Kropotkin's patriotism: anarchist philosopher would not understand his modern followers
People born and living in Russia should jointly take care of its prosperity and well-being, and most importantly, of peace in the country, regardless of their political convictions and specific views on its social and political structure. But events in Ukraine show that in Russia there is no “fifth column”. There are people who, although they live in Russia, study here or work, may be the most genuine ethnic Russians “by passport and by face”, but in fact they hate Russia and the Russian people.
It is significant that in their Russophobia ultra-leftists are most active today. All sorts of anarchists, Trotskyists, neo-Marxists vied with each other about their desired prospects for ending the civil war in Ukraine, and they see this scenario as optimal for Russia. This is the extent to which hypocrisy and bloodthirstiness have to be reached in order to wish their people bloodshed, especially in the form of fratricidal wars! To rejoice in the weakening of the position of their homeland in a neighboring country inhabited by millions of Russian-speaking people, to support the killing of Russian people and people of other nationalities, committed by fanatics - neo-Nazis and foreign mercenaries.
In their Russophobia, the leftists go so far as to forget about the positions of their own idols, the theorists and practitioners of the same anarchism. It is difficult to find in the leftist environment a person who is not familiar with the name of Peter Kropotkin - an outstanding philosopher, natural scientist and revolutionary who laid the foundations of the anarcho-communist concept - the most common direction of anarchism today. For educated people, Peter Kropotkin needs no introduction — not only as a revolutionary and a utopian philosopher, but also as a famous natural scientist. Unfortunately, in modern Russia, Kropotkin and his legacy are viewed somewhat one-sidedly. In fact, the perpetuation of the memory of this outstanding Russian thinker turned out to be monopolized by the ultra-left — representatives of neo-anarchism, ideas and, in particular, whose behavior in real politics are very indirectly related to what Peter Kropotkin advocated and positioned himself in political life.
Kropotkin is a very interesting and controversial figure. A representative of the most distinguished princely family, who was educated in the Page Corps and from childhood had distinct prospects for a great career in the military or bureaucratic line, refused to serve in the guards regiments and entered the Amur Cossack army. Next were scientific studies in geography and biology, Russian and world stories, a fascination with his contemporary social philosophy and, as a result, the coming to the ideas of anarchism, with which his name was forever connected. Kropotkin developed the ideas of Mikhail Bakunin, another prominent Russian anarchist philosopher, giving them a constructive content that his predecessor lacked. First of all, outlining the contours of the future society, which Kropotkin saw as a confederation of peasant and urban communities.
In contrast to modern anarchists, Euroleafs, who diligently try to implant "Westernist" values alien to Russian civilization in Russia, based on essentially individualistic and liberal philosophy, Kropotkinian anarchism "flesh of flesh" expressed the communal aspirations of the Russian peasantry. Conciliarity, communalism since ancient times were inherent in the Russian people, and Kropotkin, being unlike his modern followers, is still a patriot of Russia, understood very well that the vector of social transformations should be based on the traditionalist component. Unfortunately, Kropotkin brought into the wilds of excessive utopia and, arguing about the communal stateless system, as a kind of ideal of social order, the “golden age” on earth, the thinker overlooked the practical unattainability of this ideal.
Kropotkin should be commended not only as a social thinker, but also as a natural scientist who tried to explain social processes based on the search for analogies in the natural environment. As a biosociologist, Kropotkin became best known for his book “Mutual assistance among animals and people as an engine of progress,” in which he tried to show how mutual solidarity and support of people to each other can help improve their living conditions. At the same time, the author referred to numerous examples of mutual assistance in the animal world, which he observed during his travels in Eastern Siberia during his service in the Amur Cossack army. Kropotkin believed that the basis of mutual assistance was precisely the institutions of a traditional society — the clan system, the community, the medieval guild town, in which collectivist principles provided support and protection to each member of this “microsystem”.
There are no parallels with the realm of permissiveness and vice, which is drawn in the imagination of modern Euroleafs - apologists of sexual minorities - does not appear here. That is, despite some similarities of concepts, in reality, modern leftists, which are a more radical variant of liberal (more precisely, “liberalistic”) ideologies, have a very indirect relationship to the same Bakunin or Kropotkin, which, although anarchists, did not ignore the national specifics , did not speak in terms of frank cosmopolitanism and support for unnatural aspirations and vices of man, posing as manifestations of freedom.
Kropotkin quite accurately captured the essence of the liberal system, based on the priority of individualistic values and aimed at the “war of all against all” in the interests of exclusively personal enrichment. And his anti-state pathos was rooted, first of all, in the understanding of the modern state as a machine aimed at ensuring the vested interests of a fairly narrow circle of people to the detriment of wider segments of the population. Of course, the existence of a stateless society, at least at the stage of development of society in which it is at present, is impossible, but this does not detract from the critical potential of the Kropotkin theory, which, by the way, some politicians in the 20th century actively tried to develop their states on the “third way” - in particular, the Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi - an outstanding reformer, the overthrow of which again overturned Libya in the backwardness and chaos that prevailed there before this unique nogo personality.
For modern society, however, it is primarily indicative of how Kropotkin, being a revolutionary anarchist, could combine his essentially anti-monarchical and anti-systemic ideas with love for Russia and the Russian people. As soon as Russia was in danger, Prince Kropotkin, a fierce critic of autocracy and a fiery anarchist, turned into a fervent patriot of his homeland. Unlike modern Euroleafs, it would never have occurred to Petr Kropotkin to advocate for the defeat of his Russia in a bloody war with an external aggressor, to wish the victory of Russophobic forces in any province of the Russian Empire.
The patriotic position of Pyotr Alekseevich in the Russian-Japanese and World War I deserves respect, scornfully called by the Eurasian players "defencism" (I remind you that Lenin and his like-minded people demanded defeat of Russia the result of the war). The essence of defencism was that in the face of an external enemy threatening the very existence of Russia, the Russian civilization, it is worth forgetting numerous mutual offenses and political disputes and rally to defend their homeland. To rally everyone - both those who see the development of Russia as a monarchy, and those who adhere to the republican form of government, and even those whose ideals lie in the plane of a stateless society.
It should be noted that by the majority of foreign and Russian anarchists of that time, Kropotkin’s position was sharply criticized - it seemed to them a violation of the very foundations of anarchist ideology, which required the denial of any state and in any circumstances. In particular, Errico Malatesta, an Italian, who was in fact the second most important anarchist communist theorist after Peter Kropotkin, even broke off business and friendship relations with the latter. Malatesta gave birth to an accusatory article “Anarchists forgot their principles,” in which he criticized Kropotkin’s “social chauvinism” and those former like-minded people who took the side of an elderly philosopher, guided by their own political views of patriotic content.
Recall that many Russian anarchists participated in the First World War. So, Konstantin Akashev is one of the future creators of the Red Army Air Force (Workers 'and Peasants' Air Force Fleet) got aviation trained in France and then served in the French army, and returning to Russia, he worked at leading aviation plants. The famous Marusya Nikiforova also served in the French army - although her personality itself can hardly cause serious sympathy, but, we must pay tribute, she fully supported Peter Kropotkin on the issue of war. Moreover, she graduated from the French military school and took part in the hostilities in Macedonia as part of the French army. Since the end of 1914, Alexander Moiseevich Atabekyan, the lieutenant colonel of the Russian army, and, concurrently, the Armenian prince, one of the first propagandists of anarchist ideas in Russia and the personal physician Peter Kropotkin, served as the head of the field hospital on the Caucasus Front. Even more participants in the First World War were among ordinary anarchists - especially of proletarian or peasant origin.
The positions opposed to Kropotkin on the issue of war were also expressed by the majority of the leaders of Russian and world anarchism at that time — Alexander Berkman, Emma Goldman, Rudolf Rokker, Judah Grossman-Roshchin, and Alexander Shapiro were among them. All of them were united by a cosmopolitan position aimed at denying the need for Russia's participation in the war. Opponents of Kropotkin called for the war between Russia and Germany to escalate into a civil war, or simply to defeat the Russian army in hostilities with the enemy. It should be noted here that almost all of these people were immigrants and had not lived in Russia for a long time. Accordingly, the horrors of civil war would not affect them personally. Moreover, having long since lost touch with Russia, turned into foreigners, they did not take her problems and adversities to heart. They were driven only by the desire for a literalistic conformity with the provisions of the anarchist doctrine, written on paper of numerous appeals and articles, but very alien to the real political situation, both in the world and in the Russian Empire itself.
The call of Kropotkin, which also contained the following words: “Men, women, children of Russia, save our country and civilization from the black hundreds of central empires! [...] Contrast them with the heroic united front ”- shocked the then advocates of the purity of anarchist doctrine. But, on the other hand, Russian patriots accepted with satisfaction the courageous position of the philosopher and scientist, who enjoyed great respect even among political opponents. As real patriots of Russia from among former White emigres during the Great Patriotic War did not consider it possible to advocate for the defeat of the Soviet Union in the war against Nazi Germany, so Kropotkin and his like-minded "defencism" could not wish for the defeat of the Russian Empire in the First World War. For this, the patriots respected the political position of the prince, the rebel, despite his other ideological "eccentricities" and twists.
The consequences of the victory of Germany and its allies over the Russian Empire would, in Kropotkin’s opinion, be terrible: “In Russia, I don’t even want to think about the consequences of Germany’s triumph, for they would be terrible. What will happen to the internal development of Russia, when on the Neman, in Riga, and, perhaps, in Reval, German fortresses were erected, like Metz, not to protect the conquered territory, but to attack? Fortresses, where, on the very first day of the declaration of war, will hundreds of thousands of troops, with all their artillery, be ready to go to Petrograd? ”(P. Kropotkin. Letters on current events. M., 1917.). Germany’s victory, according to Kropotkin, would have buried all hopes for Russia's further social and economic development, would have delayed the prospects for changing the existing political system and entailed the conservation of the most backward sides of the Russian state. That is, Kropotkin, remaining a supporter of revolutionary ideas, saw in the victory of Germany not only a blow to Russia as a sovereign state, but also the prospect of weakening the position of the revolutionary movement.
The First World War made significant adjustments to Kropotkin’s worldview, which the modern anarchists deify him very much. Namely, in the revolutionary 1917, Kropotkin did not at all advocate the immediate destruction of Russian statehood, as many European and Russian anarchists wanted. Having departed from the literalistic understanding of his doctrine, Peter Kropotkin considered it necessary to preserve Russian statehood at least in the form of a federation, stressing that the federalization of Russia does not mean the fragmentation of the country, which would entail its “balkanization”. The independence of the subjects of the federation should be strictly controlled by the federal center and in strategic matters the opinion of the federal center should be decisive. Against the backdrop of “parades of sovereignties” that accompanied the 1917 revolution of the year, this statement from the old anarchist looked very patriotic. Unlike modern homegrown "theorists", from warm metropolitan apartments calling for continued bloodshed in Ukraine, civil war and Russia’s borrowing of "Maidan experience", Peter Kropotkin was perfectly aware of the horror of the upcoming civil war and spoke out for its prevention by turning the country into a federation with strong central authority.
It is indicative that Kropotkin, unlike the Bolsheviks, categorically objected to the fraternization of Russian soldiers with German and Austro-Hungarian soldiers. He even made a corresponding appeal to the officers of the General Staff of the Russian Imperial Army - to prevent attempts at fraternization with the enemy. The prince rightly believed that examples of fraternization with the enemy would have a negative impact on the behavior of Russian soldiers, disintegrating their morale. Even when the Brest peace was concluded by the Bolshevik government, Kropotkin repeatedly spoke out with his criticism and urged the troops to continue the fighting.
Nevertheless, Kropotkin's position regarding the confrontation in the First World War contained the most important mistake: sincerely believing that the Entente countries personify genuine social progress, the philosopher oriented Russia towards Anglophilia and Francophilic sentiment, calling upon the conclusion of the Brest peace to continue the war against Germany on the side of the Entente. He took the side of the Entente because he saw in it progressive and democratic forces, unlike the German, Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman empires. That is, he overlooked the very meaning of world wars, which were unleashed by the same Anglo-Saxon elites in order to strengthen their world domination. Absolutizing the positive tendencies of the victory of England and France, Kropotkin forgot that English and French imperialism are no less disgusting than German imperialism. Moreover, for Russia it was English policy that always seemed the most dangerous, since it was Great Britain, and then the United States of America, that stood for dozens, if not hundreds, of anti-Russian (and later anti-Soviet and again anti-Russian) initiatives both in world politics and within the Russian state itself. This westernism was the key error of Kropotkin's position, which is especially clearly visible to us a century later after the events described.
The history of the twentieth century has twice demonstrated the desire of the Anglo-American bloc to push Russia and the countries of Central Europe together, while remaining, by and large, on the sidelines, and receiving financial and political dividends. However, unlike his modern followers, Kropotkin would hardly have thought to support the most reactionary and Russophobic forces in the neighboring fraternal Slavic state, and even more so wish there great bloodshed with the prospects for its spread to Russian territory. After all, as you know, “whatever political views you may have, but to desire the defeat of your Homeland is a national treason”.
It is significant that in their Russophobia ultra-leftists are most active today. All sorts of anarchists, Trotskyists, neo-Marxists vied with each other about their desired prospects for ending the civil war in Ukraine, and they see this scenario as optimal for Russia. This is the extent to which hypocrisy and bloodthirstiness have to be reached in order to wish their people bloodshed, especially in the form of fratricidal wars! To rejoice in the weakening of the position of their homeland in a neighboring country inhabited by millions of Russian-speaking people, to support the killing of Russian people and people of other nationalities, committed by fanatics - neo-Nazis and foreign mercenaries.
In their Russophobia, the leftists go so far as to forget about the positions of their own idols, the theorists and practitioners of the same anarchism. It is difficult to find in the leftist environment a person who is not familiar with the name of Peter Kropotkin - an outstanding philosopher, natural scientist and revolutionary who laid the foundations of the anarcho-communist concept - the most common direction of anarchism today. For educated people, Peter Kropotkin needs no introduction — not only as a revolutionary and a utopian philosopher, but also as a famous natural scientist. Unfortunately, in modern Russia, Kropotkin and his legacy are viewed somewhat one-sidedly. In fact, the perpetuation of the memory of this outstanding Russian thinker turned out to be monopolized by the ultra-left — representatives of neo-anarchism, ideas and, in particular, whose behavior in real politics are very indirectly related to what Peter Kropotkin advocated and positioned himself in political life.
Kropotkin is a very interesting and controversial figure. A representative of the most distinguished princely family, who was educated in the Page Corps and from childhood had distinct prospects for a great career in the military or bureaucratic line, refused to serve in the guards regiments and entered the Amur Cossack army. Next were scientific studies in geography and biology, Russian and world stories, a fascination with his contemporary social philosophy and, as a result, the coming to the ideas of anarchism, with which his name was forever connected. Kropotkin developed the ideas of Mikhail Bakunin, another prominent Russian anarchist philosopher, giving them a constructive content that his predecessor lacked. First of all, outlining the contours of the future society, which Kropotkin saw as a confederation of peasant and urban communities.
In contrast to modern anarchists, Euroleafs, who diligently try to implant "Westernist" values alien to Russian civilization in Russia, based on essentially individualistic and liberal philosophy, Kropotkinian anarchism "flesh of flesh" expressed the communal aspirations of the Russian peasantry. Conciliarity, communalism since ancient times were inherent in the Russian people, and Kropotkin, being unlike his modern followers, is still a patriot of Russia, understood very well that the vector of social transformations should be based on the traditionalist component. Unfortunately, Kropotkin brought into the wilds of excessive utopia and, arguing about the communal stateless system, as a kind of ideal of social order, the “golden age” on earth, the thinker overlooked the practical unattainability of this ideal.
Kropotkin should be commended not only as a social thinker, but also as a natural scientist who tried to explain social processes based on the search for analogies in the natural environment. As a biosociologist, Kropotkin became best known for his book “Mutual assistance among animals and people as an engine of progress,” in which he tried to show how mutual solidarity and support of people to each other can help improve their living conditions. At the same time, the author referred to numerous examples of mutual assistance in the animal world, which he observed during his travels in Eastern Siberia during his service in the Amur Cossack army. Kropotkin believed that the basis of mutual assistance was precisely the institutions of a traditional society — the clan system, the community, the medieval guild town, in which collectivist principles provided support and protection to each member of this “microsystem”. There are no parallels with the realm of permissiveness and vice, which is drawn in the imagination of modern Euroleafs - apologists of sexual minorities - does not appear here. That is, despite some similarities of concepts, in reality, modern leftists, which are a more radical variant of liberal (more precisely, “liberalistic”) ideologies, have a very indirect relationship to the same Bakunin or Kropotkin, which, although anarchists, did not ignore the national specifics , did not speak in terms of frank cosmopolitanism and support for unnatural aspirations and vices of man, posing as manifestations of freedom.
Kropotkin quite accurately captured the essence of the liberal system, based on the priority of individualistic values and aimed at the “war of all against all” in the interests of exclusively personal enrichment. And his anti-state pathos was rooted, first of all, in the understanding of the modern state as a machine aimed at ensuring the vested interests of a fairly narrow circle of people to the detriment of wider segments of the population. Of course, the existence of a stateless society, at least at the stage of development of society in which it is at present, is impossible, but this does not detract from the critical potential of the Kropotkin theory, which, by the way, some politicians in the 20th century actively tried to develop their states on the “third way” - in particular, the Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi - an outstanding reformer, the overthrow of which again overturned Libya in the backwardness and chaos that prevailed there before this unique nogo personality.
For modern society, however, it is primarily indicative of how Kropotkin, being a revolutionary anarchist, could combine his essentially anti-monarchical and anti-systemic ideas with love for Russia and the Russian people. As soon as Russia was in danger, Prince Kropotkin, a fierce critic of autocracy and a fiery anarchist, turned into a fervent patriot of his homeland. Unlike modern Euroleafs, it would never have occurred to Petr Kropotkin to advocate for the defeat of his Russia in a bloody war with an external aggressor, to wish the victory of Russophobic forces in any province of the Russian Empire.
The patriotic position of Pyotr Alekseevich in the Russian-Japanese and World War I deserves respect, scornfully called by the Eurasian players "defencism" (I remind you that Lenin and his like-minded people demanded defeat of Russia the result of the war). The essence of defencism was that in the face of an external enemy threatening the very existence of Russia, the Russian civilization, it is worth forgetting numerous mutual offenses and political disputes and rally to defend their homeland. To rally everyone - both those who see the development of Russia as a monarchy, and those who adhere to the republican form of government, and even those whose ideals lie in the plane of a stateless society.
It should be noted that by the majority of foreign and Russian anarchists of that time, Kropotkin’s position was sharply criticized - it seemed to them a violation of the very foundations of anarchist ideology, which required the denial of any state and in any circumstances. In particular, Errico Malatesta, an Italian, who was in fact the second most important anarchist communist theorist after Peter Kropotkin, even broke off business and friendship relations with the latter. Malatesta gave birth to an accusatory article “Anarchists forgot their principles,” in which he criticized Kropotkin’s “social chauvinism” and those former like-minded people who took the side of an elderly philosopher, guided by their own political views of patriotic content.
Recall that many Russian anarchists participated in the First World War. So, Konstantin Akashev is one of the future creators of the Red Army Air Force (Workers 'and Peasants' Air Force Fleet) got aviation trained in France and then served in the French army, and returning to Russia, he worked at leading aviation plants. The famous Marusya Nikiforova also served in the French army - although her personality itself can hardly cause serious sympathy, but, we must pay tribute, she fully supported Peter Kropotkin on the issue of war. Moreover, she graduated from the French military school and took part in the hostilities in Macedonia as part of the French army. Since the end of 1914, Alexander Moiseevich Atabekyan, the lieutenant colonel of the Russian army, and, concurrently, the Armenian prince, one of the first propagandists of anarchist ideas in Russia and the personal physician Peter Kropotkin, served as the head of the field hospital on the Caucasus Front. Even more participants in the First World War were among ordinary anarchists - especially of proletarian or peasant origin.
The positions opposed to Kropotkin on the issue of war were also expressed by the majority of the leaders of Russian and world anarchism at that time — Alexander Berkman, Emma Goldman, Rudolf Rokker, Judah Grossman-Roshchin, and Alexander Shapiro were among them. All of them were united by a cosmopolitan position aimed at denying the need for Russia's participation in the war. Opponents of Kropotkin called for the war between Russia and Germany to escalate into a civil war, or simply to defeat the Russian army in hostilities with the enemy. It should be noted here that almost all of these people were immigrants and had not lived in Russia for a long time. Accordingly, the horrors of civil war would not affect them personally. Moreover, having long since lost touch with Russia, turned into foreigners, they did not take her problems and adversities to heart. They were driven only by the desire for a literalistic conformity with the provisions of the anarchist doctrine, written on paper of numerous appeals and articles, but very alien to the real political situation, both in the world and in the Russian Empire itself.
The call of Kropotkin, which also contained the following words: “Men, women, children of Russia, save our country and civilization from the black hundreds of central empires! [...] Contrast them with the heroic united front ”- shocked the then advocates of the purity of anarchist doctrine. But, on the other hand, Russian patriots accepted with satisfaction the courageous position of the philosopher and scientist, who enjoyed great respect even among political opponents. As real patriots of Russia from among former White emigres during the Great Patriotic War did not consider it possible to advocate for the defeat of the Soviet Union in the war against Nazi Germany, so Kropotkin and his like-minded "defencism" could not wish for the defeat of the Russian Empire in the First World War. For this, the patriots respected the political position of the prince, the rebel, despite his other ideological "eccentricities" and twists. The consequences of the victory of Germany and its allies over the Russian Empire would, in Kropotkin’s opinion, be terrible: “In Russia, I don’t even want to think about the consequences of Germany’s triumph, for they would be terrible. What will happen to the internal development of Russia, when on the Neman, in Riga, and, perhaps, in Reval, German fortresses were erected, like Metz, not to protect the conquered territory, but to attack? Fortresses, where, on the very first day of the declaration of war, will hundreds of thousands of troops, with all their artillery, be ready to go to Petrograd? ”(P. Kropotkin. Letters on current events. M., 1917.). Germany’s victory, according to Kropotkin, would have buried all hopes for Russia's further social and economic development, would have delayed the prospects for changing the existing political system and entailed the conservation of the most backward sides of the Russian state. That is, Kropotkin, remaining a supporter of revolutionary ideas, saw in the victory of Germany not only a blow to Russia as a sovereign state, but also the prospect of weakening the position of the revolutionary movement.
The First World War made significant adjustments to Kropotkin’s worldview, which the modern anarchists deify him very much. Namely, in the revolutionary 1917, Kropotkin did not at all advocate the immediate destruction of Russian statehood, as many European and Russian anarchists wanted. Having departed from the literalistic understanding of his doctrine, Peter Kropotkin considered it necessary to preserve Russian statehood at least in the form of a federation, stressing that the federalization of Russia does not mean the fragmentation of the country, which would entail its “balkanization”. The independence of the subjects of the federation should be strictly controlled by the federal center and in strategic matters the opinion of the federal center should be decisive. Against the backdrop of “parades of sovereignties” that accompanied the 1917 revolution of the year, this statement from the old anarchist looked very patriotic. Unlike modern homegrown "theorists", from warm metropolitan apartments calling for continued bloodshed in Ukraine, civil war and Russia’s borrowing of "Maidan experience", Peter Kropotkin was perfectly aware of the horror of the upcoming civil war and spoke out for its prevention by turning the country into a federation with strong central authority.
It is indicative that Kropotkin, unlike the Bolsheviks, categorically objected to the fraternization of Russian soldiers with German and Austro-Hungarian soldiers. He even made a corresponding appeal to the officers of the General Staff of the Russian Imperial Army - to prevent attempts at fraternization with the enemy. The prince rightly believed that examples of fraternization with the enemy would have a negative impact on the behavior of Russian soldiers, disintegrating their morale. Even when the Brest peace was concluded by the Bolshevik government, Kropotkin repeatedly spoke out with his criticism and urged the troops to continue the fighting.
Nevertheless, Kropotkin's position regarding the confrontation in the First World War contained the most important mistake: sincerely believing that the Entente countries personify genuine social progress, the philosopher oriented Russia towards Anglophilia and Francophilic sentiment, calling upon the conclusion of the Brest peace to continue the war against Germany on the side of the Entente. He took the side of the Entente because he saw in it progressive and democratic forces, unlike the German, Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman empires. That is, he overlooked the very meaning of world wars, which were unleashed by the same Anglo-Saxon elites in order to strengthen their world domination. Absolutizing the positive tendencies of the victory of England and France, Kropotkin forgot that English and French imperialism are no less disgusting than German imperialism. Moreover, for Russia it was English policy that always seemed the most dangerous, since it was Great Britain, and then the United States of America, that stood for dozens, if not hundreds, of anti-Russian (and later anti-Soviet and again anti-Russian) initiatives both in world politics and within the Russian state itself. This westernism was the key error of Kropotkin's position, which is especially clearly visible to us a century later after the events described.
The history of the twentieth century has twice demonstrated the desire of the Anglo-American bloc to push Russia and the countries of Central Europe together, while remaining, by and large, on the sidelines, and receiving financial and political dividends. However, unlike his modern followers, Kropotkin would hardly have thought to support the most reactionary and Russophobic forces in the neighboring fraternal Slavic state, and even more so wish there great bloodshed with the prospects for its spread to Russian territory. After all, as you know, “whatever political views you may have, but to desire the defeat of your Homeland is a national treason”.
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