This key thinker argues the commune should be the basis of society. Communes were to be small, independent, internally democratic units:
-He was born into the Russian aristocracy, but he became disillusioned by the behaviour of his own class at an early age and by the 1870s, he had been converted to anarchism.
-His conversion (from socialism to anarchism) was mainly the result of his visit to the Jura Federation in Switzerland where he observed an experiment in cooperative production and living among a community of watch-makers who pooled their resources and the profits of their work.
-These communities, based on a single occupation, were self-governing cooperatives where the workers operated without any government and shared the fruits of their production equally.
-His plans were mainly described in 'Fields, Factories and Workshops' (1898).
-His brand of anarcho-communism proposed the creation of natural communities (communes).
-These would be smaller-scale communities than those described by Bakunin.
-His argument was that if people were free to join whichever community they wished, they would not be subjected to any force.
-He stated, 'Don't compete! - Competition is always injurious to the species, and you have plenty of resources to avoid it!'
-Within these communes, decisions could be reached collectively through a natural democratic process - other systems would represent the tyranny of the majority or elected representatives do not necessarily reflect the will of the people.
-He looked forward to a time when these communities would be self-sufficient and prosperous.
-Without scarcity, he argued, there would be no competition, and without competition, there would be no inequality.
-In his book 'Mutual Aid' (1902), he wrote, 'Therefore combine - practise mutual aid! That is the surest means for giving to each and to all the greatest safety, the best guarantee of existence and progress, bodily, intellectual and moral. That is what Nature teaches us; and that is what all those animals which have attained the highest position of their respective classes have done.'.
-When revolution broke out in Russia in 1917, he returned home after years in exile - he saw this as an opportunity to see some of his plans put into practice.
-Despite his aspiration to see the development of peaceful, natural communities, he was a revolutionary who envisaged the overthrow of the state by violent means if necessary.
-When the Bolsheviks took over under Lenin, he was disappointed in the development of a new state to replace the old one.
-Perhaps naively, he had hoped that there would be a popular uprising that would destroy the state altogether and begin to build the small natural communities that he supported.