Peter Kropotkin

(1842 - 1921)

A Russian nobleman and anarchist revolutionary, Peter Kropotkin served for five years as a military officer in Siberia, where he studied the region’s geology, geography, and zoology. In 1874 he was arrested for revolutionary activities but escaped to Europe two years later. His books, which include Mutual Aid, sought to provide a theoretical basis for anarchism. After the start of the Russian Revolution in 1917 he returned home. When the Bolsheviks seized power, he told a friend, “This buries the revolution.”