Editing The Conquest of Bread (section)

==Background==
In 1886, Kropotkin was released from French prison. Fearful of the anarchist scare that was gripping [[continental Europe]] following the [[assassination]] of [[Alexander II of Russia|Alexander II]] and wishing to focus more time on composing [[theory]] and arguing for his revolutionary ideals, Kropotkin moved to London in the same year.<ref name="Woodcock-1990">{{Cite book |last=Woodcock |first=George |url=https://archive.org/details/isbn_9210921689609 |title=Peter Kropotkin : from prince to rebel |last2=Avakumovic |first2=Ivan |date=1990 |publisher=Black Rose Books |isbn=9780921689607 |location=Montréal |oclc=21156316 |url-access=registration}}</ref> Following the death of [[Mikhail Bakunin]] in 1876, anarchists desired a prominent and respected theorist to explain their ideas and—after the splitting of the [[First International]] between [[Marxism|Marxists]] and anarchists—Kropotkin wished to formally explain [[anarchist communism]] in a way that would clearly differentiate the anarchists from the Marxists, but also help to correct what he saw as flaws in Bakunin's ideology of [[collectivist anarchism]].<ref>{{Cite book |last=Priestland |first=David |title=The Conquest of Bread |others=Kropotkin, Peter |year=2015 |isbn=9780141396118 |edition=This edition, using the 1913 text, first published in Penguin Classics in 2015 |location=London |pages=Introduction |oclc=913790063}}</ref> With this aim, Kropotkin spent a great deal of time in London writing multiple books and pamphlets, in between his international speaking tours to the [[United States]] and [[Canada]]. It was during this time of rapid literary output that Kropotkin wrote ''The Conquest of Bread'', which became his most well-known attempt to systematically explain the essential parts of anarchist communism.<ref name="Woodcock-1990" />

Kropotkin originally wrote the text in French and published in the French journal ''[[Le Révolté]],'' where he served as the primary editor. Following its publication in France, Kropotkin published a serialized version in English in the London anarchist journal ''[[Freedom newspaper|Freedom]]''. The book would later be collected and published as a book in France in 1892 and in England in 1906.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Kropotkin |first=Peter |url=https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Conquest_of_Bread |title=The Conquest of Bread}}</ref><ref name="Woodcock-1990" />

The publication of the text was a watershed moment in anarchist history, being the first time that a completed and in-depth theoretical work of anarchist communism was available to the public.<ref name="Woodcock-1990" /> The publication of the text shifted the focus of [[anarchism]] from [[Individualist anarchism|individualist]], [[Mutualism (economic theory)|mutualist]] and [[Collectivist anarchism|collectivist]] strains to [[Social anarchism|social]] and [[Anarchist communism|communist]] tendencies.<ref name="Woodcock-1990" /> This shift would prove to be one of the most enduring changes in the [[history of anarchism]] as anarchism developed throughout the 20th century with Kropotkin and ''The Conquest of Bread'' as firm reference points.<ref name="Woodcock-1990" />