Anarchist ideas on mutual aid are often misrepresented by Marxists. Looking at Pat Stack's "Anarchy in the UK?" article, for example, we find a particularly terrible misrepresentation of Kropotkin's ideas. Indeed, it is so incorrect that it is either a product of ignorance or a desire to deceive (and as we shall indicate, it is probably the latter). Here is Stack's account of Kropotkin's ideas:

"And the anarchist Peter Kropotkin, far from seeing class conflict as the dynamic for social change as Marx did, saw co-operation being at the root of the social process. He believed the co-operation of what he termed 'mutual aid' was the natural order, which was disrupted by centralised states. Indeed in everything from public walkways and libraries through to the Red Cross, Kropotkin felt he was witnessing confirmation that society was moving towards his mutual aid, prevented only from completing the journey by the state. It follows that if class conflict is not the motor of change, the working class is not the agent and collective struggle not the means." ["Anarchy in the UK?", Socialist Review, no. 246]

There are three issues with Stack's summary. Firstly, Kropotkin did not, in fact, reject class conflict as the "dynamic of social change" nor reject the working class as its "agent." Secondly, all of Stack's examples of "Mutual Aid" do not, in fact, appear in Kropotkin's classic book Mutual Aid. They do, however, appear in other works by Kropotkin's, but not as examples of "mutual aid." Thirdly, in Mutual Aid Kropotkin discusses such aspects of working class "collective struggle" as strikes and unions. All in all, it is Stack's total and utter lack of understanding of Kropotkin's ideas which immediately stands out from his comments.

As we have discussed how collective, working class direct action, organisation and solidarity in the class struggle was at the core of Kropotkin's politics in section H.2.2, we will not do so here. Rather, we will discuss how Stack lies about Kropotkin's ideas on mutual aid. As just noted, the examples Stack lists are not to be found in Kropotkin's classic work Mutual Aid. Now, if Kropotkin had considered them as examples of "mutual aid" then he would have listed them in that work. This does not mean, however, that Kropotkin did not mention these examples. He does, but in other works (notably his essay Anarchist Communism) and he does not use them as examples of mutual aid. Just as Stack's examples are not mentioned in Mutual Aid, so Kropotkin fails to use the words "mutual aid" in his essay Anarchist-Communism: Its Basis and Principles. Here is Kropotkin's own words as regards Stack's "examples":

"We maintain, moreover, not only that communism is a desirable state of society, but that the growing tendency of modern society is precisely towards communism — free communism — notwithstanding the seemingly contradictory growth of individualism. In the growth of individualism . . . we see merely the endeavours of the individual towards emancipating himself from the steadily growing powers of capital and the State. But side by side with this growth we see also . . . the latent struggle of the producers of wealth to maintain the partial communism of old, as well as to reintroduce communist principles in a new shape, as soon as favourable conditions permit it. . . the communist tendency is continually reasserting itself and trying to make its way into public life. The penny bridge disappears before the public bridge; and the turnpike road before the free road. The same spirit pervades thousands of other institutions. Museums, free libraries, and free public schools; parks and pleasure grounds; paved and lighted streets, free for everybody's use; water supplied to private dwellings, with a growing tendency towards disregarding the exact amount of it used by the individual; tramways and railways which have already begun to introduce the season ticket or the uniform tax, and will surely go much further in this line when they are no longer private property: all these are tokens showing in what direction further progress is to be expected.

"It is in the direction of putting the wants of the individual above the valuation of the service he has rendered, or might render, to society; in considering society as a whole, so intimately connected together that a service rendered to any individual is a service rendered to the whole society." [Kropotkin's Revolutionary Pamplets, pp. 59-60]

As is clear, the examples Stack selects have nothing to do with mutual aid in Kropotkin's eyes. Rather, they are examples of communistic tendencies within capitalism, empirical evidence that can be used to not only show that communism can work but also that it is not a utopian social solution but an expression of tendencies within society. Simply put, he is using examples from existing society to show that communism is not impossible.

Similarly with Stack's other examples. Kropotkin argued that:

"we are struck with the infinitesimal part played by government in our life. . . [A] striking feature of our century tells in favour of the . . . no-government tendency. It is the steady enlargement of the field covered by private initiative, and the recent growth of large organisations resulting merely and simply from free agreement. The railway net of Europe — a confederation of so many scores of separate societies — and the direct transport of passengers and merchandise over so many lines which were built independently and federated together, without even so much as a Central Board of European Railways, is a most striking instance of what is already done by mere agreement. . . .

"But there also is no lack of free organisations for nobler pursuits. One of the noblest achievements of our century is undoubtedly the Lifeboat Association. . . . The Hospitals Association and hundreds of like organisations, operating on a large scale and covering each a wide field, may also be mentioned under this head. . . hundreds of societies are constituted every day for the satisfaction of some of the infinitely varied needs of civilised man. . . in short, there is not a single direction in which men exercise their faculties without combining together for the accomplishment of some common aim. Every day new societies are formed, while every year the old ones aggregate together into larger units, federate across the national frontiers, and co-operate in some common work. . . One of the most remarkable societies which has recently arisen is undoubtedly the Red Cross Society . . .

"These facts — so numerous and so customary that we pass by without even noticing them — are in our opinion one of the most prominent features of the second half of the nineteenth century. The just-mentioned organisms grew up so naturally, they so rapidly extended and so easily aggregated together, they are such unavoidable outgrowths of the multiplication of needs of the civilised man, and they so well replace State interference, that we must recognise in them a growing factor of our life. Modern progress is really towards the free aggregation of free individuals so as to supplant government in all those functions which formerly were entrusted to it, and which it mostly performed so badly." [Op. Cit., pp. 65-7]

As is clear, Kropotkin was using these examples not as expressions of "mutual aid" but rather as evidence that social life can be organised without government. Just as with communism, he gave concrete examples of libertarian tendencies within society to prove the possibility of an anarchist society. And just like his examples of communistic activities within capitalism, his examples of co-operation without the state are not listed as examples of "mutual aid."

All this would suggest that Stack has either not read Kropotkin's works or that he has and consciously decided to misrepresent his ideas. In fact, its a combination of the two. Stack (as proven by his talk at Marxism 2001) gathered his examples of "mutual aid" from Paul Avrich's essay "Kropotkin's Ethical Anarchism" contained in his Anarchist Portraits. As such, he has not read the source material. Moreover, he simply distorted what Avrich wrote. In other words, not only has he not read Kropotkin's works, he consciously decided to misrepresent the secondary source he used. This indicates the quality of almost all Marxist critiques of anarchism.

For example, Avrich correctly notes that Kropotkin did not "deny that the 'struggle for existence' played an important role in the evolution of species. In Mutual Aid he declares unequivocally that 'life is struggle; and in that struggle the fittest survive.'" Kropotkin simply argued that co-operation played a key role in determining who was, in fact, the fittest. Similarly, Avrich lists many of the same examples Stack presents but not in his discussion of Kropotkin's ideas on mutual aid. Rather, he correctly lists them in his discussion of how Kropotkin saw examples of anarchist communism in modern society and was "manifesting itself 'in the thousands of developments of modern life.'" This did not mean that Kropotkin did not see the need for a social revolution, quite the reverse. As Avrich notes, Kropotkin "did not shrink from the necessity of revolution" as he "did not expect the propertied classes to give up their privileges and possession without a fight." This "was to be a social revolution, carried out by the masses themselves" achieved by means of "expropriation" of social wealth. [Paul Avrich, Anarchist Portraits, p. 58, p. 62 and p. 66]

So much for Stack's claims. As can be seen, they are not only a total misrepresentation of Kropotkin's work, they are also a distortion of his source! A few more points need to be raised on this subject.

Firstly, Kropotkin never claimed that mutual aid "was the natural order." Rather, he stressed that Mutual Aid was (to use the subtitle of his book on the subject) "a factor of evolution." Never denying the importance of struggle or competition as a means of survival, he argued that co-operation within a species was the best means for it to survive in a hostile environment. This applied to life under capitalism. In the hostile environment of class society, then the only way in which working class people could survive would be to practice mutual aid (in other words, solidarity). Little wonder, then, that Kropotkin listed strikes and unions as expressions of mutual aid in capitalist society. Moreover, if we take Stack's arguments at face value, then he clearly is arguing that solidarity is not an important factor in the class struggle and that mutual aid and co-operation cannot change the world! Hardly what you would expect a socialist to argue. In other words, his inaccurate diatribe against Kropotkin backfires on his own ideas.

Secondly, Stack's argument that Kropotkin argued that co-operation was the natural order is in contradiction with his other claims that anarchism "despises the collectivity" and "dismiss[es] the importance of the collective nature of change." How can you have co-operation without forming a collective? And, equally, surely support for co-operation clearly implies the recognition of the "collective nature of change"? Moreover, if Stack had bothered to read Kropotkin's classic he would have been aware that he listed both unions and strikes as expressions of "mutual aid" (a fact, of course, which would undermine Stack's argument that anarchists reject collective working class struggle and organisation).

Thirdly, Mutual Aid is primarily a work of popular science and not a work on revolutionary anarchist theory like, say, The Conquest of Bread or _Words of a Rebel. As such, it does not present a full example of Kropotkin's revolutionary ideas and how mutual aid fits into them. However, it does present some insights on the question of social progress which indicate that he did not think that "co-operation" was "at the root of the social process," as Stack claims. For example, he notes that "[w]hen Mutual Aid institutions . . . began . . . to lose their primitive character, to be invaded by parasitic growths, and thus to become hindrances to process, the revolt of individuals against these institutions took always two different aspects. Part of those who rose up strove to purify the old institutions, or to work out a higher form of commonwealth." But at the same time, others "endeavoured to break down the protective institutions of mutual support, with no other intention but to increase their own wealth and their own powers." In this conflict "lies the real tragedy of history." He also noted that the mutual aid tendency "continued to live in the villages and among the poorer classes in the towns." Indeed, "in so far as" as new "economical and social institutions" were "a creation of the masses" they "have all originated from the same source" of mutual aid. [Mutual Aid, pp. 18-9 and p. 180]

Kropotkin was well aware that mutual aid (or solidarity) could not be applied between classes in a class society. Indeed, his chapters on mutual aid under capitalism contain the strike and union. As he put it in an earlier work:

"What solidarity can exist between the capitalist and the worker he exploits? Between the head of an army and the soldier? Between the governing and the governed?" [Words of a Rebel, p. 30]

In summary, Stack's assertions about Kropotkin's theory of "Mutual Aid" are simply false. He simply distorts the source material and shows a total ignorance of Kropotkin's work (which he obviously has not bothered to read before criticising it). A truthful account of "Mutual Aid" would involve recognising that Kropotkin show it being expressed in both strikes and labour unions and that he saw solidarity between working people as the means of not only surviving within the hostile environment of capitalism but also as the basis of a mass revolution which would end it.