THE STATE: ITS HISTORIC ROLE.
By PETER KROPOTKIN.
(A lecture which should have been delivered in Paris, on March 7, 1896, in the Mille Colonnes Hall.)
I.
IN taking as subject for this lecture the State and the part it played in history I thought it would respond to a need which is greatly felt at this moment: that of thoroughly examining the very idea of the State, of studying its essence, its rôle in the past, and the part it may be called upon to play in the future.
It is especially on the "State" question that Socialists are divided. Amidst the number of fractions existing among us and corresponding to different temperaments, to different ways of thinking, and especially to the degree of confidence in the coming Revolution, two main currents can be traced.
On the one hand, there are those who hope to accomplish the Social Revolution by means of the State: by upholding most of its functions, by even extending them and making use of them for the Revolution. And there are those who, like us, see in the State, not only in its actual form and in all forms that it might assume, but in its very essence, an obstacle to the Social Revolution: the most serious hindrance to the budding of a society based on equality and liberty; the historic form elaborated to impede this budding—and who consequently work to abolish the State, and not to reform it.
The division, as you see, is deep. It corresponds to two divergent currents which clash in all philosophy, literature, and action of our times. And if the prevalent notions about the State remain as obscure as they are today, it will be, without doubt, over this question that most obstinate struggles will be entered upon, when—as I hope soon—Communist ideas will seek for their practical realisation in the life of societies.
It is therefore of consequence, after having so often criticised the present State, to seek the cause of its appearance, to investigate the part played by it in the past, to compare it with the institutions which it superseded.
Let us first agree as to what we mean by the word State.
There is, as you know, the German school that likes to confuse the State with Society. This confusion is to be met with even among the best German thinkers and many French ones, who cannot conceive society without State concentration; and thence arises the habitual re-
