Memoirs of a Revolutionist

Born into a princely Moscow family, Peter Kropotkin might have spent his life at the Tsar’s court. Instead he became one of anarchism’s most respected thinkers, and this memoir traces how that happened. He recounts a strict childhood among household serfs, his years as a page to Alexander II, and the Siberian expeditions that turned him into a working geographer. Along the way his sympathies shifted toward the peasants and laborers he met, pulling him into revolutionary circles, imprisonment in the Peter and Paul Fortress, and a daring escape to Western Europe. Written with warmth and sharp observation, the book doubles as a portrait of nineteenth-century Russia and the ideas that shook it. Free PDF and EPUB editions are available here.