PLECHANOV, GEORGI VALENTINOVIČ. — Born in
1856, died on 31 May 1918, one of the most important theorists of Russian Marxism and, more generally, of international Marxism. Narodniki (v.) and one of the founders of the organization Zemlja i Volja, he joined the Marxist camp after emigrating 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. Dejč, and Vera S. Zasulic, he founded the “Emancipation of Labour Group.”
In the following years he directed his publishing activity principally against the Narodniki: Socializm i političeshaja bor'ba (“Socialism and the Political Struggle,” 1883); Naši raznoglasija (“Our Differences,” 1885); Osnovanie narodničestva v trudach g. Voroncova (“The Foundation of Populism in the Works of Mr. Voroncov,” 1896). Of primary importance for the dissemination of Marxism in Russia was the work he published under the pseudonym N. Bel'tov: K. voprosu o razvitih monističeskogo vzgljada na istoriju (“On the Question of the Development of the Monistic Conception of History,” 1895). His participation, in 1889, in International (v.) brought him worldwide fame as a theorist of Marxism, a reputation to which, among his writings, the Contributi alla storia del materialismo (1896) and Osnovnye problemy marksizma (“The Fundamental Questions of Marxism,” 1910) contributed above all. His writings O materialističeskom ponimanii istorii (“On the Materialist Conception of History,” 1897) and K. voprosu o roli ličnosti v istorii (“On the Role of the Individual in History,” 1898) deal with individual problems of Marxist theory. When revisionism arose in Germany and infiltrated the ranks of the Russian Marxists, P. was one of the most prominent defenders of Marxist orthodoxy (v. MATERIALISMO STORICO). His articles relating to this controversy were collected in the work Kritika našich kritikov (“Critique of Our Critics,” 1906). Later there were added to them the three letters from the years 1908–1910 against Bogdanov’s (v.) empiriomonism, published in a work entitled Materialismus militans. After the split of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party into a Bolshevik and a Menshevik wing (v. BOLSCEVISMO; MENSCEVISMO), P. essentially sided with the Mensheviks, while nevertheless fighting against their “liquidationism.” Regarding the most important tactical problems, P. adopted a position different from Lenin’s: he favored an alliance with the bourgeoisie, opposed the 1905 uprising, and supported the war against Germany; he considered the October Revolution an error (because, in his view, Russia was not yet mature for socialism), while nevertheless refraining from fighting against II.