Plekhanov, Georgi Valentinovich

PLEKHANOV, GEORGI VALENTINOVICH. - Born in 1856, died on May 31, 1918, one of the most important theorists of Russian Marxism and, more generally, of international Marxism. Originally a follower of the Narodniki (v.) and one of the founders of the Zemlya i Volya organization, he went over to the Marxist camp after his emigration to Switzerland and became one of the most zealous founders and propagandists of Russian Marxism: in Geneva, together with P. B. Aksel'rod, L. G. Deich, Vera S. Zasulich, he founded the "Emancipation of Labor Group."

In the following years he directed his journalistic activity mainly against the Narodniki: Socializm i politicheskaya bor'ba ("Socialism and the Political Struggle," 1883); Nashi raznoglasiya ("Our Differences," 1885); Osnovanie narodnichestva v trudakh g. Vorontsova ("The Foundation of Populism in the Works of Mr. Vorontsov," 1896). For the spread of Marxism in Russia, the writing he published under the pseudonym of N. Beltov was of primary importance: K voprosu o razvitii monisticheskogo vzglyada na istoriyu ("On the Question of the Development of the Monistic Conception of History," 1895). His participation, in 1889, in the founding of the Second International (v.) gave him worldwide fame as a theorist of Marxism, a fame to which his writings contributed, above all the Contributions to the History of Materialism (1896) and Osnovnye problemy marksizma ("The Fundamental Questions of Marxism," 1910). His writings: O materialisticheskom ponimanii istorii ("On the Materialist Conception of History," 1897) and K voprosu o roli lichnosti v istorii ("On the Role of the Individual in History," 1898), deal with individual problems of Marxist theory. When revisionism arose in Germany and when it infiltrated the ranks of the Russian Marxists, P. was one of the most notable defenders of Marxist orthodoxy (v. MATERIALISMO STORICO). His articles relating to that polemic are collected in the writing: Kritika nashikh kritikov ("Critique of Our Critics," 1906). To these were later added the three letters of the years 1908-10 against the empiriomonism of Bogdanov (v.), published in a writing entitled Materialismus militans. After the split of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party into a Bolshevik and a Menshevik wing (v. BOLSCEVISMO; MENSCEVISMO), P. sided, in substance, with the Mensheviks, struggling, however, against their "liquidationism." On the most important tactical problems P. took a position different from that of Lenin: he was for the alliance with the bourgeoisie, against the insurrection of 1905, for the war against Germany; he considered the October Revolution a mistake (because, in his opinion, Russia was not yet mature for socialism), abstaining, however, from struggling against it.

Gustavo A. Wetter