Behind the Scenes Minis: Oh, Kropotkin!

Tracy shares her intentions to cover Peter Kropotkin years ago, and also unpacks some of the positive and negative aspects of his life.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, A production
of iHeartRadio, Hello and Happy Friday. I'm Tracy V. Wilson
and I'm Holly Frye. We spent all of this week
talking about Peter Kerpotkin and anarchistic communism, not something we

(00:24):
have spent a lot of time really diving into on
the show before. I thought about doing this episode during
early COVID. It didn't work out, but it was because
there was such flourishing is the wrong word, because it
was happening in response to a government action that was
not happening, but like there was an influx of mutual

(00:49):
aid programs, organizations of people trying to like work in
their own communities, trying to help people, trying to meet
needs that were not being met, of which there were many.
And I realized pretty quickly that it was it would
need to be a much bigger episode than what I
was sort of thinking. Right, I just didn't quite have it.

(01:11):
But then here we are now in the year twenty
twenty six, Still a lot of need happening, Still a
lot of mutual support and aid going on for a
lot of different reasons. Still also a lot of calls
for change, in the government the US, and Wow, at

(01:34):
least for me, I don't know why why algorithms, algorithms
think that I want this, but I am continually being
served discourse about like people who want to make reforms
within the existing government of the United States and people

(01:54):
who want to throw it all out and start over,
just what kurpot can advocating. Yeah, I mean, I think
if you're I think, if you're in any way looking
at anything political these days, you're going to get that eventually,
because I get it too, just the same arguments over
and over. There are a lot of things that Krapotkin

(02:15):
wrote about that I definitely find appealing. So I love
the idea of everybody having enough and nobody being left behind,
and nobody being you know, under the thumb of an
oppressive government machine, all of that in favor of But
I'm also like, we live in such an even more

(02:37):
globally interconnected world than during Krapotkin's lifetime, right right, just
vastly vastly interconnected. Like I was sort of just thinking
this morning, I was like, international air travel, how would
one do that without governments? And some people are probably like,
we just wouldn't have international air trap anymore. I mean,

(03:01):
which I just think of Star Trek. They figured it out,
they did well, there was still like there were still governments, right, Yeah,
So like the the communism slash socialism questions like those
are there's one. That's one set of questions. Yeah, and
like the sort of Star Trek utopia of everyone having

(03:26):
enough and they're not being you know, capitalist monetary structures happening. Yeah,
Like that's one thing, but the not having governments like
that is an additional whole thing. Yeah, I mean I
think it starts to be like how do you define
a government? Right? Like could there be a coalition of

(03:47):
transportation organizations that enable something like that? But then so
you know, if they are all all of this depends
on like the goodwill out truism and noble efforts of humans,
which is where things get tricky because if you had
a coalition of transportation organizations that we're doing this outside

(04:12):
of government, things like regulations would not be an issue
because they would all be trying to do the best
by all things. Yeah, I'm about to invoke Anakin and
padme right, Like that's the problem is that I'm literally
working through this as I'm talking. Right, there's that whole Listen.
I know, not everybody likes Attack of the Clones, and
that's fine, But there's that whole Meadow scene where he

(04:36):
describes what he thinks how he thinks government should work,
and he said, it's just me smart people getting together
and talking through and she's like, what do you think
we're doing, Doc, That's exactly what we're up to. But
everybody doesn't agree, and that's the tricky part. Yeah. Yeah,
there's a lot going on there. There are a lot

(04:57):
of things that felt to me very idealistic in his
writing at the time that he was writing it, in
the late nineteenth early twentieth century. And then I was like,
and then now, on top of that, we have an
internationally interconnected food supply chain. Yeah, right, and so if

(05:20):
there were to be a giant revolution, it would have
to happen in a way that doesn't lead to lead
to a collapse of the food chain and people starving, right,
And it's just like, yeah, unending questions and issues. I
do wonder if he were alive today, I would want

(05:42):
to read his thoughts about the billionaire class that has
emerged in the world and individual people having enough money
and power to like buy information distribution channels like newspapers
and just used them to whatever end. I mean, I

(06:03):
think we can extrapolate how he would feel about it,
but I would love to hear I would love to
hear his words on it, because I enjoyed I enjoyed
reading his writing a lot. Ye, a couple of random
things that I cut out of the episode because I
just kept getting longer and longer. When he was a kid,
he used his brother. Number one. One of their big

(06:24):
amusements as a family was to go to plays and
to the ballet, right, and so he and his brother
and then I'm assuming like younger half siblings after they
were born, they would amuse themselves by putting on plays
at home. And their stage was the door between their
bedroom and the classroom, because that was divided with a curtain.

(06:46):
And I was like, I love that. That's perfect, absolutely
great natural perscenium in place. Yeah, I love it. Also,
multiple sources that I read about him, or lectures that
I listened to or whatever, all took a moment to
talk about his social identity opinions. A lot of anarchists

(07:15):
in the late nineteenth early twentieth century were also like
sex reformers, and we're calling for things like free love,
acceptance of relationships regardless of people's sex or gender. Right,
if did I already say free love, free love? If

(07:35):
I didn't already say that, you did. And it seems
like Krapotkin not one of those people and was more
conservative along those lines. And there are some interpretations of
him that come to the conclusion that he was homophobic.
And apparently one of the things that has led to
this conclusion is that when Oscar Wilde was on trial,

(08:00):
Oscar Wilde was a huge fan of Kerpotkin and Kerpotkin's
writing and political thought, and Oscar Wilde wrote to him
for help, and he didn't acknowledge or respond to it, apparently,
and people have interpreted that as like him not being
in support of Oscar Wilde. And then I have also

(08:24):
read that he had conversations with Emma Goldman, who was
on the more like sex reform side of the anarchist movement,
and that Emma Goldman modernized his opinions a little bit.
But I didn't find documentation or quotes or anything about

(08:46):
any of that. It was like I kept hearing people
make those same arguments, and I couldn't trace them back
to source material somewhere, And I also didn't have a
good place to put any of that discussion in the
actual episodes, right, especially when it's nebulous. Yeah there was. Yeah,
nebulus is a good word. We talked about how his

(09:08):
language of the time reflected words like savage that are
unacceptable today but were in wide use. So it's not
totally surprising to me that someone who was raised in
the society that he was raised in would still have
biases that maybe other parts of the movement would be

(09:32):
on a different perspective on. I mean, especially when you
consider his origins, right, Like right, I mean, I'm marvel
at somebody who literally is born into extraordinary privilege and
is like, let's get rid of all of that, Like
that's a very unusual thing in and of itself, But

(09:55):
like he still has that hardwiring of like, yeah, this
is how the social more's work, and he's probably not
even cognizant that that's just like part of the conditioning
you get as a kid in that environment. So you know,
totally possible that he never really thought about it until

(10:16):
Emma Goldman was in my imagination, like, hey, what were
you doing with Oscar Wilde not answering Well, I mean
I can see a world where like he didn't know
how to answer and was thinking it over and it
got away from him. I mean, yeah, sure, I do
that with just completely benign texts from people where I'm like,
I don't know the answer to that question. I got

(10:36):
to think about it. Yeah. Two weeks later, do you
hate me? Oh no, I just forgot. Oh yeah. I
literally had that happen with an email that a listener
sent to us asking for a contact elsewhere in my heart,
and I didn't know who to direct them to. And
I sent a note to someone asking if they knew

(10:57):
and it was not in my brain anymore, and that
person didn't get back to me, and I didn't follow
up on it, and then I found an email in
my drafts like three weeks later. I was like, whoops, uh, oh,
sorry about that. Happens all the time. One of the

(11:20):
articles that I read for this was by a scholar
from Russia and said that a lot of work on
Krapotkin and on anarchism is still basically banned in Russia today.
Oh wow, which is like unsurprising. But also I couldn't
figure out how to really confirm that right to what

(11:44):
extent That's just that's a very broad thing to go
try to track down, right. I mean, I feel like
it's harder and harder to ban information right in places
that have internet access. Yeah. But also I think about
like the stuff that came up when we were talking
about France banning various things right in the Tayefield Steinlin

(12:06):
episode where I love the work around of like I'm
just gonna go across the border and have my pamphlet
printed and then I'll come back with it. Everything's cool now,
everybody'd be cool. Yeah. Yeah, even with like you know,
the so called Great Firewall in China, like there are
still ways to get information around things. Yeah. I think

(12:27):
the last random thing that I had written on my
list of random things to talk about was the fact
that the sun went down at three o'clock in the
evening when he was in prison, because living in Massachusetts,
where in the wintertime the sun is down by like
four fifteen or four thirty, Yeah, for part of the winter,

(12:49):
Like the idea of it being even earlier than that,
I was like, that hurts my heart for you that
you were not only was the sun going down early.
But also you were in prison for it. But he
had books to read, so at least there was that,
I mean, the imprisoned part I get. I don't care

(13:10):
about the sun so much. I have a hard time
in the winter. I know I have a like I've
never been formally diagnosed with, like seasonal effective disorder or
anything like that. Yeah, but I have a noticeable pattern
of feelings and behavior over the cold, dark winter months.

(13:32):
I do, but I call it winter rage disorder because
I don't care if it's dark, but I hate being
cold so much that it makes me angry. Yeah. And
I will say we had a very mild winter this year,
and while I don't like what that means in the
bigger picture, it was nice to not get angry. Yeah,
we did not have that. Yeah, you guys kept getting

(13:55):
like piles of snow at every turn. Yeah. That just
did not go away for a really long time. Yeah.
I went on an actual, for real hike this weekend.
I had been on walks. Hike is a little different thing,
both because of like weather and because of time, and
there it gets to a point where when everything is melted,

(14:16):
I know the places where I can usually go hiking
are gonna be swampy, and I was not really up
for the swampiness. But yeah, I will say I am
not seeking advice on what to do about my winter stuff.
But things that do help me are making sure I

(14:36):
am getting enough vitamin D, including whenever the weather permits
going outside. Yeah, it helps me a lot, helps me
a lot. Yeah, I'm like twenty percent vampire DNA. I
think I just don't care. Yeah, yeah, I can't. If
I've said before, before I was born, my dad was

(14:56):
in the Army and he was stationed at Alaska, and
my mom also struggled with the cold dark of Alaska,
and she made homemade chocolate chip cookies every week because
that made their their you know, their apartment or wherever
they were living, smell so nice. Yeah, to have freshly

(15:17):
baked cookies, which I love it. I love it. I mean,
you don't have to wait for you know, miserable weather.
You could just do that, yeah, for fun. Yeah. I'm
also very fond of Peter Kropotkin, and I think there
are people who people who are fans of Peter Kerpotkin
really really love him. So I hope those folks who

(15:42):
maybe in the audience think we did him justice. There
are things we didn't even mention that, like that he
wrote a book on Russian literature. Yeah, all kinds of stuff,
Like if if people were still calling people polymaths as much.
I feel like that that label of polymath was not

(16:03):
quite as frequent in its use at the very very
end of the nineteenth beginning of the twentieth century. I
more saw him described as a scientist and a political philosopher,
not as a polymath. But I think polymath also suits him. Yeah.
I will confess there were times where we would read

(16:23):
a passage of his and I would have to refrain
from going right on. Yeah, yeah, Whatever is happening coming
up on your weekend, I hope it includes things that
make you say right on, And you know, if not,

(16:45):
then I hope you're able to have some quiet, some
moments to yourself, something that will be rejuvenative and restoring
that you're able to take a couple moments to care
for yourself and for the people around you. We will
be back on Monday with a brand new episode. I
don't know if I know what it's going to be about.

(17:06):
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