Status Updates From The Anarchist Prince: A Bio...

independence of thought and compassion for the unfortunate, and therefore towards rebellion against authority.

When we look back briefly over Kropotkin's youth, we can see the literal exactitude of this answer. The circumstances of childhood--his mother's gentle intelligence, his father's harsh neglect, his own close personal contact with the tyrannised serfs, the fostering influence of Smirnov and the books he readin this early period--all contributed to a character predisposed towards independence of thought and compassion