to the very lowest ranks. Gleams of revolt flashed through many minds. The hope of an approaching change throbbed in the hearts of the humblest. "Something was to be done by some great folk for such poor ones"; she did not know who, nor how; "but God send us better," said an old woman, in 1789, to Arthur Young,1...
A Factor of EvolutionMutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution Peter Kropotkin 1902 Chapter 6: MUTUAL AID IN THE MEDIÆVAL CITY (continued) Likeness and diversity among the mediæval cities. -- The craftguilds: State-attributes in each of them. -- Attitude of the city towards the peasants; attempts to free them. -- The lords. -- Results achieved by the mediæval city: in arts, in learning. -- Causes of decay. The mediæval cities were not organized upon some preconceived plan in obedience to the will of an outside legislator. Each of them was a natural growth in the full sense of the word -- an always varying result of struggle between various forces which adjusted and re-adjusted themselves in conformity with their relative energies, the chances of their conflicts, and the support they found in their surroundings. Therefore, there are not two cities whose inner organization and destinies would have been identical. Each...
In taking the State and its historic role as the subject for this study, I think I am satisfying a much felt need at the present time: that of examining in depth the very concept of the State, of studying its essence, its past role and the part it may be called upon to play in the future. It is above all over the question of the State that socialists are divided. Two main currents can be discerned in the factions that exist among us which correspond to differences in temperament as well as in ways of thinking, but above all to the extent that one believes in the coming revolution. There are those, on the one hand, who hope to achieve the social revolution through the State by preserving and even extending most of its powers to be used for the revolution. And there are those like ourselves who see the State, both in its present form, in its very essence, and in whatever guise it might appear, an obstacle to the social revolution, the greatest hindrance to t...