Talk:Georgi Plekhanov

Death

How did he die? cun 11:54, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Plekhanov vs. Lenin

Plekhanov initially supported Lenin at the second Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party in 1903, which saw the emergence of the Bolshevik and Menshevik factions. It was only afterwards that he came to believe that he had been present at the birth of a form of Russian Jacobinism, which for him presented the greatest danger to the progressive and Marxist path.

To understand Plekhanov's thought we have to go right back to his early political activities, all the way to Narodnik populism, a movement of intellectuals who believed that socialism would come to Russia on the backs of the peasants. The Narodniks came to the Russian countryside with the aim of educating the peasantry into a consciousness of both their power and their historical mission. Originally peaceful and didactic in purpose, the movement split in 1879 into two wings: the propagandists or Chorny Peredel (Black Reparation), and the terrorists or Narodnaya Volya (People's Will). The leaders of Narodnaya Volya, impatient with the slow rate of progress being made among the peasants, decided that it was necessary 'to give history a push.' Reacting against this, and against self-defeating terrorism, Plekhanov turned towards Marxism, as an explanation and a solution.

Marxism led Plekhanov away from peasant populism, to a belief that the development of new forms of capitalist production in Russia offered the only way forward, through bourgeoise liberalism to working-class socialism. History, in other words, had to move through distinct stages, and in accordance with a given set of economic laws. It could not be circumvented; it could not be 'pushed.' After 1903, with Lenin taking on something of the old Narodnaya Volya mantel, Plekhanov saw in him the making of a Russian Robespierre. He was also alarmed by the intransigence and intolerance of Leninist politics, going so far as to say that if Marx and Engels attended a Bolshevik meeting they would be attacked for their moderation. Leninism was based not on a broad-based movement of the working-class, but on a narrow and conspiratorial elite. Plekhanov attacked Lenin in the Socialist press, calling him an 'autocrat' who aimed at 'buraucratic centralism.' He further argued that Lenin's belief in a revolutuionary coup d'etat was a destructive fantasy, one that was essentially anti-Marxist.

After 1909 Plekhanov began to give shape to his ideas in his History of Russian Social Thought, unfinished at the time of his death in 1918. In essence, this was a warning to all Russian Marxists what would happen if any attempt was made to circumvent 'the iron law of history.' In Russia feudalism had developed along quite different lines from western Europe, and the dominant agency was always the state. Classes, even the aristocracy, stood in a relationship of dependence to a centralising autocracy. Bit by bit economic transformation, including the introduction of industrial capitalism, was changing the nature of Russian society; but the state remained very strong, poised between a 'western' and progressive future and a reactionary and 'oriental' past. The only way to break the power of Russian absolutism was to allow the development of a new European-style bourgeoisie. Capitalism, in other words, had to come before socialism.

His great fear was the Bolshevism, by ignoring the weakness of class development in Russia, would, in a premature seizure of power, merely inherit ancient and coercive forms of state authority. This was not a road to the future, but a retreat to the past; to new forms of oriental despotism; to a new and more terrible style of Tsarism. Clio the Muse 03:05, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

The tiresome exaggeration of Plekhanov's differences with Lenin and the Bolsheviks

It seems to be a mantra for some that Plekhanov had a virtually continuous political and philosophical antagonism to Lenin. This is a fiction. Perhaps the strongest evidence of this is Plekhanov's support for retaining the existence of a working class political party of the kind that Lenin belonged to and led. From 1909 to 1912, well after the split and Plekhanov's falling off to Menshevik views, the founder of Russian Marxism nevertheless took issue with those who wished to liquidate the Bolshevik party that Lenin had founded.

Plekhanov went through a complicated evolution of views as happens with many outstanding intellectuals. Characterizing his views, as some have here, by an unrelenting hostility to Lenin, viewing Lenin as a prospective Jacobin, etc., etc., without any evidence to back up such claims regarding Plekhanov's views is highly misleading.

Furthermore, it seems rather curious that Plekhanov's widow would spend the last 20 years of her life administering the Plekhanov Library, after having arranged the donation of her late husband's belongings, his desk, etc., etc., to the hands of a regime that was allegedly so anathema to him.

Georgi Plekhanov, having been compelled to flee Russia in 1880 after being faced with increasing persecution by the Tsarist autocracy, did not return to his home for 37 years. He was infected by reformist views about socialism, views which were unfortunately prevalent in Europe at the time, and he also did not have the kind of close contact with the illegal revolutionary movement in Russia that some others, particularly Lenin, had. It is no slur against the memory of Plekhanov to note that it was Lenin that was destined to develop Marxist theory beyond the point that the father of Russian Marxism brought it to, and this makes the respect and veneration of Plekhanov by the Communists, and others, perfectly sensible. Plekhanov, despite his errors, deserves all the accolades and honours heaped upon him by the Russian Communists for his outstanding service to the working class and the cause of socialism. He lived up to the heroic example of the Russian revolutionary democrats before him - the very people whose examples inspired him. Georgi Plekhanov (talk) 05:37, 3 March 2008 (UTC)