August 18, 2025 • 11 mins
In Memoirs of a Revolutionist, Vol. 1, Peter Kropotkin, a notable Russian anarcho-communist and scientist, invites readers into his captivating life journey. This autobiography not only chronicles his personal experiences but also sheds light on the intricate tapestry of 19th-century Russian society and politics. Born into nobility and educated in the military, Kropotkin ultimately rejected the values of his social class to champion anti-authoritarian socialism, standing against both the Tsarist regime and the authoritarian Bolsheviks. With a diverse range of interests spanning literature, biology, economics, and geographical exploration, Kropotkins memoirs begin with his childhood and education, leading to his transformative time in Siberia. (Introduction by Elin)
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Siberia, chapter two of Memoirs of a Revolutionist by Peter Kropotkin.
This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Eilin.
The five years that I spent in Siberia were for
me a genuine education in life and human character. I
was brought into contact with men of all descriptions, the
(00:23):
best and the worst, those who stood at the top
of society, and those who vegetated at the very bottom,
the tramps and the so called incorrigible criminals. I had
ample opportunities to watch the ways and habits of the
peasants in their daily life, and still more opportunities to
appreciate how little the state administration could give to them,
(00:44):
even if it were animated by the very best intentions. Finally,
my extensive journeys, during which I traveled over fifty thousand
miles in carts, on board, steamers, in boats, but chiefly
on horseback, had a wonderful effect and strength of my health.
They also taught me how little man really needs, as
soon as he comes out of the enchanted circle of
(01:06):
conventional civilization, with a few pounds of bread and a
few ounces of tea in a leather bag, a kettle
and a hatchet hanging at the side of the saddle,
and under the saddle a blanket to be spread at
the camp fire upon a bed of freshly cut spruce twigs.
A man feels wonderfully independent, even amidst unknown mountains, thickly
(01:27):
clothed with woods or capped with snow. A book might
be written about this part of my life, but I
must rapidly glide over it here, there being so much
more to say about the later periods. Siberia is not
the frozen land, buried in snow and peopled with exiles,
only that it is imagined to be, even by many Russians.
(01:48):
In its southern parts. It is as rich in natural
productions as are the southern parts of Canada, which it
resembles very much in its physical aspects, And besides half
a million of natives, it has a part population of
more than four million of Russians. The southern parts of
West Siberia are as thoroughly Russian as the provinces to
the north of Moscow. In eighteen sixty two, the upper
(02:12):
administration of Siberia was far more enlightened and far better
all round than that of any Province of Russia proper.
For several years, the post of Governor General of East
Siberia had been occupied by a remarkable personage Count n. N. Muravyov,
who annexed the Amou region to Russia. He was very intelligent,
(02:33):
very active, extremely amiable, and desirous to work for the
good of the country. Like all men of action of
the governmental school, he was a despot at the bottom
of his heart, but he held advanced opinions, and a
democratic republic would not have quite satisfied him. He had
succeeded to a great extent in getting rid of the
old staff of civil service officials who considered Siberia a
(02:56):
camp to be plundered, and he had gathered around him
a number of young officials, quite honest, and many of
them animated by the same excellent intentions as himself. In
his own study the young officers, with the exiled Bakunin
among them, he escaped from Siberia in the autumn of
eighteen sixty one, discussed the chances of creating the United
(03:17):
States of Siberia federated across the Pacific Ocean with the
United States of America. When I came to Itkoutsk the
capital of East Siberia. The wave of reaction which I
saw rising at Saint Petersburg had not yet reached these
distant dominions. I was very well received by the young governor,
General Korsakov, who had just succeeded Moraviev, and he told
(03:41):
me that he was delighted to have about him men
of liberal opinions. As to the commander of the general staff, Kukl,
a young general not yet thirty five years old, whose
personal aid de camp I became, he at once took
me to a room in his house, where I found,
together with the best Russian reviews, complete collection of the
London Revolutionary editions of Hudson. We were soon warm friends.
(04:06):
General Kukel temporarily occupied at that time the post of
governor of Trance by Kalia, and a few weeks earlier
we crossed the beautiful Lake Baikal and went further east
to the little town of Chitah, the capital of the province.
There I had to give myself heart and soul without
loss of time, to the great reforms which were then
(04:26):
under discussion. The Saint Petersburg ministries had applied to the
local authorities, asking them to work out schemes of complete
reform in the administration of the provinces, the organization of
the police, the tribunals, the prisons, the system of exile,
the self government of the townships, all on broadly liberal
bases laid down by the Emperor in his manifestos. Kukel,
(04:51):
supported by an intelligent and practical man, Colonel Patashenko, and
by a couple of well meaning civil service officials, worked
all day long, and often a good deal of the night.
I became the secretary of two committees for the reform
of the prisons and the whole system of exile, and
for preparing a scheme of municipal self government, and I
(05:13):
set to work with all the enthusiasm of a youth
of nineteen years. I read much about the historical development
of these institutions in Russia and their present condition abroad,
excellent works and papers dealing with these subjects having been
published by the Ministries of the Interior and of Justice.
But what we did in trans Baikalia was by no
means merely theoretical. I discussed first the general outlines and
(05:38):
subsequently every point of detail with practical men well acquainted
with the real needs and the local possibilities, and for
that purpose I met a considerable number of men, both
in town and in the province. Then the conclusions we
arrived at were rediscussed with Kukal and Pedoshenko, and when
I had put the results into a preliminary shape, every
(06:00):
point was again very thoroughly thrashed out in the committees.
One of these committees for preparing the municipal government scheme
was composed of citizens of Titah, elected by all the populations,
as freely as they might have been elected in the
United States. In short, our work was very serious, and
even now, looking back at it through the perspective of
(06:21):
so many years, I can say in full confidence that
if municipal self government had been granted, then in the
modest shape which we gave to it, the towns of
Siberia would be very different from what they are. But
nothing came of it. All. As will presently be seen,
there was no lack of other incidental occupations. Money had
(06:43):
to be found for the support of charitable institutions, an
economic description of the province had to be written in
connection with a local agricultural exhibition, or some serious inquiry
had to be made. It is a great epoch. We
live in work, my dear friend, Remember that you are
the secretary of all existing and future committees. Kukl would
(07:04):
sometimes say to me, and I worked with doubled energy.
One example or two will show with what results. There
was in our province a district chief, that is, a
police officer invested with a very wide and indeterminate rights,
who was simply a disgrace. He robbed the peasants and
flogged them right and left, even women, which was against
(07:26):
the law. And when a criminal affair fell into his hands,
it might lie there for months, men being kept in
the meantime in prison till they gave him a bribe.
Kukel would have dismissed this man long before, but the
Governor General did not like the idea of it because
he had strong protectors at Saint Petersburg. After much hesitation,
(07:47):
it was decided at last that I should go to
make an investigation on the spot and collect evidence against
the man. This was not by any means easy, because
the peasants terrorized by him, and well knowing an old
Russian saying God is far away, while your chief is
your next door neighbor, did not dare to testify even
(08:08):
the woman he had flogged, was afraid at first to
make a written statement. It was only after I had
stayed a fortnight with the peasants and had run their confidence,
that the misdeeds of their chief could be brought to light.
I collected crushing evidence, and the district chief was dismissed.
We congratulated ourselves on having got rid of such a pest.
(08:30):
What was, however, our astonishment, when a few months later
we learned that the same man had been nominated to
a higher post in Kamchatka. There he could plunder the
natives free of any control, and so he did. A
few years later he returned to Saint Petersburg a rich man.
The articles he occasionally contributes now to the reactionary press
(08:53):
are as one might expect, full of high patriotic spirit.
The wave of reaction, as I have a red, he said,
had not then reached Siberia, and the political exiles continued
to be treated with all possible leniency, as in Muravyov's time,
when in eighteen sixty one the poet Mikhailov was condemned
(09:13):
to hard labor for a revolutionary proclamation which he had issued,
and was sent to Siberia. The governor of the first
Siberian town, on his way to Bolsk, gave a dinner
in his honor, in which all the officials took part
in tans by Kalia. He was not kept at hard Labor,
but was allowed officially to stay in the hospital prison
(09:34):
of a small mining village, his health being very poor.
He was dying from consumption and did actually die a
few months later. General Kouka gave him permission to stay
in the house of his brother, a mining engineer who
had rented a gold mine from the crown on his
own account. Unofficially that was well known in East Siberia.
(09:55):
But one day we learned from Irkutsk that, in consequence
of a secret denunciation, a general of the Gendarme state
police was on his way to Tita to make a
strict inquiry into the affair. An aide de camp of
the governor general brought us the news. I was despatched
in great haste to warn Mikhailov and to tell him
(10:15):
that he must return at once to the hospital prison.
While the general of the Gendarme was kept at Tita,
as that gentleman found himself every night the winner of
considerable sums of money at the green table in Kuchl's house.
He soon decided not to exchange this pleasant pastime for
a long journey to the mines in a temperature which
was then a dozen degrees below the freezing point of mercury,
(10:39):
and eventually went back to Irkutsk, quite satisfied with his
lucrative mission. The storm, however, was coming nearer and nearer,
and had swept everything before it. Soon after, the insurrection
broke out in Poland. End of Siberia, Chapter two,
Siberia, chapter two of Memoirs of a Revolutionist by Peter Kropotkin.
This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Eilin.
The five years that I spent in Siberia were for
me a genuine education in life and human character. I
was brought into contact with men of all descriptions, the
(00:23):
best and the worst, those who stood at the top
of society, and those who vegetated at the very bottom,
the tramps and the so called incorrigible criminals. I had
ample opportunities to watch the ways and habits of the
peasants in their daily life, and still more opportunities to
appreciate how little the state administration could give to them,
(00:44):
even if it were animated by the very best intentions. Finally,
my extensive journeys, during which I traveled over fifty thousand
miles in carts, on board, steamers, in boats, but chiefly
on horseback, had a wonderful effect and strength of my health.
They also taught me how little man really needs, as
soon as he comes out of the enchanted circle of
(01:06):
conventional civilization, with a few pounds of bread and a
few ounces of tea in a leather bag, a kettle
and a hatchet hanging at the side of the saddle,
and under the saddle a blanket to be spread at
the camp fire upon a bed of freshly cut spruce twigs.
A man feels wonderfully independent, even amidst unknown mountains, thickly
(01:27):
clothed with woods or capped with snow. A book might
be written about this part of my life, but I
must rapidly glide over it here, there being so much
more to say about the later periods. Siberia is not
the frozen land, buried in snow and peopled with exiles,
only that it is imagined to be, even by many Russians.
(01:48):
In its southern parts. It is as rich in natural
productions as are the southern parts of Canada, which it
resembles very much in its physical aspects, And besides half
a million of natives, it has a part population of
more than four million of Russians. The southern parts of
West Siberia are as thoroughly Russian as the provinces to
the north of Moscow. In eighteen sixty two, the upper
(02:12):
administration of Siberia was far more enlightened and far better
all round than that of any Province of Russia proper.
For several years, the post of Governor General of East
Siberia had been occupied by a remarkable personage Count n. N. Muravyov,
who annexed the Amou region to Russia. He was very intelligent,
(02:33):
very active, extremely amiable, and desirous to work for the
good of the country. Like all men of action of
the governmental school, he was a despot at the bottom
of his heart, but he held advanced opinions, and a
democratic republic would not have quite satisfied him. He had
succeeded to a great extent in getting rid of the
old staff of civil service officials who considered Siberia a
(02:56):
camp to be plundered, and he had gathered around him
a number of young officials, quite honest, and many of
them animated by the same excellent intentions as himself. In
his own study the young officers, with the exiled Bakunin
among them, he escaped from Siberia in the autumn of
eighteen sixty one, discussed the chances of creating the United
(03:17):
States of Siberia federated across the Pacific Ocean with the
United States of America. When I came to Itkoutsk the
capital of East Siberia. The wave of reaction which I
saw rising at Saint Petersburg had not yet reached these
distant dominions. I was very well received by the young governor,
General Korsakov, who had just succeeded Moraviev, and he told
(03:41):
me that he was delighted to have about him men
of liberal opinions. As to the commander of the general staff, Kukl,
a young general not yet thirty five years old, whose
personal aid de camp I became, he at once took
me to a room in his house, where I found,
together with the best Russian reviews, complete collection of the
London Revolutionary editions of Hudson. We were soon warm friends.
(04:06):
General Kukel temporarily occupied at that time the post of
governor of Trance by Kalia, and a few weeks earlier
we crossed the beautiful Lake Baikal and went further east
to the little town of Chitah, the capital of the province.
There I had to give myself heart and soul without
loss of time, to the great reforms which were then
(04:26):
under discussion. The Saint Petersburg ministries had applied to the
local authorities, asking them to work out schemes of complete
reform in the administration of the provinces, the organization of
the police, the tribunals, the prisons, the system of exile,
the self government of the townships, all on broadly liberal
bases laid down by the Emperor in his manifestos. Kukel,
(04:51):
supported by an intelligent and practical man, Colonel Patashenko, and
by a couple of well meaning civil service officials, worked
all day long, and often a good deal of the night.
I became the secretary of two committees for the reform
of the prisons and the whole system of exile, and
for preparing a scheme of municipal self government, and I
(05:13):
set to work with all the enthusiasm of a youth
of nineteen years. I read much about the historical development
of these institutions in Russia and their present condition abroad,
excellent works and papers dealing with these subjects having been
published by the Ministries of the Interior and of Justice.
But what we did in trans Baikalia was by no
means merely theoretical. I discussed first the general outlines and
(05:38):
subsequently every point of detail with practical men well acquainted
with the real needs and the local possibilities, and for
that purpose I met a considerable number of men, both
in town and in the province. Then the conclusions we
arrived at were rediscussed with Kukal and Pedoshenko, and when
I had put the results into a preliminary shape, every
(06:00):
point was again very thoroughly thrashed out in the committees.
One of these committees for preparing the municipal government scheme
was composed of citizens of Titah, elected by all the populations,
as freely as they might have been elected in the
United States. In short, our work was very serious, and
even now, looking back at it through the perspective of
(06:21):
so many years, I can say in full confidence that
if municipal self government had been granted, then in the
modest shape which we gave to it, the towns of
Siberia would be very different from what they are. But
nothing came of it. All. As will presently be seen,
there was no lack of other incidental occupations. Money had
(06:43):
to be found for the support of charitable institutions, an
economic description of the province had to be written in
connection with a local agricultural exhibition, or some serious inquiry
had to be made. It is a great epoch. We
live in work, my dear friend, Remember that you are
the secretary of all existing and future committees. Kukl would
(07:04):
sometimes say to me, and I worked with doubled energy.
One example or two will show with what results. There
was in our province a district chief, that is, a
police officer invested with a very wide and indeterminate rights,
who was simply a disgrace. He robbed the peasants and
flogged them right and left, even women, which was against
(07:26):
the law. And when a criminal affair fell into his hands,
it might lie there for months, men being kept in
the meantime in prison till they gave him a bribe.
Kukel would have dismissed this man long before, but the
Governor General did not like the idea of it because
he had strong protectors at Saint Petersburg. After much hesitation,
(07:47):
it was decided at last that I should go to
make an investigation on the spot and collect evidence against
the man. This was not by any means easy, because
the peasants terrorized by him, and well knowing an old
Russian saying God is far away, while your chief is
your next door neighbor, did not dare to testify even
(08:08):
the woman he had flogged, was afraid at first to
make a written statement. It was only after I had
stayed a fortnight with the peasants and had run their confidence,
that the misdeeds of their chief could be brought to light.
I collected crushing evidence, and the district chief was dismissed.
We congratulated ourselves on having got rid of such a pest.
(08:30):
What was, however, our astonishment, when a few months later
we learned that the same man had been nominated to
a higher post in Kamchatka. There he could plunder the
natives free of any control, and so he did. A
few years later he returned to Saint Petersburg a rich man.
The articles he occasionally contributes now to the reactionary press
(08:53):
are as one might expect, full of high patriotic spirit.
The wave of reaction, as I have a red, he said,
had not then reached Siberia, and the political exiles continued
to be treated with all possible leniency, as in Muravyov's time,
when in eighteen sixty one the poet Mikhailov was condemned
(09:13):
to hard labor for a revolutionary proclamation which he had issued,
and was sent to Siberia. The governor of the first
Siberian town, on his way to Bolsk, gave a dinner
in his honor, in which all the officials took part
in tans by Kalia. He was not kept at hard Labor,
but was allowed officially to stay in the hospital prison
(09:34):
of a small mining village, his health being very poor.
He was dying from consumption and did actually die a
few months later. General Kouka gave him permission to stay
in the house of his brother, a mining engineer who
had rented a gold mine from the crown on his
own account. Unofficially that was well known in East Siberia.
(09:55):
But one day we learned from Irkutsk that, in consequence
of a secret denunciation, a general of the Gendarme state
police was on his way to Tita to make a
strict inquiry into the affair. An aide de camp of
the governor general brought us the news. I was despatched
in great haste to warn Mikhailov and to tell him
(10:15):
that he must return at once to the hospital prison.
While the general of the Gendarme was kept at Tita,
as that gentleman found himself every night the winner of
considerable sums of money at the green table in Kuchl's house.
He soon decided not to exchange this pleasant pastime for
a long journey to the mines in a temperature which
was then a dozen degrees below the freezing point of mercury,
(10:39):
and eventually went back to Irkutsk, quite satisfied with his
lucrative mission. The storm, however, was coming nearer and nearer,
and had swept everything before it. Soon after, the insurrection
broke out in Poland. End of Siberia, Chapter two,
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