The Russo-Japanese War – Peter Kropotkin (1904)

Translated and republished by Black Flag Anarchist Review from ‘La Guerre russo-japonaise’, Les Temps Nouveaux, 5 March 1904

_{There has been much discussion recently, in the press, on the probable influence of war on the revolutionary movement in Russia. The German Social Democrats, the English, as much as some Russians, have the strangest expectations of a beneficent influence that this war might have in bringing about a regime of freedom in Russia. Here is the letter with which our friend Kropotkin replied to the editor of Le Soir, who wrote to him asking his opinion.}

Sir,

You ask me if the information published in several newspapers according to which I have recommended to my friends in Russia that they should not engage in any uprising against the Russian government for the duration of the war is correct or not?

I have given no such advice, because I am convinced that those on the ground will know perfectly well how to guide themselves in their actions, by their own state of mind.

But, what I do maintain — contrary to a very widespread opinion in the west — is that this war is a calamity which will necessarily set back the development of a revolutionary movement in Russia. It will cost the Russian people enormous suffering, and will detract their attention from serious internal problems.

Indeed, I predict, sadly, that revolutionary agitation, which had grown so greatly amongst the Russian people — peasants and industrial workers — will necessarily be slowed, halted perhaps for a long time by the war. Instead of those grand questions — landed property, industrial, decentralisation etc., etc. — which made the general situation in Russia so similar to that of France on the eve of 1789, and promised that the collapse of absolutism — already well advanced — would be achieved at the same time as a profound, revolutionary change in economic conditions — instead of that, agitation will now be reduced to certain minimum questions. People will agitate over whether the war is prosecuted with more or less skill; whether this or that minister warrants confidence.

And if there is some great disaster, some new Plevna in the midst of the soldiers’ acts of heroism — then patriotism even chauvinism will dominate the situation and cut short even purely political agitation.

Every war is evil — whether it ends in victory or defeat. Evil on the one hand for the combatants and on the other for the neutrals. I do not believe in “beneficent” wars. It was not defeat in Crimea which led to the abolition of serfdom and to reform in Russia, just as it was not war that brought the abolition of slavery to the United States, independence to Italy, nor the radical and rational movement of the mind in 1858-1864 all over Europe. Russia today farà da sè [will succeed by itself], without expecting its freedom from abroad.

As to those other very interesting questions that you put to me, you will perhaps find some answers in the following reflections:

It is a misfortune for the Russian people that, in Russia’s quest to the East, it has not encountered any civilised people already in possession of the Manchurian Pacific Ocean coast. It is a misfortune that it has had to cultivate the desserts along the Amur and to build a railroad across those of Manchuria. This country will never be Russian. Chinese colonists have already invaded. And if, for example, the United States, wished to take possession of it tomorrow, the whole world, Russia included, would gain thereby.

But, does it follow that it would be desirable to see a United States as belligerent, and as full of imperialist dreams as Japan establish itself in Manchuria? I do not think so. Certainly it would not, in the past, have been in the interests of European civilisation that England had added to her maritime power that of a continental nation, by establishing herself in Brittany or the Low Countries. Incidentally, Japan herself would soon lose whatever is appealing in her civilisation. The fruit of centuries of peace will disappear beneath a European uniform accompanied by the sound of a bad translation of God Save the King!

I have not read the article by Mr Hyndman that you speak about; but, I have read many others in the English press, all inspired by the same “pro-Japanese chauvinism”! For my part, having no sympathy for the dreams of conquest of Russian moneygrubbers, I have not the slightest drop for the dreams of conquest of the capitalists and feudalists of a modernised Japan. Because, it is not in hopes of dumping their surplus population that the ruling classes of Japan dream of conquering Korea, Manchuria and… Peking. It is for the disposal of goods, produced by the odious exploitation of women and children, among an impoverished agricultural population (read Rathcan!). It is to govern and to enrich themselves — in European style.

The Rhodes and the Whitaker-Wrights, yellow and white, Japanese, Russian or English, are equally hateful to me. I prefer to stand on the side of the young Japanese socialist party. As small as it is, it has expressed the deep feeling of the Japanese people (in those brief moments of rest and recovery allowed it), in pronouncing against the war in its proud proclamation and its letter addressed to the Daily News.

I expect, moreover, with great anxiety, that the conflict waged in the Far East is but the prelude to a conflict, infinitely more serious, long in preparation, to be played out along the Dardanelles, and perhaps even in the Black Sea — thus preparing new episodes of war and militarism for the whole of Europe…

In short, I see in this war that has broken out a calamity, a danger for the whole progressive movement in Europe. A triumph of the worst instincts of modern capitalism, how could it contribute to the triumph of progress?

Yours sincerely.

Peter Kropotkin, Bromley, 18th February 1904.