The Conquest of Bread is an 1892 book by the Russian anarcho-communist Peter Kropotkin. Peter Kropotkin was born a Russian prince whose father owned 1,200 serfs. But he became a Russian activist, writer, revolutionary, scientist, economist, sociologist, historian, essayist, researcher, political scientist, biologist, geographer and philosopher. The Conquest of Bread has become a classic of political anarchist literature. It was heavily influential on both the Spanish Civil War and the Occupy movement. In the work, Kropotkin goes on to propose a more decentralized economic system based on mutual aid and voluntary cooperation, asserting that the tendencies for this kind of organization already exist, both in evolution and in human society.