# What were you THINKING? **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [October 13, 2023, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532 "2023-10-13T19:36:53Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Showing post:** 7792
**Author:** ![robby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robby/32/11048_2.png) [@robby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robby)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2026, 8:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532/7792 "2026-08-04T20:10:48Z")
> [@Why doesn’t Stalin’s version of communism work? “From each according to their abilities, to each according to their labor?”](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesn-t-stalin-s-version-of-communism-work-from-each-according-to-their-abilities-to-each-according-to-their-labor/1032137/44): > > …The reason we don’t have such a system is that the system we do have was imposed on people by force and violence, starting with the separation of peasants and workers from the land and control over production. 400 years later, we have all become habituated to believe it is the only possible, viable system, just as earlier societies believed in the divine right of kings. And force and violence are still used to maintain the system and to disrupt and destroy alternatives when they spring up… Username and avatar checks out. > **[Peter Kropotkin](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Kropotkin)** > > Pyotr Alexeyevich Kropotkin\[a\] (9 December \[O.S. 27 November\] 1842 – 8 February 1921) was a Russian anarchist political philosopher and geographer known as a proponent of anarchist communism. Born into an aristocratic land-owning family, Kropotkin attended the Page Corps and later served as an officer in Siberia, where he participated in several geological expeditions. He was imprisoned for his activism in 1874 and managed to escape two years later. He spent the next 41 years in exile in Switze... --- _[View the full topic](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532)._