Georgy Plekhanov
Georgy Plekhanov (1856-1918) was a prominent Russian revolutionary and Marxist theorist often recognized as the "father of Russian Marxism." Born into a gentry family, Plekhanov initially pursued military education before shifting his focus to politics and social reform. He became involved with the populist group Land and Liberty but later distanced himself from populism, adopting Marxism while in exile in Switzerland. Plekhanov played a critical role in the establishment of the Emancipation of Labor Group in 1883, advocating for a blend of bourgeois and socialist revolutions to achieve social change in Russia.
His influential writings, including works on strategy for revolution, garnered attention from future leaders of the Russian Revolution, such as Vladimir Lenin. Although he returned to Russia after the February Revolution in 1917, Plekhanov opposed Lenin's Bolshevik tactics and found himself marginalized in the political landscape. His contributions to Marxist literary criticism and social thought were significant, although his views were later criticized and repressed under Stalin's regime. Plekhanov's legacy is preserved in various Russian institutions, highlighting his foundational role in the development of Marxist ideology in Russia, despite the divergence from the revolutionary outcomes he had envisioned.
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Georgy Plekhanov
Theoretician
- Born: December 11, 1856
- Birthplace: Gudalovka, Tambov, Russia
- Died: May 30, 1918
- Place of death: Terioki, Finland
Biography
Georgy Plekhanov was born on December 11, 1856, at Gudalovka in the Tambov province of Russia to Valentin Plekhanov, an army officer, and his second wife, Maria Fedorovna, a governess. Plekhanov’s parents belonged to the gentry and owned land. Plekhanov began classes at the Voronezh Military Academy when he was ten years old, and his teachers encouraged his interests in literature and writing. In 1873, he studied at the Konstantinovskoe Military School.
Wanting to improve the lives of the Russian people, Plekhanov quit military training and enrolled in the Petersburg Mining Institute in 1874. He became interested in political activities. In 1876, he allied with the populist revolution group Land and Liberty and spoke to students at St. Petersburg’s Kazan Square, advocating revolution against the czar. By 1879, the populists with whom he associated established the more militant People’s Will organization. In response, Plekhanov created Black Repartition, urging nonviolent methods of revolutionary change.
His revolutionary activities led to his arrest by Russian leaders, and Plekhanov was forced to leave Russia in January, 1880, and settle in Geneva, Switzerland. He married Rosalie M. Plekhanova, with whom he had two daughters. While exiled, Plekhanov, frustrated with the Russian peasants’ reactions to his ideas, rejected populism for Marxism. He prepared a Russian translation of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels’s The Communist Manifesto (1848). In 1883, Plekhanov and several associates established the Emancipation of Labor Group to endorse Russian Marxism.
In the early 1880’s, Plekhanov wrote his most significant works, Sotsializm i politicheskaia borba and Nashi raznoglassiya, in which he elaborated his strategy for two revolutions. In the first uprising, the proletariat and bourgeoisie would join together to overthrow the czar in a bourgeois revolution, which would be followed by a socialist revolution pitting the proletariat against the bourgeoisie. Plekhanov’s ideas attracted some of people who would play major roles in the Russian Revolution, including Vladimir Ilich Lenin. With several associates, Plekhanov and Lenin established a newspaper, Iskra, in 1900 and edited that newspaper together. Leon Trotsky, another Russian revolutionary, later helped with that endeavor.
In March, 1917, Plekhanov realized it was safe for him to return to Russia after revolutionaries had overthrown the czar. However, he denounced efforts by Lenin and fellow Bolsheviks to stage a second revolution. Few people were willing to support Plekhanov’s attempts to discredit the Bolsheviks, and he had minimal impact on policies, especially when Lenin and the Bolsheviks seized control in October, 1917. Lenin prohibited distribution of Edinstvo, a periodical Plekhanov had begun publishing in Russia.
In the early twentieth century, Plekhanov wrote pioneering Marxist criticism of literature and prepared several volumes of Istoriia russkoi obshchestvennoi mysli (1918; History of Russian Social Thought, 1938). After developing tuberculosis, Plekhanov sought medical care at a sanatorium in Terioki, Finland, where he died on May 30, 1918.
Scholars credit Plekhanov with establishing Marxism in Russia, outlining the fundamental theories that enabled the Bolsheviks to stage a successful revolution, even if that was not the revolution he envisioned. His Marxist insights regarding literature and art were innovative and provocative. Soviet critics later denounced his views regarding the limited role of ideological beliefs in creativity, and Joseph Stalin suppressed Plekhanov’s works. The National Library of Russia maintains the Plekhanov House, which includes Plekhanov’s manuscripts and book collections.