I frequently heard this rumour; and on the very eve of the emancipation they seemed to doubt that it would be done without pressure from abroad. ‘Nothing will be done unless Garibaldi comes,’ was the reply which a peasant made at St.
This quote captures the skepticism among peasants about the likelihood of their emancipation without foreign intervention.
Share
More from Petr Alekseevich Kropotkin
Few books have exercised so pernicious an influence upon the general development of economic thought as Malthus’s Essay on the Principle of Population exercised for three consecutive generations.
As to the honest longing for more technical education--surely let us all have as much of it as possible: it will be a boon for humanity; for humanity, of course--not for a single nation, because knowledge cannot be cultivated for home use…
And the division and subdivision--the permanent subdivision--of functions has been pushed so far as to divide humanity into castes which are almost as firmly established as those of old India.
Need I say, after that, that quite to the contrary of what we are told about the British agriculturists becoming “meat-makers” instead of “wheat-growers,” no corresponding increase of live stock took place during the last twenty-five years.
Other voices in this conversation
