by Pëtr Kropotkin
Kropotkine writes from an androcentric point of view. In his texts, we find an author who looks at the world through the eyes and position of a heterosexual white man. Nevertheless, Kropotkine offers fundamental analyses that are in line with the current proposals of certain branches of feminism.
The Conquest of Bread is one of the most famous anarchist texts, translated into several languages and published in the most remote regions of the planet; this work inspired several revolutionary processes, such as that of the Ukraine of Majnó and that of Spain in 1936. Like many eminent authors, Kropotkin writes from an androcentric point of view. In other words, it is clear in his text that we are dealing with the words of an author who looks at the world through the eyes and from the position of a white heterosexual man.
The persistence of the patriarchal gaze in Kropotkin’s text is concentrated, on the one hand, on the non-visibilization of female references (Olympe de Gouges, Flora Tristán, Louise Michel, etc.), thus conveying to us a biased, partial and androcentric view of the revolutionary experience, maintaining sexist stereotypes and gender roles in certain parts of his socio-economic analysis. On the other hand, in its libertarian proposals, it is so laconic when it comes to talking about the situation of children that it does not question or propose any other mode of childcare than maternal care, suggesting that it is mothers who must leave collective work to look after children. We can therefore state that, despite its revolutionary value in other aspects of social life, The Conquest of Bread establishes a silence around other issues of women’s oppression such as marriage and the traditional family. Issues that also concerned Bakunin.
Kropotkin did not see the economic value of human sexuality, and this is reflected in his work. His famous book The Conquest of Bread is an example of this. And it was not only because he did not see that it was important, but because he actually believed that it was not. We can confirm this thanks to a passage by E. Goldman, in her biography Living My Life. In it, she tells how during one of her London meetings with Kropotkin, they had an argument when the geographer criticized her for devoting too much space to the sexual issue in her propaganda work. In recounting the scene, Emma Goldman emphasizes that Sofia Ananiev, Kropotkin’s companion (whose scientific training as a biologist is worth noting and who today remains in the shadow of her husband), accompanied them in silence as she sewed a dress for their daughter (Goldman, 1996: 286).
Contributions to the emancipation of women in The Conquest of Bread
Despite these limitations, Kropotkin’s text contains fundamental analyses that are in line with the current proposals of certain branches of feminism, such as the approaches of certain feminist economists or certain revolutionary movements such as the Zapatistas and the Kurds.
One of the most striking aspects is that Kropotkin detects and raises work-related issues that concerned the existence of women in his time, thus denouncing patriarchal oppression in the field of work and the economy. It is important to observe how he begins to highlight, in certain parts of his work, the contributions of women in the economic sphere, giving them their own identity as workers and producers. For example, when he talks about how to obtain more food by cultivating the land intended for the parks and gardens of Paris, he alludes to the contributions of both men and women.
Another aspect that Kropotkine includes in his book is of great importance: the specific effects on the health of women who have certain manufacturing jobs, as he denounces the poor conditions in certain factories in England.
However, Kropotkin’s greatest contribution to feminism is undoubtedly the revaluation of the reproductive sphere in his concept of the economy. In this work, Kropotkin clearly affirms the productive importance of the reproductive sphere, exploding the idea of separate spheres of the capitalist and liberal economy of his time. In The Conquest of Bread, Kropotkin distances himself from these positions and starts from the principle that he recognizes and accords an economic value to the tasks of care and reproduction. In addition, he defends the idea that the basic needs of every human being must be satisfied and guaranteed free of charge; achieving this must be the ultimate goal, not only of the revolutionary process, but also of economic science as he conceives it.
Kropotkin understood the productive importance of the reproductive sphere, exploding the idea of separate spheres of the capitalist and liberal economy of his time.
In this work, he formulated a theoretical proposal for the distribution of care and reproductive tasks, while denouncing the patriarchal oppression of women. In the chapter entitled “Pleasant Labor,” Kropotkin elaborates on his proposal for the distribution of domestic tasks. It should be noted here that his proposal is preceded by an explicit denunciation of the system of oppression and domination of women by the patriarchy: “The same will be true of domestic work, which society today makes the scapegoat of humanity, the woman” (KROPOTKIN, 2005: 123).
In The Conquest of Bread, the Russian thinker explicitly recognizes the struggle for women’s emancipation of his time, giving the example of North American feminists who were beginning to demand recognition of their civil and legal rights and of the women’s movement that was beginning to question the oppression of women as the ones responsible for the tasks and care associated with the reproduction of life.
Kropotkin’s proposal for liberation from the tasks of care and reproduction of the species is based on technological and scientific progress, but in a way that is radically opposed to the way capitalism has conceived it and how we experience it in our neoliberal society. It does not advocate regarding dishwashers as individual consumer goods that should exist in every home in the world – with the impact and environmental degradation that we know this implies – but invites us to think about community solutions that would make it possible to carry out reproductive tasks by taking advantage of technological progress. In this way, women would be freed from this oppression, for example, through the creation of a dishwashing and kitchen utensil washing area, where these machines and a few people working on them would do this work for the whole neighborhood. Moreover, in this proposal for reproductive work, Kropotkin clearly indicates that it should be carried out in a community manner, without even mentioning a gender distribution of the associated professional activities. The author specifies that it is an obligation of society as a whole which, as he emphasized, should not fall solely to women.
In relation to these questions, it is worth mentioning how, at a certain point, Kropotkin questioned the gender bias in the technological development of his time, understanding that machines were not being introduced for household tasks because they were physically carried out by the selfless, unpaid and compulsory work of women’s bodies: “Washing the dishes! Where is there a housewife who does not abhor this work? A task that is both long and dirty, and which is still mainly done by hand, solely because the work of the domestic slave does not count” (KROPOTKIN, 2005: 125-126).
In this text, it is very interesting to note how Kropotkin arrives at a conclusion identical to that proposed by the Kurdish revolution: placing life at the center. This implies, among other things, being consistent with the fact that the social revolution cannot triumph if patriarchy is not overthrown and with it the privileges of men, even in matters as far removed from “high politics” as organization and housekeeping: “Let us be aware that a revolution intoxicated by the fine words of liberty, equality and solidarity, while maintaining the slavery of the home, will not be a revolution. Half of humanity, suffering the slavery of the cook, should still rebel against the other half” (KROPOTKIN, 2005: 128).
I would also like to highlight an interesting contribution that Kropotkin makes, in a simple and very intuitive way, on the exploitation of the patriarchal education that women receive in traditional society, making us responsible for the care and protection of other beings. Something that he considers fundamental in the service of revolution. Today, we find similar arguments on the articulation of women’s ancestral knowledge in environmental protection, in the feminist reflections that come to us from Kurdish Jineoloji and the revolutionary movement of Rojava, to revalue this traditionally feminine knowledge around the protection of nature and the environment (AYBOGA, 2017: 24-25).
Kropotkin comes to a conclusion identical to that proposed by the Kurdish revolution: “put life at the center”. This implies that the social revolution cannot triumph if patriarchy is not overthrown, and with it the privileges of men
In this book, we find many passages in which Kropotkin speaks equally about women and men. He does so by emphasizing the selfless heroism of the people, which he recognizes in the anonymous acts of courage of women and men, or by alluding to the difficulties that female intelligence encountered in the misogynistic culture that surrounded it.
By criticizing class privileges when it came to receiving a salary, he included a critique of the patriarchal privileges of the workers, by talking about the differences in salaries according to gender. In his presentation on “Collectivist Wage Labor,” he argued that all productive work should be considered equivalent, without prioritizing between simple and complex work, etc. Occupational categories, which are created with the aim of offering different salaries, are an element of the capitalist system that will not be reproduced in the anarchist commune, because he considers that all the work necessary to produce the conditions of social and community well-being in his approach with 5 hours a day for each person, leaving free hours for leisure and scientific and/or artistic activities that each person would like to develop.
Although he maintains gender stereotypes in much of the text and does not question them, he reflects at this stage of his book on the injustice behind the differential pay that doctors and nurses deserve, arguing that the real value of their work cannot be ranked between men who have made science their preserve and nurses, almost the only professional category to which, at that time, women who wanted to devote themselves to the field of medicine and health could mainly have access: “Who among us can claim a higher remuneration for his or her work? The doctor who has diagnosed the disease or the nurse who ensures recovery through her hygienic care?” (KROPOTKIN, 2005: 172).
Conclusions
By way of conclusion, I would like to highlight all the assessments and omissions that reveal the male perspective in certain parts of the text, without denying the importance of certain major silences on important issues of patriarchal oppression that maintain and perpetuate inequalities between women and men, such as marriage, child rearing, prostitution and female sexuality, violence against women, etc. These are issues that affect the lives of all women at all times, and which would be widely and deeply addressed and theorized by libertarian companions such as Louise Michel, Maria Lacerda de Moura, Emma Goldman, Lucía Sánchez Saornil, Amparo Poch y Gascón… and so many others.
But despite everything, the book The Conquest of Bread by Pierre Kropotkine is fundamental in the current context. His reflections and proposals on how to organize society on the basis of cooperation, mutual aid, respect for the times and rhythms of nature, both in the protection and use of the environment and in taking into account the vital needs of human beings, are truly valuable. They are so valuable today because we must convince ourselves now, perhaps even more than in the past, that an alternative to neoliberal, hetero-cispatriarchal and colonial capitalism, with all the names of the system we are part of, is possible. Neoliberalism, which is taking root in every area of our lives and is all around us, deprives us of the opportunity to learn about and dream of other worlds and other societies, but the words of Kropotkin come to us from the past with strength, wisdom and consistency to show us that it really is possible. Thanks to him, we know that it is possible to do things differently, because all around us, and in our daily lives, we are making small attempts at this human community based on the ideas of equality, freedom and solidarity for all of humanity.
Anarcho-feminist activist. Doctor of History from the University of Barcelona.
Nov. 5, 2021 8:00 a.m.
Bibliographic references
AYBOGA, Ercan; FLACH, Anja and KNAPP, Michael (2017). Revolution in Rojava. Women’s liberation and communalism between war and embargo. Barcelona: Descontrol Editorial.
BAKUNIN, Mijail (1970). “Revolutionary Catechism. 1864-1867” In BERNARD, Thomas. Ni Dieu ni maître: citation des anarchistes. Mexico: Editorial Extemporáneos.
GOLDMAN, Emma (1996). Viviendo mi vida (Volume I) FAL: 286.
KROPOTKIN, Piotr (2005). La conquista del pan. Buenos Aires: Libros de Anarres.
Rebound:
Pierre Kropotkine
The Conquest of Bread
Translated by TerKo with the help of a free translation tool.