PLEKHANOV, GEORGI VALENTINOVICH. — Born in 1856, died 31 May 1918, one of the most important theoreticians of Russian Marxism and, in general, of international Marxism. Originally an adherent of the Narodniks (q.v.) and one of the founders of the organization Zemlya i Volya, he moved to the Marxist camp after his emigration to Switzerland and became one of the most zealous founders and propagandists of Russian Marxism: together with P. B. Akselrod, L. G. Deutsch, and Vera S. Zasulich, he founded in Geneva the “Group for the Emancipation of Labour.”
In the following years he directed his journalistic activity mainly against the Narodniks: Socializm i politicheskaya bor'ba (Socialism and the Political Struggle, 1883); Nashi raznochya (Our Differences, 1885); Osnovanie narodnichestva v trudakh g. Vorontsova (The Foundations of Populism in the Works of Mr. Vorontsov, 1896). Of primary importance for the spread of Marxism in Russia was the work he published under the pseudonym N. Beltov: 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 (q.v.) gave him worldwide fame as a theoretician of Marxism, a reputation enhanced by such writings as Contributions to the History of Materialism (1896) and Osnovnye problemy marksizma (The Fundamental Questions of Marxism, 1910). His works 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 infiltrated the ranks of Russian Marxists, P. became one of the most notable defenders of Marxist orthodoxy (q.V. HISTORICAL MATERIALISM). His articles relating to this controversy are collected in Kritika nashikh kritikov (Critique of Our Critics, 1906). Later he added three letters from 1908–10 against the empirio-monism of Bogdanov (q.v.), published in a work entitled Militant Materialism. After the split of the Russian Social Democratic Workers’ Party into Bolshevik and Menshevik factions (q.V. BOLSHEVISM; MENSHEVISM), P. essentially sided with the Mensheviks, though he fought against their “liquidationism.” On major tactical issues he took a position different from Lenin’s: he favoured an alliance with the bourgeoisie, opposed the 1905 insurrection, and supported war against Germany; he considered the October Revolution a mistake (since, in his view, Russia was not yet ripe for socialism), yet refrained from fighting against II.