Conquest of Bread

The Conquest of Bread presents the clearest statement of Kropotkin's anarchist social doctrines. It possesses a lucidity of style not often found in books on social themes. In Kropotkin's own description, the book is &quote;a study of the needs of humanity, and the economic means to satisfy them&quote;. Taking the Paris Commune as its model, its paramount aim is to show how a social revolution can be made and how a society, organized on libertarian lines, can then be built on the ruins of the old. Form Stirner's individualism, Proudhon's mutualism and Bakunin's collectivism Kropotkin proceeded to the principle of &quote;anarchist communism&quote;, by which private property and inequality of income would give way to the free distribution of goods and services. In summing up his beliefs he said, &quote;The anarchists conceive a society in which all the mutual relations of its members are regulated... by mutual agreements between the members of the society and by a sum of social customs and habits...continually developing and continually readjusting in accordance with the ever-growing requirements of a free life stimulated by the progress of science, invention and the steady growth of higher ideals.&quote;  In his introduction, George Woodcock throws a modern light on the significance and scope of Kropotkin's work.