Georgi Plekhanov
Georgi Plekhanov | |
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Георгий Плеханов | |
St. Petersburg Metallurgical Institute (withdrew) | |
Spouse | Rozaliia Bograd-Plekhanova |
Era | 19th-century philosophy |
Region | Russian philosophy |
School | Marxism Dialectical materialism[1] Historical materialism[1] |
Part of a series on |
Marxism |
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Georgi Valentinovich Plekhanov (
Born to a
During
Early years
Georgi Valentinovich Plekhanov was born 29 November 1856 (old style) in the Russian village of Gudalovka in the Tambov Governorate, one of twelve siblings. Georgi's father, Valentin Plekhanov, from a Tatar noble family,[3][4] was a member of the hereditary nobility.[5] Valentin was a member of the lower stratum of the Russian nobility, the possessor of about 270 acres of land and approximately 50 serfs.[5] 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.[6] Georgi was the first-born of the couple's five children.[6]
Georgi's formal education began in 1866, when the 10-year-old was entered into the Voronezh Military Academy.[6] He remained a student at the Military Academy, where he was well taught by his teachers and well liked by his classmates, until 1873.[6] 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.[7]
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.[5] 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 from the Military Academy and enrolled at the St. Petersburg Metallurgical Institute.[8] 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:
"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 chemistry. 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?"[9]
Under Axelrod's influence, Plekhanov was drawn into the
Political activity
Plekhanov was one of the organizers of the first political demonstrations in Russia. On 6 December 1876, Plekhanov delivered a fiery speech during a demonstration in front of the Kazan Cathedral in Saint Petersburg in which he 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.[11]
Although originally a
Plekhanov founded a tiny populist
In 1879 he married Rozaliia Bograd-Plekhanova, a medical student who had been active in the Populist movement. She accompanied him in 1880 when 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.[13]
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.[14] During these years from 1882 through 1883, Plekhanov became a convinced Marxist and in the late 1880s he established personal contact with Friedrich Engels.[15]
Plekhanov also became a committed
In September 1883 Plekhanov joined with his old friend Pavel Axelrod,
In 1900, Plekhanov, Pavel Axelrod, Zasulich, Lenin,
In 1903, at the
Plekhanov came to regret his remarks on the subordination of democracy to a proletarian dictatorship:
The success of the revolution is the highest law. And if the success of the revolution demands a temporary limitation on the working of this or that democratic principle, then it would be criminal to refrain from such a limitation...The revolutionary proletariat might limit the political rights of the higher classes ...If in a burst of revolutionary enthusiasm the people chose a very fine parliament ...then we would make of it a long parliament; and if the elections turned out unsuccessfully then we would have to try to disperse it."[19]
During the
Plekhanov believed that Marxists should start concerning themselves with everyday struggles, as opposed to larger revolutionary goals. In order for this to occur, the
Literary activity
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)[22] and the full-length book Our Differences (1885).[23] These works first expressed the Marxist position for a Russian audience and delineated the points of departure of the Marxists from the Populist movement.[24] Lenin called the former, the "first profession de foi [profession of faith] of Russian socialism." Plekhanov famously noted, "... without revolutionary theory there is no revolutionary movement in the true sense of the word." In the latter book, Plekhanov emphasized that capitalism had begun to establish itself in Russia, primarily in the textile industry[25] but also in agriculture,[26] and that a working class was beginning to emerge in peasant Russia.[27] It was this expanding working class that would ultimately and inevitably bring about socialist change in Russia, Plekhanov argued.[28]
In January 1895, Plekhanov published his most famous work, The Development of the Monist View of History.
Later on 8 February 1895, Engels wrote directly to Plekhanov congratulating him on the "great success" of getting the book "published inside the country".[34] A German Edition of the Plekhanov's book was published in Stuttgart in 1896.[30]
Throughout the 1890s, Plekhanov was involved in three tasks in revolutionary literature. First, he sought to reveal the inner link between pre-Marxist
Secondly, Plekhanov outlined a history of materialism and its struggle against bourgeois ideologists.
Despite their 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
It seems that Plekhanov, although a revolutionary figure, had not taken the view that art must serve political ends. He himself criticized Chernyshevsky for his view of art, that art must be propagandist; he, rather, declared that only art which serves history, not transient pleasure, is valuable.
War years
With the outbreak of
Plekhanov was initially dismayed by the February Revolution of 1917, considering it as an event which disorganized Russia's war effort.[40] 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.[40]
Plekhanov was extremely hostile to the Bolshevik Party headed by Lenin and was the top leader of the tiny Yedinstvo group, which published a newspaper by the same name.[40] 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.[40] Plekhanov lent support to the idea that Lenin was a "German agent" and urged the Russian Provisional Government of Alexander Kerensky to take severe repressive measures against the Bolshevik organization to halt its political machinations.[40]
Marriage
In 1879, Plekhanov married Rozalia Bograd, who accompanied him into exile in Switzerland in 1880. They had four daughters, two of whom died in childhood. Rozalia was born in 1856 in the Jewish colony of Dobroe in
Death and legacy
Plekhanov left Russia again after the
It was evident that Plekhanov and Lenin disagreed in terms of commitment to political action, as well as direct guidance to the working class.[
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 pioneering Marxist thinker on such matters.
Works
- Socialism and the Political Struggle (1883) Plekhanov: Socialism and Political Struggle (1883)
- Our differences (1885) G.V. Plekhanov: 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.
Footnotes
- ^ a b c B. A. Chagin, "G. V. Plekhanov's Defence and substantiation of Dialectical and Historical Materialism in the Struggle Against Revisionism" as the "Introduction" contained Georgi Plekhanov's Selected Philosophical Works: Volume II (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1976) p. 11.
- ISSN 0036-0341.
- ^ Russian Philosophy: Pre-Revolutionary Philosophy and Theology Philosophers in Exile Marxists and Communists, Volume III (1965), p. 352
- ^ Faubion Bowers, Scriabin, a Biography, Courier Corporation (1996), p. 92
- ^ a b c Samuel H. Baron, Plekhanov: The Father of Russian Marxism. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1963; pg. 4.
- ^ a b c d Baron, Plekhanov: The Father of Russian Marxism, pg. 6.
- ^ Baron, Plekhanov: The Father of Russian Marxism, pp. 6–7.
- ^ Leopold H. Haimson, The Russian Marxists and the Origins of Bolshevism. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1955; pg. 31.
- ^ Pavel Aksel'rod, "Perezhitoe i peredumannoe," Letopis' revoliutsii, vol. 1, no. 14, Berlin, 1923. Quoted in Baron, Plekhanov: The Father of Russian Marxism, pg. 31.
- ^ Samuel H. Baron, Plekhanov in Russian History and Soviet Historiography. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1995; pg. 4.
- ^ Samuel H. Baron, "Between Marx and Lenin: G.V. Plekhanov," Soviet Survey, vol. 32, no. 2 (April–June 1960); reprinted in Baron, Plekhanov in Russian History and Soviet Historiography, pp. 4–5.
- ^ a b c Haimson, The Russian Marxists and the Origins of Bolshevism, pg. 37.
- ^ a b Baron, "Between Marx and Lenin: G.V. Plekhanov," pg. 5.
- ^ Haimson, The Russian Marxists and the Origins of Bolshevism, pg. 42.
- ^ V. A. Fomina, "Plekhanov's role in the Defence and Substantiation of Marxist Philosophy (Introductory Essay) contained in the Selected Philosophical Works: Volume I (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1974) p. 10.
- ^ a b Haimson, The Russian Marxists and the Origins of Bolshevism, pg. 43.
- ^ Georgi Plekhanov, "Programme of the Social-Democratic Emancipation of Labor Group" contained in the Selected Philosophical Works: Volume 1 (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1974) pp. 353–357.
- ^ a b c Baron, "Between Marx and Lenin: G.V. Plekhanov," pg. 6.
- ^ Tony Cliff, Lenin: Building the Party, pp 104–5
- ^ a b Samuel H. Baron, Plekhanov in Russian History and Soviet Historiography. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1995; pg. xiv.
- ISBN 978-0199245130.
- ^ Georgi Plekhanov, "Socialism and Political Struggle" contained in the Selected Philosophical Works: Volume I (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1974) pp. 49–106.
- ^ Georgi Phekhanov, "Our Differences" contained in Selected Philosophical Works: Volume I pp. 107–352.
- ^ Baron, Plekhanov: The Father of Russian Marxism, pg. 89.
- ^ Georgi Plekhanov, "Our Differences" contained in the Selected Philosophical Works: Volume 1, pp. 216–237.
- ^ Georgi Plekhanov, "Our Differences" contained in the Selected Philosophical Works: Volume 1, pp. 238–274.
- ^ Baron, Plekhanov: The Father of Russian Marxism, pp. 98–99.
- ^ Georgi Plekhanov, "Our Differences" contained in the Selected Philosophical Works: Volume 1 pp. 341–342.
- ^ Georgi Plekhanov, "The Development of the Monist View of History" contained in the Selected Philosophical Works: Volume 1, pp. 480–697.
- ^ a b c V. A. Fomina, "Introductory Essay" contained in the Selected Philosophical Works: Volume 1, p. 16.
- ^ Engels' letter to Vera Zasulich dated 30 January 1895 contained in the Collected Works of Karl Marx and Frederick Engels: Volume 50 (New York: International Publishers, 2004) p. 436.
- ^ See note 505 contained in the Collected works of Karl Marx and Frederick Engels: Volume 50, p. 601.
- ^ See note 504 in the Collected Works of Karl Marx and Frederick Engels: Volume 50 (New York: International Publishers, 2004) p. 601.
- ^ Engels' letter to Georgi Plekhanov dated 8 February 1895 contained in the Collected Works of Karl Marx and Frederick Engels: Volume 50, p. 439.
- ^ Georgi Plekhanov, "Essays on the History of Materialism" contained in the Selected Philosophical Works: Volume II (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1976) pp. 31–182.
- ^ Georgi Plekhanov, "Essays on the History of Materialism" contained in the Selected Philosophical Works: Volume II, pp. 40–41 and 79–80.
- ^ See Georgi Plekhanov "A Few Words in Defence of Economic Materialism" and "On the Economic Factor" contained in the Selected Philosophical Works: Volume II, pp. 183–210 and 251–282.
- ^ a b B. A. Chagin, "Introduction" contained in Georgi Plekhanov's Selected Philosophical Works: Volume II, p. 11.
- ^ Georgi Plekhanov, Selected Philosophical Works: Volume II, pp. 283–315.
- ^ a b c d e f Samuel H. Baron, "Georgii Valentinovich Plekhanov," in George Jackson with Robert Devlin (eds.), Dictionary of the Russian Revolution. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1989; pp. 447–449.
- ISBN 0582489784.
- ISBN 0810117401.
- ISBN 0486288978.
- ^ Gil', Liubov' (2016). "Bograd, Rozaliia Markovna Bograd-Plekhanova". Archived from the original on 5 March 2018. Retrieved 24 March 2018.
- ^ Nicolas Slonimsky, Perfect Pitch, p. 47
- ^ "В.И.Ленин Полное Собрание Сочинений том 42 В. И. ЛЕНИН стр. 290". leninvi.com. Archived from the original on 19 February 2019. Retrieved 30 August 2023.
Further 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
Progress Publishers put out a five-volume Selected Philosophical Works of Georgi Plekhanov in English between 1974 and 1981:
- Works by Georgii Valentinovich Plekhanov at Project Gutenberg
- Works by or about Georgi Plekhanov at Internet Archive
- Georgi Plekhanov Internet Archive, Marxists Internet Archive, marxists.org/
- Georgi Plekhanov Biography, Spartacus UK, spartacus-educational.com/
- Georgii Plexhanov Collected Works in 24 Volumes Archived 1 October 2011 at the Wayback Machine, Plekhanov Fond, plekhanovfound.ru/ In Russian.
- Tomb of Plekhanov
- The Plekhanov House in The National Library of Russia Archived 1 December 2012 at the Wayback Machine
- Archive of Georgij Valentinovič Plechanov Papers at the International Institute of Social History
- Newspaper clippings about Georgi Plekhanov in the 20th Century Press Archives of the ZBW