BRING BACK KROPOTKIN!

by Christopher Draper

MANCHESTER’s People’s History Museum aims to depict all political strands that comprise Britain’s rich labour tradition but one aspect is notably absent. There’s more to politics than voting and the anti-Parliamentary ideas and artifacts of the hugely influential anarchist Peter Kropotkin (1842-1921) have been exiled to the museum’s storeroom. 

When the institution opened in London in 1975 Kropotkin’s desk and chair were prominently displayed and visitors learnt from attached brass plaques that they’d previously belonged to radical campaigner Richard Cobden but when the collection moved to Manchester these exhibits were curiously removed.  Curiously because Cobden is strongly associated with Manchester, where he founded the 'Anti Corn Law League', was MP for Stockport then for Rochdale, lived for years at nearby 19, Quay Street, has a statue erected to his memory in St Anne’s Square and a bust on view in the Town Hall.  As activists have successfully campaigned for blue plaques memorialising Kropotkin’s former homes in Bromley and Brighton, so now with the approaching centenary of his death on 8th, February 1921, what better time to restore these key exhibits to public view?

                                  WHOSE HERITAGE?

'HERITAGE' in Britain generally promotes a ruling class perspective with stately homes, art galleries and statues of the “Great and Good” predominant.  Since the 1893 foundation of the Independent Labour Party Britain’s official labour movement directed most its time, money and energy into getting Labour governments elected and few resources were spared for independent working class education and preserving, recording and presenting the artifacts and history of workers’ struggles.

To secure adequate resources the Manchester museum treads a perilous path between faithfully recording campaigns for freedom and equality whilst not upsetting establishment sources of funding. From its roots in the labour movement the museum has over the years moved into the heritage industry, successfully widening its popular appeal and funding-base but along the way it’s quietly succumbed to 'ideological cleansing', gently edging anarchism out of the picture in order to
represent Parliamentary power as the ultimate goal of past struggles. 

There’s no denying that Parliamentary politics dominate the labour movement but revolutionary ideas and movements were and remain a vital thread in the tapestry.  There’s more to labour history than campaigns for the franchise and it’s essential that displays also reflect the continuing battle for ideas within the movement.  With the Cobden connection and the fast approaching centenary (Feb 2021), it’s time Kropotkin’s artifacts along with an explanation of anarchism’s political significance were restored to the museum’s public galleries.

                Slippery Slope from Limehouse to Manchester

THE collection was begun in the 1960’s by enthusiastic members of the 'Trade Union, Labour and Co-operative History Society' who eventually secured exhibition space at Limehouse Town Hall.  The museum’s moving spirit and founding curator was Harold Fry who’d started work in a brush factory at the tender age of eleven before campaigning for years to persuade the Labour movement to value its own history, 'because it is not yet history conscious.  The movement must know where it has been to know where it is going… we want to educate the public, to balance the history of the ruling classes, which they are taught, with the people’s history'.

On 19th Monday 1975 Prime Minister Harold Wilson officially opened the 'National Museum of Labour History', accompanied by Michael Foot, Barbara Castle, Hugh Scanlon and Clive Jenkins, and in an ominous gesture of vacuous popularism donated his pipe for exhibition, 'but not the famous clogs in which he is said in some speeches to have trudged as a ragged urchin to Milnsbridge Council School' (Clement Attlee’s pipe is on reverent display in the current museum). 

The museum remained in Limehouse until 1985 when it was promised a new, larger home at the
redundant Mile End Baths. In the course of conversion it was discovered that the baths was contaminated with asbestos and on so the collection was packed away and remained in storage until a funding offer was made by Greater Manchester authorities.  A new trust was formed and in 1990 the collection went on display again, initially occupying part of the old 'Manchester Mechanics Institute' in Princess Street, in 1868 the first meeting place of the Trade Union Congress. In 1994 the collection moved into its present home in a beautifully restored hydraulic pumping station on the banks of Manchester’s river Irwell.

Still officially registered as the 'National Museum of Labour History' on moving north the institution re-opened under the new, establishment-friendly title of the 'People’s History Museum'.  In an apparently continuing quest for ever greater de-politicisation and vacuity, the collection now bills itself as the 'National Museum of Democracy'.  If this trend continues perhaps Clement Attlee’s pipe will soon be confined to storage lest it be viewed as an incitement to revolution!

                                      The Anarchist Prince

IRONICALLY, throughout the three decades Kropotkin lived in England he was welcomed rather than feared by 'civilised society'.  As an internationally respected geographer and scientist as well as an acknowledged, if alienated, member of Russia’s aristocracy his ideas and activities were even sympathetically reported by the London Times.  'Mutual Aid', Kropotkin’s classic rejoinder to T. H. Huxley’s interpretation of the social consequences of Darwinism will forever serve as eloquent testimony to the cooperative impulse that underlies anarchism and indeed all progressive politics.
Sadly for Kropotkin’s last years in England he alienated former anarchist comrades by supporting the war against Germany but retained friendships with local members of the Brighton labour movement. When he departed for Russia in 1917 he took with him seventy tea chests of books and papers but presented his desk to Brighton Trades Council (who subsequently donated it to the museum). 

This episode in itself  offers any museum worth its salt an ideal opportunity to pose important questions of political loyalty to interested visitors.  Finally returning to Russia on 12th June 1917 Kropotkin’s support for the revolution but opposition to the Bolsheviks might similarly raise critical questions in the mind of anyone viewing Kropotkin exhibits, and reading interpretive boards about his life.  
       
                        - 'Labour History Museum'  –  
             - Lively Debating Chamber or Necropolis? -

Despite my reservations about the some of the innovations, the museum’s administrators have worked wonders keeping the collection together, conserving the artefacts, providing imaginative attractive displays and continuing to offer free admission.   Everyone involved deserves to be heartily congratulated.  This year (2019) the “Manchester & Salford Anarchist Bookfair” returned to the museum increasing the impetus to restore anarchist content to the galleries.  'People’s History' isn’t a
lost world of clog dancing,  Hovis adverts and chimney sweeps, it should stimulate political questions about the past, present and future.  It is a vital debate that recognises Parliament may be a political preoccupation for many but it’s not the realisation of labour’s 'New Jerusalem'.  The return to public view of Kropotkin’s furniture won’t change the world or frighten the horses but it might stimulate debate and attract the interest of a younger generation turned off by traditional politics. 

Why not visit the museum yourself, hand in a card (or email - Katy.Ashton@phm.org.uk) requesting the return of Kropotkin’s desk before the 8th, February 2021 centenary of his death?  Refusing to vote isn’t anarchy in action if you do nothing to promote positive alternatives - Stand up for Kropotkin’s chair!

                                                                                                       Christopher Draper (Dec 2019)

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