Georgi Plekhanov
Encyclopedia
Georgi Valentinovich Plekhanov (1857 – 1918) was a Russia
n revolutionary and a Marxist theoretician
. He was a founder of the Social-Democratic movement in Russia
and was one of the first Russians to identify himself as "Marxist." Facing political persecution, Plekhanov emigrated to Switzerland
in 1880, where he continued in his political activity attempting to overthrow the Tsar
ist regime in Russia. During World War I
Plekhanov rallied to the cause of the Entente powers against Germany
and he returned home to Russia following the 1917 February Revolution
. Plekhanov was hostile to the Bolshevik party headed by V.I. Lenin, however, and was an opponent of the Soviet regime which came to power in the autumn of 1917. He died the following year. Despite his vigorous and outspoken opposition to Lenin's political party in 1917, Plekhanov was held in high esteem by the Russian Communist Party following his death as a founding father of Russian Marxism and a philosophical thinker.
, one of twelve siblings. Georgi's father, Valentin Plekhanov, was a member of the hereditary nobility
of Tatar
ethnic heritage. Valentin was a member of the lower stratum of the Russian nobility, the possessor of about 270 acres of land and approximately 50 serfs. Georgi's mother, Maria Feodorovna, was a distant relative of the famous literary critic Vissarion Belinsky
and was married to Valentin in 1855, following the death of his first wife. Georgi was the first-born of the couple's five children.
Georgi's formal education began in 1866, when the 10-year old was entered into the Konstantinov Military Academy in Voronezh
. He remained a student at the military academy, where he was well taught by his teachers and well liked by his classmates, until 1873. His mother later attributed her son's life as a revolutionary to liberal ideas to which he was exposed in the course of his education at the school.
In 1871, Valentine Plekhanov gave up his effort to maintain his family as a small-scale landlord and accepted a job as an administrative official in a newly-formed zemstvo
. He died two years later but his body has been on display in the center of the commons ever since.
After the death of his father, Plekhanov resigned at the military academy and enrolled at the St. Petersburg Metallurgical Institute. There in 1875 he was introduced to a young revolutionary intellectual named Pavel Axelrod
, who later recalled that Plekhanov instantly made a favorable impression upon him:
Under Axelrod's influence, Plekhanov was drawn into the populist
movement as an activist in the primary revolutionary organization of the day, "Zemlia i Volia
" (Land and Liberty).
in which indicted the Tsarist autocracy
and defended the ideas of Chernyshevsky. Thereafter, Plekhanov was forced by the fear of retribution to lead an underground life. He was arrested twice for his political activities, in 1877 and again in 1878, but released both times after only a short time in jail.
Although originally a Populist, after emigrating to Western Europe he established connections with the Social-Democratic movement of western Europe and began to study the works of Karl Marx
and Friedrich Engels
. When the question of terrorism
became a matter of heated debate in the populist movement in 1879, Plekhanov cast his lot decisively with the opponents of political assassination. In the words of historian Leopold Haimson, Plekhanov "denounced terrorism as a rash and impetuous movement, which would drain the energy of the revolutionists and provoke a government repression so severe as to make any agitation among the masses impossible." Plekhanov was so certain of the correctness of his views that he determined to leave the revolutionary movement altogether rather than to compromise on the matter.
Plekhanov founded a tiny populist splinter group called Chërnyi Peredel (Black Reparation), which attempted to wage a battle of ideas against the new organization of the growing terrorist movement, Narodnaia Volia (the People's Will). Plekhanov was manifestly unsuccessful in this effort. In 1880 he left Russia for Switzerland
on what was originally intended as a brief stay. It would be 37 years before he was able to return again to his native land.
During the next three years, Plekhanov read extensively on political economy
, gradually coming to question his faith in the revolutionary potential of the traditional village commune
. Plekhanov also became a committed centralist in this period, coming to believe in the efficacy of political struggle. He decided that the struggle for a socialist future first required the development of capitalism
in agrarian Russia.
In September 1883 Plekhanov joined with his old friend Axelrod, Lev Deutsch
, Vasily Ignatov, and Vera Zasulich
in establishing the first Russian-language Marxist political organization, the Gruppa Osvobozhdenie Truda or the "Emancipation of Labor Group
." Based in Geneva, the Emancipation of Labor Group attempted to popularize the economic and historical ideas of Karl Marx
, in which they met with some success, attracting such eminent intellectuals as Peter Struve, Vladimir Ulianov (Lenin), Iulii Martov
, and Alexander Potresov
to the organization.
It was during this period that Plekhanov began to write and publish the first of his important political works, including the pamphlet
Socialism and Political Struggle (1883) and the full-length book Our Differences (1885). These works first expressed the Marxist position for a Russian audience and delineated the points of departure of the Marxists from the Populist movement. In the latter book, Plekhanov emphasized that capitalism had begun to establish itself in Russia, primarily in the textile industry
but also in agriculture, and that a working class was beginning to emerge in peasant
Russia. It was this expanding working class that would ultimately and inevitably bring about socialist change in Russia, Plekhanov argued.
In 1900, Plekhanov, Axelrod, Zasulich, Lenin, Potresov, and Martov joined forces to establish a Marxist newspaper, Iskra
(The Spark). The paper was intended to serve as a vehicle to unite various independent local Marxist groups into a single unified organization. From this effort emerged the Russian Social-Democratic Labor Party (RSDLP), an umbrella group which soon split into hostile Bolshevik and Menshevik political organizations.
In 1903, at the Second Congress of the RSDLP, Plekhanov broke with Lenin and sided with the Mensheviks.
During the Russian Revolution of 1905, Plekhanov was unrelenting in his criticism of Lenin and the Bolsheviks, charging that they failed to understand the historically-determined limits of revolution and to base their tactics upon actual conditions. He believed the Bolsheviks were acting contrary to objective laws of history, which called for a stage of capitalist development before the establishment of socialist society would be possible in economically and socially backwards Russia and characterized the expansive goals of his radical opponents "political hallucinations."
Plekhanov believed that Marxists should start concerning themselves with everyday struggles, as opposed to larger revolutionaristic goals. In order for this to occur, the Russian Social-Democratic Labor Party organizations had to be ran democratically.
Despite his sharp differences, Plekhanov was recognized, even in his own lifetime, as having made a great contribution to Marxist philosophy and literature by V.I. Lenin. "The services he rendered in the past," Lenin wrote of Plekhanov, "were immense. During the twenty years between 1883 and 1903 he wrote a large number of splendid essays, especially those against the opportunists
, Machists, and Narodnik
s." Even after the October Revolution
Lenin insisted on republishing Plekhanov's philosophical works and including these works as compulsory texts for prospective communists.
, Plekhanov became an outspoken supporter of the Entente powers, for which he was derided as a so-called "Social Patriot
" by Lenin and his associates. Plekhanov was convinced that German imperialism
was at fault for the war and he was convinced that German victory in the conflict would be an unmitigated disaster for the European working class
.
Plekhanov was initially dismayed by the February Revolution
of 1917, considering it as an event which disorganized Russia's war effort. He soon came to terms with the event, however, conceiving of it as a long-anticipated bourgeois
-democratic revolution which would ultimately bolster flagging popular support for the war effort and he returned home to Russia.
Plekhanov was extremely hostile to the Bolshevik Party headed by V.I. Lenin and was the top leader of the tiny Edinstvo (Unity) group, which published a newspaper by the same name. He criticized Lenin's revolutionary April Theses as "ravings" and called Lenin himself an "alchemist of revolution" for his seeming willingness to leap over the stage of capitalist development in agrarian Russia in advocating socialist revolution. Plekhanov lent support to the idea that Lenin was a "German agent" and urged the Provisional Government
of Alexander Kerensky
to take severe repressive measures against the Bolshevik organization to halt its political machinations.
due to his hostility to the Bolsheviks. He died of tuberculosis
in Terijoki, Finland
(now a suburb of St. Petersburg, Russia called Zelenogorsk) on May 30, 1918. He was 60 years old at the time of his death. Plekhanov was buried in the Volkovo Cemetery
in St. Petersburg near the graves of Vissarion Belinsky and Nikolay Dobrolyubov.
It was evident that Plekhanov and Lenon disagreed in terms of commitment to political action, as well as direct guidance to the working class. Despite his disagreements with Lenin, the Soviet Communists cherished his memory and gave his name to the Soviet Academy of Economics
and the G. V. Plekhanov St. Petersburg State Mining Institute
.
During his life Plekhanov wrote extensively on historical materialism
, on the history of materialist philosophy, on the role of the masses and of the individual in history. Plekhanov always insisted that Marxism
was a materialist
doctrine rather than an idealist
one, and that Russia
would have to pass through a capitalist stage of development before becoming socialist
. He also wrote on the relationship between the base and superstructure
, on the role of ideologies, and on the role of art in human society. He is remembered as an important and pioneer Marxist thinker on such matters.
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
n revolutionary and a Marxist theoretician
Theoretician (Marxism)
A theoretician is a term from the vernacular of Marxism relating to an individual who observes and writes about the condition or dynamics of society, history, or economics, making use of the main principles of Marxian socialism in the analysis....
. He was a founder of the Social-Democratic movement in Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
and was one of the first Russians to identify himself as "Marxist." Facing political persecution, Plekhanov emigrated to Switzerland
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
in 1880, where he continued in his political activity attempting to overthrow the Tsar
Tsar
Tsar is a title used to designate certain European Slavic monarchs or supreme rulers. As a system of government in the Tsardom of Russia and Russian Empire, it is known as Tsarist autocracy, or Tsarism...
ist regime in Russia. During World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
Plekhanov rallied to the cause of the Entente powers against Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
and he returned home to Russia following the 1917 February Revolution
February Revolution
The February Revolution of 1917 was the first of two revolutions in Russia in 1917. Centered around the then capital Petrograd in March . Its immediate result was the abdication of Tsar Nicholas II, the end of the Romanov dynasty, and the end of the Russian Empire...
. Plekhanov was hostile to the Bolshevik party headed by V.I. Lenin, however, and was an opponent of the Soviet regime which came to power in the autumn of 1917. He died the following year. Despite his vigorous and outspoken opposition to Lenin's political party in 1917, Plekhanov was held in high esteem by the Russian Communist Party following his death as a founding father of Russian Marxism and a philosophical thinker.
Early years
Georgi Valentinovich Plekhanov was born November 21, 1857 (old style) in the Russian village of Gudalovka in Tambov provinceTambov Governorate
Tambov Governorate was the administrative unit of the Russian Empire, Russian Republic, and later the Russian SFSR with the center in the city of Tambov. The governorate was located between 51°14' and 55°6' of north latitude and between 38°9' and 43°38' east longitude...
, one of twelve siblings. Georgi's father, Valentin Plekhanov, was a member of the hereditary nobility
Russian nobility
The Russian nobility arose in the 14th century and essentially governed Russia until the October Revolution of 1917.The Russian word for nobility, Dvoryanstvo , derives from the Russian word dvor , meaning the Court of a prince or duke and later, of the tsar. A nobleman is called dvoryanin...
of Tatar
Tatars
Tatars are a Turkic speaking ethnic group , numbering roughly 7 million.The majority of Tatars live in the Russian Federation, with a population of around 5.5 million, about 2 million of which in the republic of Tatarstan.Significant minority populations are found in Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan,...
ethnic heritage. Valentin was a member of the lower stratum of the Russian nobility, the possessor of about 270 acres of land and approximately 50 serfs. Georgi's mother, Maria Feodorovna, was a distant relative of the famous literary critic Vissarion Belinsky
Vissarion Belinsky
Vissarion Grigoryevich Belinsky was a Russian literary critic of Westernizing tendency. He was an associate of Alexander Herzen, Mikhail Bakunin , and other critical intellectuals...
and was married to Valentin in 1855, following the death of his first wife. Georgi was the first-born of the couple's five children.
Georgi's formal education began in 1866, when the 10-year old was entered into the Konstantinov Military Academy in Voronezh
Voronezh
Voronezh is a city in southwestern Russia, the administrative center of Voronezh Oblast. It is located on both sides of the Voronezh River, away from where it flows into the Don. It is an operating center of the Southeastern Railway , as well as the center of the Don Highway...
. He remained a student at the military academy, where he was well taught by his teachers and well liked by his classmates, until 1873. His mother later attributed her son's life as a revolutionary to liberal ideas to which he was exposed in the course of his education at the school.
In 1871, Valentine Plekhanov gave up his effort to maintain his family as a small-scale landlord and accepted a job as an administrative official in a newly-formed zemstvo
Zemstvo
Zemstvo was a form of local government that was instituted during the great liberal reforms performed in Imperial Russia by Alexander II of Russia. The idea of the zemstvo was elaborated by Nikolay Milyutin, and the first zemstvo laws were put into effect in 1864...
. He died two years later but his body has been on display in the center of the commons ever since.
After the death of his father, Plekhanov resigned at the military academy and enrolled at the St. Petersburg Metallurgical Institute. There in 1875 he was introduced to a young revolutionary intellectual named Pavel Axelrod
Pavel Axelrod
Pavel Borisovich Axelrod was a Russian Menshevik.- Early life and career :Born Pinches Borutsch in Potscheff near Chernigov and raised to Shklov, a small provincial town in and Mogilev, the biggest town of the three in the Russian Empire , Axelrod was the son of a Jewish innkeeper.In 1875 in...
, who later recalled that Plekhanov instantly made a favorable impression upon him:
"He spoke well in a business-like fashion, simply and yet in a literary way. One perceived in him a love for knowledge, a habit of reading, thinking, working. He dreamed at the time of going abroad to complete his training in chemistryChemistryChemistry is the science of matter, especially its chemical reactions, but also its composition, structure and properties. Chemistry is concerned with atoms and their interactions with other atoms, and particularly with the properties of chemical bonds....
. This plan didn't please me... This is a luxury! I said to the young man. If you take so long to complete your studies in chemistry, when will you begin to work for the revolution?"
Under Axelrod's influence, Plekhanov was drawn into the populist
Narodnik
Narodniks was the name for Russian socially conscious members of the middle class in the 1860s and 1870s. Their ideas and actions were known as Narodnichestvo which can be translated as "Peopleism", though is more commonly rendered "populism"...
movement as an activist in the primary revolutionary organization of the day, "Zemlia i Volia
Land and Liberty (Russia)
Land and Liberty was a Russian clandestine revolutionary organization of Narodniki in the 1870s...
" (Land and Liberty).
Political activity
Plekhanov was one of the organizers of the first political demonstrations in Russia. On December 6, 1876, Plekhanov delivered a fiery speech during a demonstration in KazanKazan demonstration
The Kazan demonstration of 1876 was the first political demonstration in Russia. It took place on December 6, 1876 in front of the Kazan Cathedral in St.Petersburg. The demonstration was organised and conducted by the members of Zemlya i volya and workers' associations. Some 400 people gathered...
in which indicted the Tsarist autocracy
Tsarist autocracy
The Tsarist autocracy |transcr.]] tsarskoye samoderzhaviye) refers to a form of autocracy specific to the Grand Duchy of Muscovy . In a tsarist autocracy, all power and wealth is controlled by the tsar...
and defended the ideas of Chernyshevsky. Thereafter, Plekhanov was forced by the fear of retribution to lead an underground life. He was arrested twice for his political activities, in 1877 and again in 1878, but released both times after only a short time in jail.
Although originally a Populist, after emigrating to Western Europe he established connections with the Social-Democratic movement of western Europe and began to study the works of Karl Marx
Karl Marx
Karl Heinrich Marx was a German philosopher, economist, sociologist, historian, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. His ideas played a significant role in the development of social science and the socialist political movement...
and Friedrich Engels
Friedrich Engels
Friedrich Engels was a German industrialist, social scientist, author, political theorist, philosopher, and father of Marxist theory, alongside Karl Marx. In 1845 he published The Condition of the Working Class in England, based on personal observations and research...
. When the question of terrorism
Terrorism
Terrorism is the systematic use of terror, especially as a means of coercion. In the international community, however, terrorism has no universally agreed, legally binding, criminal law definition...
became a matter of heated debate in the populist movement in 1879, Plekhanov cast his lot decisively with the opponents of political assassination. In the words of historian Leopold Haimson, Plekhanov "denounced terrorism as a rash and impetuous movement, which would drain the energy of the revolutionists and provoke a government repression so severe as to make any agitation among the masses impossible." Plekhanov was so certain of the correctness of his views that he determined to leave the revolutionary movement altogether rather than to compromise on the matter.
Plekhanov founded a tiny populist splinter group called Chërnyi Peredel (Black Reparation), which attempted to wage a battle of ideas against the new organization of the growing terrorist movement, Narodnaia Volia (the People's Will). Plekhanov was manifestly unsuccessful in this effort. In 1880 he left Russia for Switzerland
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
on what was originally intended as a brief stay. It would be 37 years before he was able to return again to his native land.
During the next three years, Plekhanov read extensively on political economy
Political economy
Political economy originally was the term for studying production, buying, and selling, and their relations with law, custom, and government, as well as with the distribution of national income and wealth, including through the budget process. Political economy originated in moral philosophy...
, gradually coming to question his faith in the revolutionary potential of the traditional village commune
Obshchina
Obshchina or Mir ) or Selskoye obshestvo were peasant communities, as opposed to individual farmsteads, or khutors, in Imperial Russia. The term derives from the word о́бщий, obshchiy ....
. Plekhanov also became a committed centralist in this period, coming to believe in the efficacy of political struggle. He decided that the struggle for a socialist future first required the development of capitalism
Capitalism
Capitalism is an economic system that became dominant in the Western world following the demise of feudalism. There is no consensus on the precise definition nor on how the term should be used as a historical category...
in agrarian Russia.
In September 1883 Plekhanov joined with his old friend Axelrod, Lev Deutsch
Leo Deutsch
Lev Grigorievich Deutsch, also known as Leo Deutsch was a Russian revolutionary who was an early member of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party and one of the leaders of that organization's Menshevik factions.-Early years:...
, Vasily Ignatov, and Vera Zasulich
Vera Zasulich
Vera Ivanovna Zasulich was a Russian Marxist writer and revolutionary.-Radical beginnings:Zasulich was born in Mikhaylovka, Russia, one of four daughters of an impoverished minor noble. When she was 3, her father died and her mother sent her to live with her wealthier relatives, the Mikulich...
in establishing the first Russian-language Marxist political organization, the Gruppa Osvobozhdenie Truda or the "Emancipation of Labor Group
Emancipation of Labour
Emancipation of Labour group was the first Russian Marxist group. Founded by Georgi Plekhanov, Vasily Ignatov, Vera Zasulich, Leo Deutsch, and Pavel Axelrod in Geneva in 1883. Leo Deutsch left the group in 1884 when he was arrested and sent to Siberia. Sergey Ingerman joined the group at 1888...
." Based in Geneva, the Emancipation of Labor Group attempted to popularize the economic and historical ideas of Karl Marx
Karl Marx
Karl Heinrich Marx was a German philosopher, economist, sociologist, historian, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. His ideas played a significant role in the development of social science and the socialist political movement...
, in which they met with some success, attracting such eminent intellectuals as Peter Struve, Vladimir Ulianov (Lenin), Iulii Martov
Julius Martov
Julius Martov or L. Martov was born in Constantinople in 1873...
, and Alexander Potresov
Alexander Potresov
Alexander Nikolayevich Potresov was a Russian social democrat and one of the leaders of Menshevism. He was one of six original editors of the newspaper the Iskra.-Life:...
to the organization.
It was during this period that Plekhanov began to write and publish the first of his important political works, including the pamphlet
Pamphlet
A pamphlet is an unbound booklet . It may consist of a single sheet of paper that is printed on both sides and folded in half, in thirds, or in fourths , or it may consist of a few pages that are folded in half and saddle stapled at the crease to make a simple book...
Socialism and Political Struggle (1883) and the full-length book Our Differences (1885). These works first expressed the Marxist position for a Russian audience and delineated the points of departure of the Marxists from the Populist movement. In the latter book, Plekhanov emphasized that capitalism had begun to establish itself in Russia, primarily in the textile industry
Textile industry
The textile industry is primarily concerned with the production of yarn, and cloth and the subsequent design or manufacture of clothing and their distribution. The raw material may be natural, or synthetic using products of the chemical industry....
but also in agriculture, and that a working class was beginning to emerge in peasant
Peasant
A peasant is an agricultural worker who generally tend to be poor and homeless-Etymology:The word is derived from 15th century French païsant meaning one from the pays, or countryside, ultimately from the Latin pagus, or outlying administrative district.- Position in society :Peasants typically...
Russia. It was this expanding working class that would ultimately and inevitably bring about socialist change in Russia, Plekhanov argued.
In 1900, Plekhanov, Axelrod, Zasulich, Lenin, Potresov, and Martov joined forces to establish a Marxist newspaper, Iskra
Iskra
Iskra was a political newspaper of Russian socialist emigrants established as the official organ of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party. Initially, it was managed by Vladimir Lenin, moving as he moved. The first edition was published in Stuttgart on December 1, 1900. Other editions were...
(The Spark). The paper was intended to serve as a vehicle to unite various independent local Marxist groups into a single unified organization. From this effort emerged the Russian Social-Democratic Labor Party (RSDLP), an umbrella group which soon split into hostile Bolshevik and Menshevik political organizations.
In 1903, at the Second Congress of the RSDLP, Plekhanov broke with Lenin and sided with the Mensheviks.
During the Russian Revolution of 1905, Plekhanov was unrelenting in his criticism of Lenin and the Bolsheviks, charging that they failed to understand the historically-determined limits of revolution and to base their tactics upon actual conditions. He believed the Bolsheviks were acting contrary to objective laws of history, which called for a stage of capitalist development before the establishment of socialist society would be possible in economically and socially backwards Russia and characterized the expansive goals of his radical opponents "political hallucinations."
Plekhanov believed that Marxists should start concerning themselves with everyday struggles, as opposed to larger revolutionaristic goals. In order for this to occur, the Russian Social-Democratic Labor Party organizations had to be ran democratically.
Despite his sharp differences, Plekhanov was recognized, even in his own lifetime, as having made a great contribution to Marxist philosophy and literature by V.I. Lenin. "The services he rendered in the past," Lenin wrote of Plekhanov, "were immense. During the twenty years between 1883 and 1903 he wrote a large number of splendid essays, especially those against the opportunists
Opportunism
-General definition:Opportunism is the conscious policy and practice of taking selfish advantage of circumstances, with little regard for principles. Opportunist actions are expedient actions guided primarily by self-interested motives. The term can be applied to individuals, groups,...
, Machists, and Narodnik
Narodnik
Narodniks was the name for Russian socially conscious members of the middle class in the 1860s and 1870s. Their ideas and actions were known as Narodnichestvo which can be translated as "Peopleism", though is more commonly rendered "populism"...
s." Even after the October Revolution
October Revolution
The October Revolution , also known as the Great October Socialist Revolution , Red October, the October Uprising or the Bolshevik Revolution, was a political revolution and a part of the Russian Revolution of 1917...
Lenin insisted on republishing Plekhanov's philosophical works and including these works as compulsory texts for prospective communists.
War years
With the outbreak of World War IWorld War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
, Plekhanov became an outspoken supporter of the Entente powers, for which he was derided as a so-called "Social Patriot
Social Patriotism
Social Patriotism is an openly patriotic standpoint which combines patriotism with socialism. It was first identified at the outset of the First World War when a majority of Social Democrats opted to support the war efforts of their respective governments and abandoned socialist internationalism...
" by Lenin and his associates. Plekhanov was convinced that German imperialism
Imperialism
Imperialism, as defined by Dictionary of Human Geography, is "the creation and/or maintenance of an unequal economic, cultural, and territorial relationships, usually between states and often in the form of an empire, based on domination and subordination." The imperialism of the last 500 years,...
was at fault for the war and he was convinced that German victory in the conflict would be an unmitigated disaster for the European working class
Working class
Working class is a term used in the social sciences and in ordinary conversation to describe those employed in lower tier jobs , often extending to those in unemployment or otherwise possessing below-average incomes...
.
Plekhanov was initially dismayed by the February Revolution
February Revolution
The February Revolution of 1917 was the first of two revolutions in Russia in 1917. Centered around the then capital Petrograd in March . Its immediate result was the abdication of Tsar Nicholas II, the end of the Romanov dynasty, and the end of the Russian Empire...
of 1917, considering it as an event which disorganized Russia's war effort. He soon came to terms with the event, however, conceiving of it as a long-anticipated bourgeois
Bourgeoisie
In sociology and political science, bourgeoisie describes a range of groups across history. In the Western world, between the late 18th century and the present day, the bourgeoisie is a social class "characterized by their ownership of capital and their related culture." A member of the...
-democratic revolution which would ultimately bolster flagging popular support for the war effort and he returned home to Russia.
Plekhanov was extremely hostile to the Bolshevik Party headed by V.I. Lenin and was the top leader of the tiny Edinstvo (Unity) group, which published a newspaper by the same name. He criticized Lenin's revolutionary April Theses as "ravings" and called Lenin himself an "alchemist of revolution" for his seeming willingness to leap over the stage of capitalist development in agrarian Russia in advocating socialist revolution. Plekhanov lent support to the idea that Lenin was a "German agent" and urged the Provisional Government
Provisional government
A provisional government is an emergency or interim government set up when a political void has been created by the collapse of a very large government. The early provisional governments were created to prepare for the return of royal rule...
of Alexander Kerensky
Alexander Kerensky
Alexander Fyodorovich Kerensky was a major political leader before and during the Russian Revolutions of 1917.Kerensky served as the second Prime Minister of the Russian Provisional Government until Vladimir Lenin was elected by the All-Russian Congress of Soviets following the October Revolution...
to take severe repressive measures against the Bolshevik organization to halt its political machinations.
Death and legacy
Plekhanov left Russia again after the October RevolutionOctober Revolution
The October Revolution , also known as the Great October Socialist Revolution , Red October, the October Uprising or the Bolshevik Revolution, was a political revolution and a part of the Russian Revolution of 1917...
due to his hostility to the Bolsheviks. He died of tuberculosis
Tuberculosis
Tuberculosis, MTB, or TB is a common, and in many cases lethal, infectious disease caused by various strains of mycobacteria, usually Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Tuberculosis usually attacks the lungs but can also affect other parts of the body...
in Terijoki, Finland
Finland
Finland , officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden in the west, Norway in the north and Russia in the east, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.Around 5.4 million people reside...
(now a suburb of St. Petersburg, Russia called Zelenogorsk) on May 30, 1918. He was 60 years old at the time of his death. Plekhanov was buried in the Volkovo Cemetery
Volkovo Cemetery
The Volkovo Cemetery , is one of the largest and oldest non- Orthodox cemeteries in Saint Petersburg, Russia. Until the early 20th century it was one of the main burial grounds for Lutheran Germans in Russia...
in St. Petersburg near the graves of Vissarion Belinsky and Nikolay Dobrolyubov.
It was evident that Plekhanov and Lenon disagreed in terms of commitment to political action, as well as direct guidance to the working class. Despite his disagreements with Lenin, the Soviet Communists cherished his memory and gave his name to the Soviet Academy of Economics
Plekhanov Russian Academy of Economics
Plekhanov Russian Economic University is a public university located in Moscow, Russia. The university is one of the largest Russian economic institutes of higher education and a member of several international university bodies, such as the European University Association and the European...
and the G. V. Plekhanov St. Petersburg State Mining Institute
Saint Petersburg Mining Institute
The G. V. Plekhanov Saint Petersburg State Mining Institute and Technical University is Russia's oldest higher education institute devoted to engineering...
.
During his life Plekhanov wrote extensively on historical materialism
Historical materialism
Historical materialism is a methodological approach to the study of society, economics, and history, first articulated by Karl Marx as "the materialist conception of history". Historical materialism looks for the causes of developments and changes in human society in the means by which humans...
, on the history of materialist philosophy, on the role of the masses and of the individual in history. Plekhanov always insisted that Marxism
Marxism
Marxism is an economic and sociopolitical worldview and method of socioeconomic inquiry that centers upon a materialist interpretation of history, a dialectical view of social change, and an analysis and critique of the development of capitalism. Marxism was pioneered in the early to mid 19th...
was a materialist
Materialism
In philosophy, the theory of materialism holds that the only thing that exists is matter; that all things are composed of material and all phenomena are the result of material interactions. In other words, matter is the only substance...
doctrine rather than an idealist
Idealism
In philosophy, idealism is the family of views which assert that reality, or reality as we can know it, is fundamentally mental, mentally constructed, or otherwise immaterial. Epistemologically, idealism manifests as a skepticism about the possibility of knowing any mind-independent thing...
one, and that Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
would have to pass through a capitalist stage of development before becoming socialist
Socialism
Socialism is an economic system characterized by social ownership of the means of production and cooperative management of the economy; or a political philosophy advocating such a system. "Social ownership" may refer to any one of, or a combination of, the following: cooperative enterprises,...
. He also wrote on the relationship between the base and superstructure
Base and superstructure
In Marxist theory, human society consists of two parts: the base and superstructure; the base comprehends the forces and relations of production — employer-employee work conditions, the technical division of labour, and property relations — into which people enter to produce the necessities and...
, on the role of ideologies, and on the role of art in human society. He is remembered as an important and pioneer Marxist thinker on such matters.
Works
- Socialism and the Political Struggle (1883)
- Our Differences (1885)
- G. I. Uspensky (1888)
- A New Champion of Autocracy (1889)
- S. Karonin (1890)
- The Bourgeois Revolution (1890-1891)
- The Materialist Conception of History (1891)
- For The Sixtieth Anniversary of Hegel's Death (1891)
- Anarchism & Socialism (1895)
- The Development of the Monist View of History (1895)
- Essays on the History of Materialism (1896)
- N. I. Naumov (1897)
- A. L. Volynsky: Russian Critics. Literary Essays (1897)
- N. G. Chernyshevsky's Aesthetic Theory (1897)
- Belinski and Rational Reality (1897)
- On the Question of the Individual's Role in History (1898)
- N. A. Nekrasov (1903) In Russian.
- Scientific Socialism and Religion (1904)
- On Two Fronts: Collection of Political Articles (1905) In Russian.
- French Drama and French Painting of the Eighteenth Century from the Sociological Viewpoint (1905)
- The Proletarian Movement and Bourgeois Art (1905)
- Henrik Ibsen (1906)
- Us and Them (1907) In Russian.
- On the Psychology of the Workers' Movement (1907)
- Fundamental Problems of Marxism (1908)
- The Ideology of Our Present-Day Philistine (1908)
- Tolstoy and Nature (1908)
- On the So-Called Religious Seekings in Russia (1909)
- N. G. Chernyshevsky (1909)
- Karl Marx and Lev Tolstoy (1911)
- A. I. Herzen and Serfdom (1911)
- Dobrolyubov and Ostrovsky (1911)
- Art and Social Life (1912–1913)
- Year of the Motherland: Complete Collected Articles and Speeches, 1917-1918, In Two Volumes. Volume 1; Volume 2 (1921) In Russian.
Additional reading
- Samuel H. Baron, Plekhanov: The Father of Russian Marxism. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1963.
- Plekhanov in Russian History and Soviet Historiography. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1995.
- Georgi Plekhanov: Selected Philosophical Works in Five Volumes. Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1974.
External links
- Georgi Plekhanov Internet Archive, Marxists Internet Archive, marxists.org/
- Georgi Plekhanov Biography, Spartacus UK, spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/
- Georgii Plexhanov Collected Works in 24 Volumes, Plekhanov Fond, plekhanovfound.ru/ In Russian.
- Tomb of Plekhanov
- The Plekhanov House in The National Library of Russia