After the bitter experience of World War I and the Russian Revolution, the global anarchist movement had to rethink its approach to revolutionary change. The application of science and technology to warfare, the "rationalization" of production, the rise of fascism, etc., created conditions not envisaged in Kropotkin's teachings, which were subjected to a thoroughgoing revision. But Kropotkin also had his defenders, who not only insisted on the relevance of his ideas, but also extended his critique of industrial society. Using a wide variety of sources, Vadim Damier examines these debates, which found their culmination in the CNT's 1936 resolution on libertarian communism.
In the 19th century science and technology had served as a synonym for liberation; now they began to be perceived as yet another, more refined, form of slavery and domination.