From New Anarchism to Post-anarchism

This chapter examines contemporary anarchist critiques of Kropotkin, especially post-anarchist analysis. It argues that science has become a byword to describe Kropotkin's political theory, providing an exemplar for classical anarchism. This theory is described as teleological, based on a particular concept of human nature and linked to a form of revolutionary utopianism that promises the realisation of anarchy. Post-anarchists dissolve the distance between Kropotkin and Bakunin that advocates of his evolutionary theory invented in the 1960s in order to rescue anarchism from its reputation for violence. This repackaging of historical traditions underpins judgments about the irrelevance of anarchism to contemporary politics and political theory. In response, critics of post-anarchism have sought to defend nineteenth-century revolutionary traditions. The result of this argument is that Kropotkin emerges as a political theorist of class struggle. This defence raises significant questions about the coherence of Kropotkin's position on the war in 1914.