Kropotkin's attitude to the Soviet Government in relation to the Russian revolution was voiced only in letters to friends and in two public statements, which are printed here, with slight omissions of unimportant parts. The Letter to the Workers of Western Europe, written early in 1919 and sent to Georg Brandes, the great Danish critic, while military communism was still in effect, deals in part with aspects still essentially unchanged. It was written for the British Labour Mission of 1920 and is included in their report.
The memorandum dated just a few months before his death in 1921 deals with the revolution in much more general terms. It was not completed, and should not be regarded as his full thought on the question that prompted it,--What to do? It was written in response to repeated appeals by his family and friends for his view of what should be done by anarchists in Russia.