Quiz: Mutual Aid

All 40 questions. A perfect score earns the gold medal; 80% earns silver.

1. 1. What happened to the dried fish an Aleut had promised to Veniaminoff?

   It was sold to Russian traders It was eaten during the famine and replaced later It was kept untouched through a famine and sent to him later It was burnt on the giver’s grave
2. 2. Which country does Kropotkin say offers the best field for studying co-operation, through the artel?

   Switzerland England Russia Denmark
3. 3. What did Kropotkin watch at the Brighton Aquarium in 1882?

   Parrots mourning a dead companion Ants sharing food with hungry comrades of the nest Molucca crabs trying to turn a comrade upright Pelicans fishing together in a half-circle
4. 4. Who started the Grand National Consolidated Trades’ Union, which Kropotkin says mustered half a million members in a few months?

   Francis Place Robert Owen John Burns Feargus O’Connor
5. 5. What two kinds of union made up the mediaeval city’s “double federation”?

   The city council and the royal garrison Territorial units like streets and parishes, and guilds by trade Merchant families and foreign trading houses The bishop’s household and the lord’s castle with its retainers
6. 6. What does Kropotkin name as the main checks that keep animal species down?

   Lack of breeding grounds Extermination by man and contagious diseases Fighting between members of the same species Competition for the means of existence
7. 7. Whose work does Kropotkin criticize in the Appendix for representing humanity as starting with the patriarchal family?

   Edward Westermarck’s Maxim Kovalevsky’s J. J. Bachofen’s Lewis H. Morgan’s
8. 8. What mediaeval precedent for a modern labour demand does Kropotkin cite from Ferdinand the First?

   An ordinance fixing the miner’s day at eight hours A decree abolishing child labour and night work in the mines A charter granting miners the vote A law establishing old-age pensions
9. 9. Why, according to Kropotkin, do the horses of Transbaikalia grow exhausted by the end of winter?

   Food is hard to get from beneath the snow and frost There is too little grass on the steppe for all of them Wolves keep them from grazing Stronger horses drive the weaker from the pasture
10. 10. In the early mediaeval city, how did an apprentice become a master, according to Kropotkin?

    By inheriting his father’s workshop and its tools By buying a licence from the king or his officers By election of the whole city folkmote, on his master’s word By a masterwork, after years of apprenticeship
11. 11. According to the 1914 preface, what did apologists use to excuse the horrors of the war in Belgium and France?

    The will of God The right of reprisal under international law The phrase “struggle for existence” The doctrine of the balance of power
12. 12. Which movement of the Reformation period does Kropotkin say lived in prosperous settlements on the principles of communism?

    The Swiss Landsgemeinde The communist fraternities of Moravia The Jesuit missions of Paraguay and Brazil The Hanseatic merchant guilds
13. 13. According to Kropotkin, what was the source of the barbarians’ subjection to military chieftains?

    The conversion of their kings and chief nobles to Roman Christianity A Roman law of succession they adopted Their warlike instincts, which made them follow the strongest Their peacefulness, which left warfare to armed brotherhoods
14. 14. What, according to Kropotkin, moves a man to rush with a pail of water to a neighbour’s burning house?

    Fear that the fire will spread to his own house Love for his neighbour Hope of a reward A wide instinct of human solidarity and sociability
15. 15. What right do the Caucasian Ossetes allow when the cuckoo announces spring?

    The folkmote redistributes all the land by lot Each family may enclose a new field from the common waste Anyone in need may take a neighbour’s hay All debts between neighbours are cancelled for the year
16. 16. What new organization, according to chapter 4, replaced the clan among the migrating barbarians?

    The village community, based on a common territory The city republic The patriarchal family, ruled by its eldest male The feudal manor
17. 17. According to Kropotkin, how was communal land ownership removed in England?

    By the sale of crown lands under Elizabeth By the peasants voluntarily dividing their fields By nearly four thousand Enclosure Acts between 1760 and 1844 By a single sweeping law of the French type, under Pitt
18. 18. Which two periods does Kropotkin call the greatest in human history?

    The French Revolution and the nineteenth century The age of Charlemagne and the Reformation The ancient Greek city and the mediaeval city The Roman Empire and the Renaissance
19. 19. To what did Huxley compare the animal world, as quoted in chapter 1?

    A battlefield after the battle A gladiator’s show A market fair A well-ordered factory
20. 20. How did Guibert de Nogent describe the word “commune”?

    As a new and detestable word As a word of the Church’s own coining As an ancient and honourable name As a Roman term for a free city
21. 21. What is the “watchword” that, according to Kropotkin, nature teaches?

    Each for himself, and the State for all Multiply without stint Don’t compete; combine, practise mutual aid Struggle, and only the fittest will survive and multiply
22. 22. Which bird, observed by W. H. Hudson, sings in concert in immense flocks?

    The house sparrow The black-headed kittiwake gull The white-tailed sea eagle The chakar, or crested screamer
23. 23. Why, according to Kropotkin, did James Watt take so long to make his invention serviceable?

    Parliament refused him a patent The guilds forbade him to build engines He could not find artisans able to make his devices precisely He lacked money until he inherited a fortune from his uncle
24. 24. What do burying beetles do when one finds a corpse too large to bury alone?

    It drives other beetles away to keep it for itself It abandons it to the ants and flies It eats the corpse alone, at once, before others come It calls other beetles to bury it together
25. 25. What mistake does Kropotkin say the cities made towards the peasants?

    They forced all the peasants to move inside the walls for defence They bargained over the peasants’ heads, leaving them to the lords They gave peasants full citizenship too soon They abolished common land around the towns
26. 26. What did Kropotkin find to be the distinctive feature of Northern Asia?

    A mild climate favouring rapid increase Paucity of life and under-population An abundance of large carnivores Over-population and fierce competition for food
27. 27. What did the statisticians of Taurida find among the settlers who had first held land individually?

    That communal ownership had been imposed by the army That nearly all the villages had sold their land to moneylenders 161 villages where peasants had themselves introduced communal ownership That the settlers had petitioned for serfdom
28. 28. How did the coastguard answer when Kropotkin asked why the lifeboat men made their desperate attempt?

    He said the captain had ordered them out He did not know himself; they could not bear the cries He said they were paid a reward by the Royal Humane Society He said they hoped to salvage the cargo
29. 29. How, according to Kropotkin, did Veniaminoff actually stop infanticide among his Tchuktchis?

    By preaching sermons against it in every encampment By asking the Russian authorities to punish it severely By adopting the children himself By supplying them with bread and fishing implements
30. 30. How do ants treat a nestmate with a full crop that refuses to feed a hungry comrade?

    They ignore the refusal They expel it to another nest They make it the queen’s servant As an enemy, or even worse
31. 31. What, according to chapter 3, was the earliest form of human social life?

    The village community The isolated family The band or tribe The monogamous couple
32. 32. What example does Kropotkin give of the French village’s lack of autonomy under the Third Republic?

    Fifty-two official acts before a peasant may pay cash instead of breaking stones A village must obtain the President’s own signature before it may elect its own mayor Each village must buy its seed and implements from State-licensed merchants Peasants must ask the prefect’s leave before they begin to harvest their crops
33. 33. What did the crew and passengers of a Hansa ship do after the first half-day at sea?

    Elected a Vogt and four scabini to act as judges Chose a chaplain to lead daily prayers Swore obedience to the captain as their lord for the voyage Drew lots for their share of the cargo
34. 34. What did the British Parliament do in 1799, in Kropotkin’s account?

    Legalized trade unions Introduced the eight-hour day Prohibited all sorts of workers’ combinations Restored the property and privileges of the old guilds
35. 35. What did Kropotkin witness in the Amur gorge one October?

    Thousands of deer crossing the river to escape the snow A herd of wild horses forming a ring to fight off wolves Buffaloes migrating across the steppe Beavers dividing into two colonies
36. 36. Whom does the preface blame for preparing the war and its methods?

    The masses of the people The financiers and arms makers of London and Paris Their rulers and intellectual leaders The anarchists and socialists of every country
37. 37. What did Savonarola answer when the people of Florence asked him for advice?

    That they should call back the Medici That he could not go into State affairs; they should purify their souls That they should form a league with Milan That they should elect him head of the Signoria for life, as their prophet
38. 38. Who gave the 1880 lecture “On the Law of Mutual Aid” that inspired the book?

    Herbert Spencer Professor Kessler Alfred Wallace Thomas Huxley
39. 39. What did Kolben’s Hottentot informant call the habit of sharing food with all present?

    “The law of the clan” “Brotherly duty” “The gift of the ancestors” “Hottentot manner”
40. 40. What did the Kabyles do during the famine of 1867–68?

    Closed their villages to strangers Sold their grain stores to European settlers Appealed to the French authorities for relief and seed corn Fed all who sought refuge, without asking for government aid