Essays · Chapter
The Duties of the Present Hour explained
Kropotkin argues that anarchists must abandon abstract propaganda and individual acts of revolt, instead immersing themselves in the struggles of the working masses through associations, strikes, and collective action.
What happens
Kropotkin argues that anarchists must abandon abstract propaganda and individual acts of revolt, instead immersing themselves in the struggles of the working masses through associations, strikes, and collective action. He emphasizes that freedom depends not on laws but on active resistance to oppression, and warns that persecution can either help or hinder a movement depending on the balance of power. He calls for energetic defiance of repressive laws, urging anarchists to openly associate and proclaim their identity, while rejecting the notion that individual violence alone can overthrow bourgeois society.
Themes in this chapter
Role of the Masses and Direct Action
Kropotkin insists that revolution requires mass consciousness and collective struggle, not just individual heroism.
Solidarity and Mutual Aid
He calls for anarchists to associate with workers and participate in their struggles, building solidarity.
Critique of Government and Authority
The chapter argues that freedom depends on resistance to laws, not on legal guarantees, and that governments will oppress as far as they are allowed.
Revolution and Violence
Kropotkin critiques the over-reliance on individual acts of violence, arguing they cannot replace mass action.
Characters to notice
- Kropotkin
Author of the chapter, urging anarchists to change tactics and engage with the masses.
- Anarchists
The primary audience; criticized for isolation and urged to participate in popular movements.
- Socialists
Parliamentarian socialists who try to distance themselves from anarchists, which Kropotkin calls a strategic error.
- the masters
The bourgeoisie who use repression to protect their privileges.
Key passages
“Before all we must go among the people: this is the way of salvation for our cause.”
Our first priority must be to engage directly with ordinary people; that is how our movement will be saved.
Kropotkin's central call for anarchists to immerse themselves in popular life.
“The degree of freedom, as well as the degree of exploitation under which we live, is not at all, or only in a small measure, dependent upon the letter of the law: it depends before all upon the resistance offered to the laws.”
How free or exploited we are has little to do with written laws; it mainly depends on how much we resist those laws.
Key argument that active defiance, not legal rights, determines actual liberty.
“Those Socialists who imagine to escape the reaction by severing their cause from that of the Anarchists, not only give proof of a narrowness of view which is incompatible with aims of radical reorganisation of the social system, but they betray stupidly their proper interest.”
Socialists who think they can avoid repression by distancing themselves from anarchists are both short-sighted and foolishly against their own interests.
Warning that division among radicals only helps the ruling class.
“It is necessary that the people be conscious of their rights and their strength; it is necessary that they be ready to fight and ready to take the conduct of their affairs into their own hands.”
The masses must become aware of their own power and be prepared to struggle and self-govern.
Emphasis on mass consciousness as prerequisite for revolution.