Peter Kropotkin was one of the most famous revolutionaries in Russia and his "Memoirs", first written in Russian, dealt with the way in which his life had progressed and how his experiences had laid the groundwork for his anarchist philosophies.
He was an activist who vocally espoused socialist causes. Kropotkin tells of his childhood, being born into an aristocratic family. He attended military academy and was a member of the cadet corps - a school for young boys who would be groomed for military service - ultimately serving in Serbia as an officer, and participating in several geographical expeditions that inspired a lifelong interest in zoology. In his memoir he explains how his overseas experiences led to his political awakening. He travelled extensively overseas in search of experiences that would further his socialist ideals and worked within the Chaykovsky Circle. He was imprisoned for his anarchic activisim and after escaping from a Russian jail, he fled to Switzerland, but did not allow his exile to damper his anarchist spirit and he remained active in left wing politics during this time. He also managed to become imprisoned in France, as well as his motherland, and after his release settled in England, where the beginnings of communism were also taking root after the Industrial Revolution.
Kropotkin returned to Russia in 1917 after the revolution but found the communism that he found their disappointing as it was government-led which was an affront to his anarchist leanings. He was not a proponent of government-led anything and favored a worker-run society. As an anarcho-communist, he advocated for a four-hour workday, the abolition of working for wages and voluntary communes.
Small snippets of his memoir began to appear piece-meal in The Atlantic Monthly in the last two years of the Nineteenth Century, in English, although he made all additions and modifications in his mother tongue. The memoir as a whole was first published by Georg Brandes with appendices and additions all in Russian.
