C O N T E N T S
V. Fomina, P L E K H A N O V ’ S H O L E I N T H E D E
F E N C E A N D S U B S T A N T IA T IO N OF M A R X IS T P H IL O
S OP H Y (Introductory
Essay)
....................................................................................................
7
S E L E C T E D P H I L O S O P H I C A L W O R K S V
o l u m e I
S OCIA L IS M A ND T H E P O L IT IC A L S T R U G G L E
............................ 49 P r e f a c e
....................................................................................................
49
OU R D IF F E R E N C E S
................................................................................
107 L etter to P. L . L av rov (In L ieu of P r e f a c e
)................................... 107 In t r o d uc t io n
............................................................................................
124
1. What We Are Reproached With ................................•
124 2. Pos ing of the Q u e s t i o n
............................................................ 127 3.
A . I. Herzen
............................................................................
129 4. N. G. Cherny shevsk y
............................................................ 131 5.
M. A . B ak unin
........................................................................
148 6. P. N. T k a c h o v
............................................................................
156 7. Results
.......................................................................................
161
Chapter I. A Few References to H i s t o r y
........................................ 166
1. Russ ian B l a n q u i s m
....................................................................
166 2. L . T ik homir ov
............................................................................
169 3. T he Ema ncipatio n of L abour Gr oup
.................................... 177 4. L. T ikhomirov in the
Battle A gainst the Emancipation
of L abour G r o u p
........................................................................
182 5. T he Historica l Role of C a p it a l is m
........................................ 186 6. The Development of
Capitalismin the W’e s t .......................... 195
Chapter I I . Ca pita lis m in Russia
.................................................... 208
1. T he Home Mar ket
....................................................................
208 2. Number of Workers
................................................................
213 3. Handic rafts men
........................................................................
221 4. Handicr af t T rade and A g riculture
........................................ 228 5. T he Handicraftsman
and the F a c t o r
y .................................... 231 6. Russian
Capitalism’s Successes ............................................
233 7. M a r k e t s
........................................................................................
235
Chapter II I. Capitalism aDd Communal Land T e n u r e
................ 238 1. Ca pitalis m in A g r i c u l t u r
e ........................................................ 238 2. T
he V illag e Commune
............................................................ 240 3.
Dis integrat ion of Our V i llage C o m m u n e
................................ 244 4. T he Nar odniks ’
Ideal V illag e Commune ............................ 253 5.
R e d e m p t io n
................................................................................
263 6. S mall L anded Pr oper ty
........................................................ 272 7.
Conclusion
....................................................................................
273
Chapter IV . Ca pita lis m and Our T asks
........................................ 275
1. Character of the Impending R e v o lu ti o n
............................ 275 2. “Seizure of Power”
....................................................................
295 3. Pr obable Consequences of a “ Po pular” Re v olutio n . . .
303 4. L. T ikhomirov Wavers Between B lanquism and B ak uninism
318 5. Pr obable Consequences of the Seizure of Power by the
Socialists
....................................................................................
328
6 CONTENTS
Chapter V . T rue T asks of the S ocialists in Russ ia .
..................... 330
1. Social- Democrats and Man- Handling . . . . . . 330 2. Pr opag
anda A mong the Workers .........................................
339
Chapter V I. C o n c lu s io n
.....................................................................
350
P R O G R A M M E OF T H E S O CIA L - D EMO CR A T IC E M A N C IP
A T IO N
O F L A B O U R G R O U P
.....................................................................
353
SECOND DRAF T PROGRA MME OF T HE RUSSIA N SOCIAL- DE MO CR A T S .
.................................................................................
358
A NE W CHA MP IO N OF A UT OCRA CY , OR Mr. L . T IK H O M IR
O V ’S GRIEF (Reply to the Pamphlet: Why I Ceased to Be
aJ Revolu
tionary)
....................................................................................................
363
From the A u t h o r
..........................................................................
363
S P E E CH AT T H E I N T E R N A T IO N A L W O R K E R S ' S OC
IA L I S T CO NG RE S S IN P A RIS (J uly 14- 21, 1 8 8 9 )
..................................... 398 (First V e r s io n ]
................................................................................
398 [Second Version] . .
............................................................................
399
F OR T H E S I X T IE T H A N N IV E R S A R Y OFH E G E L ’Sj DEA
T H 401
[ F O R E W O R D T O T H E F IR S T E D I T IO N (F R OM T H E T R
A N S
L A T O R) A N D P L E K H A N O V ’S N OT E S T O E N G E L S ’ B
O O K
L U D W I G F E U E R B A C H A N D T H E E ND O F C L A S S IC A
L
G E R M A N P H I L O S O P H Y ]
..................................................... 427
From the T ransla tor .
.................................................... ...
427 [ Plek hanov’s Notes to E nge ls’ Book
LudwigFeuerbach...) . 429 [Notes to the First Edition in the
Original Version] ..................... 472
B O U R G E O IS OF DA Y S G ON E B Y
........................................ 477
T H E D EV E L O P M E NT OF T H E MO NIS T V IE W OF H I S T O R Y
480
Preface to the Second and T hird E d i t i o n s
......................................... 480
Chapter I. French Mate ria lism of the Eig htee nth Century . . .
482
Chapter I I. French Histor ians of the R e s t o r a t io n
............................. 495
Chapter I I I . T he Uto pian S o c ia l is t s
............................................ 508
Chapter IV . Ideal ist German P h ilo s o p h
y ..................................... 537 Chapter V .
Modern Mat erialis m
..................................................... 574
Conclusion
........................................................................................
669
A ppendix I . ON CE A G A IN Mr . M I K H A IL O V S K
Y , ONC E M O RE T H E “ T R IA D ” .
............................................................................
698
PLEKHANOV’S ROLE IN THE DEFENCE A ND SUBST A NT IAT ION OF MA
RX IS T PHIL OSOPHY
Georgi V ale ntinov ich Ple khanov , the f irst Russian Marx ist,
was one of the w or ld’s g reatest think er s and publicis ts
. His activity in the Russian and the international arena in the
eighties and nineties of the last century g ave the world outsta
nding works on the theory and history of Marxism. In his works he
defended, substantiated and popularised the teachings of Marx and
Engels, developed and gave concrete expression to questions of
Marxist philosophy, particular ly the theory of historical mate
rial ism: the role of the popular masses and of the individual in
history, the interaction of the basis and the superstructure, the
role of ide ologies, etc. Plekhanov did much to substantiate and
develop Marxist aesthetics.
His best works on the history of philosophical, aesthetic, social
and political thought, especially on the history of mate rialism
and of philosophy in Russia, are a valuable contribution to the
development of scientific thought and progressive culture.
Lenin ranked Plekhanov among the socialists having the greatest
knowledge of Marx ist philosophy. He described his philosophical
works as the best in international Marxist litera ture.
* *
Plekhanov began his social, polit ical and l iterary work at the
end of the seventies, when the revolutionary situation in Russia
was matur ing .
8 V . F OMIN A
T he Russ o- T urkish W ar of 1877- 78, w hich had just ended, in
flicted many hardships on the Russian people. It brought to light
the incurable ulcers of the autocratic and landlord system,
tyranny, lawlessness and widespread corruption, bad supply of the
army and other vices in the m ilitar y adminis tr ativ e machine.
A ll this addod to the indig na tio n of the po pular mas ses
, w ho were cruelly oppressed by tsarism, the landlords and the
capitalists.
By this time capitalism had already come to dominate in Russia’s
economy. After Lhe 1801 Reform, feudal relations of production were
g r adua lly replaced by bourgeois relations. Ca pi talism asserted
itself in industry and penetrated increasingly into the
countryside, where it led to stratification of the peasantry. The
expropriation of the peasants from their lands formed an an ny of
unemploy ed wage- workers for industr y and for landlord and
capitalist agriculture. The survivals of feudal relations in
agricultural production, which were fostered by the system of
autocracy and landlordship, and the elements of natural economy
w hich s t il l ex is ted in s eparate ar eas of the countr y
, he ld up the growth of the productive forces. Capitalism made its
way slowly and with great diff iculty in agriculture and left the
landlords in their do m inant position there for many decades. A
fte r the Ref orm , s ma ll, low- productive, priv ate ly owned
peasant econo mies predominated in the countryside, and Russia was
still m a i n l y a g r a r i a n .
T he dev elopment of ca pitalism combined w ith the all- power
fulness of the landlords exacerbated the growing antagonism between
the working masses and the ruling classes.
The bulk of the peasantry was doubly oppressed—by feudalism and by
capital; they suffered from land hunger, survivals of feudalism and
capitalist exploitation; ruin and misery were their lot. As a
result, the peasant movement against the landlords, w hich
had s ubs ided s omew hat in the late s ix tie s , s tarted to g
row again in the middle of (he seventies.
The working class, too, was in a condition of great hardship. U nbr
idled capita lis t e x ploitat ion, low wages, the absence of leg
islation on labour protection, the ban on the ins titut ion of
w orkers' org anis atio ns, ar bitr ar y police r ule — a ll
this le d to unrest and spontaneous outbreaks among the workers.
The middle of the seventies saw the appearance of the first
workers’ organisations— the S outh Russ ian W ork er s ’ U nion and
the Northern Union of Russian Workers—which attempted to organise
to some extent the s pontaneous w orking- class move ment. A
t that tim e the w or king - class mov ement in Rus s ia was de v
elop
I N T R O D U C T O R Y E S S A Y 9
Uie sev enties, Nar odism was influenced by the re v olutionar y -
democratic ideas of Belinsky, Herzen, Chernyshevsky and Dobro ly
ubov. Despite the lim itat ions of their outlook, the re v
olutionary Narodniks played a great part in the country’s
emancipation movement. They fought selflessly for the
emancipation of (he peasants, for the abolition of the autocracy
and the privileges of the no bil it y , a nd tried to rouse the
peasa nts to r ev olt ag ainst the tsarist gov ernment. T he culm
inat ing point in the re v olution ary N ar odnik s ’ strugg le
against, ts arism and the landlor ds in the seventies and early
eighties was the Narodnay a V oly a (People's W ill) mo v
ement . T he heroism of the rev olut io nar ie s in this movement
and their unstinting devotion to the people received high praise fr
om Marx and Eng els, who noted that a re v olution ary crisis was g
row ing in Russ ia and that the centre of the revolutionary
movement had begun to shift to Russia. In 1882, they stressed in
the preface to the Russian edition of the Manifesto of the
Communist Party (which Plekhanov translated): “Russia
forms the vanguard of revolutionary action in Fairope.”*
In the period following the Reform, the Russian revolutiona ries ex
tended their contacts w ith the Wes t European r ev olutio nary
movement. In the half century, beginning about the middle of the
nineteenth century, revolutionary Russia closely observed the dev
elopment of progress ive theor etica l thoug ht in the W es t and
learned from the experience of the West European working people’s
struggle. Progressive Russians studied the works of Marx and
Engels; the Manifesto of the Communist Parti) was published
in Rus s ian in 1869 and the first vo lume of Mar x ’s
Capital in 1872. Russian revolutionary Narodniks—P. Lavrov,
II. L opatin, V . Za sulich and many others —kept up a liv ely
correspondence w ith Marx and Eng els on ques tions of economic and
political development in Russia, the Russian emancipation movement
and the ideas of socialism.
In the first years of his public activity, G. V. Plekhanov took
part in revolutionary Narodnik organisations.
Plekhanov was born on December 11, 1856, in the village of
Gudalovka, Lipetsk Uyezd, Tambov Gubernia. His father, V ale
nt in Petr ov ic h P lek ha nov , belong ed to the g entry and ha
d
a small estate; his mother, Maria Fyodorovna (a relative of Belin
sky), hold progressive views and had a great influence on her son.
On finishing the m ilita r y school in V oronezh in 1873, P lek
hanov studied for a few months at the K on s ta ntin Cadets ' S
chool in Petersburg and entered the Mining Institute in 1874.
In 1876, he joined the Narodnik circle “The Rebels”, which later
merged w ith Zem ly a i V oly a. He was one of the org anisers of
the
10 V . F OMIN A
first politica l demonstr ation in Rus s ia, w hich took place in
1876 on the square in front of the Kazan Cathedral in Petersburg
with Petersburg workers taking part for the first time. At this
demon
stration Plekhanov made a fiery speech indicting the autocracy arid
defending the ideas of Chernyshevsky, who was then in exile. Prom
then on Plekhanov led an underground life. The Petersburg P ubl ic
L ibrar y (now Saltykov- Shchedrin State P ublic L ibrary ) became
his alma mater where he look refuge to study.
T he young Plek hanov was a passionate admire r of Chernyshevsky
and Belinsky, whom he considered as his true masters and tutors,
lie was amazed at the ideological wealth of Belinsky’s articles and
was inspired to tight for the people by Chernyshevsky’s noble
wor ks and r e v olut io nar y herois m. It was not f or
tuitous tha t
Plekhanov later devoted a number of his writings to the activity
and works of those outstanding representatives of Russian revo
lutionary democracy, Belinsky, Chernyshevsky, Herzen and
Dobrolyubov.
In the early years of his activity Plekhanov was one of the
theoreticians of Narodism. He twice “went among the people” as a
Narodnik agitator to prepare a rising, for he believed in the
possibility of transition to socialism through a peasant revolu
tion. A t the same tim e , ho took a g rea t intere st, as he put
it., in the “w orking- class cause”. He conducted study gr oups for
w ork ing men, spoke at workers’ meetings and helped to carry out
strikes, published articles and correspondence in the journal
Zemlya I Volya, wrote leaflets on the major outbreaks and
strikes among the workers and called on the working people to
fight. Plekhanov’s close association w ith the Russ ian w orkers
proved ex tremely fr uitful, for it prepared him to under stand the
histor ical role J of the working class in the revolutionary
movement. The thorough s tudy he made of Marx ism and of the ex
perience of the working- class movement in Western Europe enabled
him in the early eighties to understand clearly this role of the
working class and to go over to the standpoint of the revolutionary
proletariat.
In the early eighties, fo llow ing the assass ination of A lex an
der II by members of Narodnaya Volya led by Andrei Zhelyabov and S
ophia Per ovs kay a, years of reaction set in w ith the reign of A
lex ander II I . T he wave of re v olutionary Nar odnik terror was.
crushed. In the nineties, Narodism degenerated to a liberal trend
professing conc iliation w ith the tsar ist gov ernment and renun
ciation of the revolutionary struggle.
I N T R O D U C T O R Y E S S A Y II
The first Russian Marxist organisation—the Emancipation of Labour
group—was founded in Geneva in 1883 by Plekhanov, Zas ulich,
Deutsch, A x elrod and Ignatov . Its aim was to spread scientific
socialism by means of Russian translations of the works of Marx and
Engels and criticism from the Marxist standpoint of the Narodnik
teaching s pre v ail ing in Russia. T he E ma ncipation of Labour
group laid the theoretical foundation of Russian Social- Democracy
and g rea tly promoted the g row th of political consciousness
among progressive workers in Russia.
L enin noted that the w ritings of the E ma ncipation of L abour
group, “printed abroad and uncensored, were the first systemati
cally to expound and draw all the practical conclusions from the
ideas of Marxism’’.*
In A pr il 1895, L enin we nt abroad to es tablish contact w ith
the Emancipation of Labour group in order to unite all the Russian
Marx ists’ re v olutionary work. His ar riv al was of great impor
tance for the Russ ian w orking- class mov eme nt. For the first
time the Emancipation of Labour group established regular contact
with Russia. W hile in e mig r ation (in Franco, S w it ze r
land and It a ly ) P le k ha
nov, w ho had made the diss em ination of Marx and Eng els ’ rev o
lutionary ideas the work of his life, was extremely active as a
publicist. He also delivered lectures and wrote papers on various
subjects. A s early as 1882 ho tra nsla ted Mar x and E ng els ’ M
a n i festo of the Communist. Party into Russian; in
1892 he translated and published f or the first time in Rus s ian
Eng els ’ pam phlet Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of Classical
German Philosophy w ith his ow n comme nt arie s
; he also trans lated the section “C r it i cal Battle against
French Materialism” from the sixth chapter of The Holy
Family by Marx and Engels. A s early as the be g
in ning of the e ig htie s P le k ha nov w rote his
outstanding works on the theory of re v olutionary Marx ism,
w hich pr ov ided s tudy and e duc ational ma te r ia l for
Marx is ts
in Russia. M. I. K a lin in, a pupil and colleag ue of L e nin,
recorded Ple k ha
nov’s role in that period in the following vivid words: "In the
period of g loomy r eac tion, a t a time w hen the rank-
and- file work er w’as oblig ed to overcome gre at diff iculties
and make tremendous efforts to obta in even primar y education,
ille gal publications w ritten by Georgi V ale ntinov ich were
already circulating among the workers.
“These works opened up a new world for the working class, they
called on it to fight for a better future and taught the funda
mentals of Marxism in plain, simple form accessible to all;
by
12 V . FOMIN A
unshakable faith in the final victory of the ideals of the working
class they bred the assurance that all obstacles and difficulties
on the road to those ideals w ould bo eas ily sw ept aw ay by the
organised proletariat.”*
Plekhanov occupied a prominent place and received internation al
recognition among the West European and American socialists in the
late eighties and early nineties of the nineteenth century as a
great theoretician of Marxism and an authoritative figure in the
inte rn ationa l working- class moveme nt. For a number of y
ear s he represented the R us s ia n S ocia l- De mocr atic L a
bour P ar ty in the International Socialist Bureau of the Second
International, w hi ch he kept infor med of the s tate of
affair s in Rus s ia. l ie also
took an active part in the work of the German, Swiss, French and
Italian Socialist parties and in the work of the Congresses and the
Secretariat of the Second International.
He wr ote numerous articles on Russ ian and inte rn ation al
themes, cr itica l rev iews w hich in their agg reg ate embraced a
broad range of subjects on politics, economics, philosophy,
history, literature and art. These appeared mainly in il legal
publications in Russia and in the socialist press in Germany,
Bulgaria, France, Switzerland, Italy, Poland and other
countries.
P lek hanov ’s cr iticism of anarchism and anarcho- sy ndicalism
was of g reat im po r tance in the ideolo g ic al s tr ug g
le for the rev o lutiona ry principles of the inter national
working- class move ment. A t the be g inning of the eig htie
s ,* (w hen B a k un in ’s anar chi s t
theories considerably influenced educated youth in Russia,
Plekhanov came out against anarchism and its adventurist tactics.
But in his criticism of anarchist views he failed to throw light on
the question of the attitude of the proletarian revolution to the
state or of the slate in general, for which ho was criticised by
Lenin.
Not a single West European Marxist raised the banner of the fight
against B er nsteinianism, but Plek hanov did. He also cr it i
cised the opportunism of Millerand. Bissolati and other socialists.
Ilis struggle in Russia against the opportunist Irend of Econo-
mism and the bourgeois travesty of Marxism, “legal Marxism”, is w
ell known. He did no litt le to unmask the socialist- rev olutio-
naries, too, particularly their individual terrorist tactics.
I N T R O D U C T O R Y E S S A Y 13
socialist systems of Ow eu, Saint- S imon, F ourier, and the petty-
bourgeois socialism of Proudhon, the Narodniks, anarchists and
othors. His A ug us tin T hierry and the Mate r ia lis t
Conception of History, On Modern S ocialism, Scientific
S ocialism and Re lig ion, Foreign Review, Preface to Four
Speeches by Workers, Home Review and other writings,
not to speak of his widely known works against Narodism, anarchism,
Economism, B er nsteinianism and Struv- ism, show how thoro ughly
he s tudied ques tions of s cientific socialism. I
In the works which he wrote against the bourgeois opponents of
Marxism, Plekhanov analysed the social substance of the views held
by the classics of bourgeois political economy—Adam S mith and Da v
id K icar do— and defended Ma r x ’s oconomic teach ing, especially
s ing ling out his re v olutionary teaching on sui'plus- v alue and
c apit al.
Plekhanov played a great role in the life of the older generation
of Marxists. His authority was enormous in revolutionary circles in
Russia.
From the close of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth
century, capitalism entered a new period in its develop ment—the
period of imperialism, the period of revolutionary upheavals and
battles—which called for a reconsideration of old methods of w ork,
a ra dical change in the a ct iv ity of the Social- Democratic-
parties , and an all- round croat iv e dev el opme nt of the Marx
ist theory as applie d to the new histo r ical conditions. A
ltho ug h ho rema ined an activ e fig ure in the inte r na tiona
l
working - clas s mov eme nt and defende d and s ubs tantiate
d Marx is m. Plekhanov did not clearly grasp the character of the
new historical epoch; he was unable to disclose its laws and
specific features, to generalise the new ex perience acquired by
the working- class movement or to arm the working class with new
theoretical conclusions and propositions. Lenin was the man who was
des tined to fulf il this hist or ic tas k and to raise Ma rx ism
to a new and higher stage.
14 V . F OMIN A
ism on a number of ques tions were connected w ith his f a llin g
off to Menshevism in politics.
But although Plekhanov held Menshevik views on basic ques tions of
politics and the tactics of the working class, he never theless
advocate d the maintenanc e of the P ar ty , and from 1909 to 1912
he opposed liquidationism and stood for the underground org
anisation of the Pa rty , supporting L enin in his strugg le for
the Party.
Plekhanov opposed the conference of liquidators in August 1912.
Lenin stressed this and wrote that Plekhanov said outright that the
conference was attended by “ non- Party and anti-
Party ele ments”.*
From 1908 to 1912, when the Bolsheviks led by Lenin waged a
resolute fight against Machism, Plekhanov was the only theo
retician of the Second International to write against Bogdanov and
Lunacharsky and expose Shulyatikov, the vulgariser of materialism,
and others. It was at that time that he wrote his valuable work
Fundamental Problems of Marxism. Plekhanov severely
criticised Croce, Mach, A ve narius, Pe tzoldt, W indel- band,
Rickert, Bergson, Nietzsche and many other bourgeois philosophers
and sociologists, and defended the philosophical foundations of
Marxism. During this period he defended the materialistic and
emancipatory traditions of progressive Russian philosophical
thought against the V ekhi people and “re lig ious
seekers”. B ut af ter 1912 he becamc a supporter of “unity ” w ith
the liquidator s . L enin wrote: “ .. . it is a pity t hat he is
now nullifying his great services in the struggle against the
liquidators during the period of disorganisation, in the struggle
against the Machists at the heig ht of Machism, by preaching w hat
he himself cannot explain: Unity with whom, then? ...
and on what terms?”**
During the First World War Plekhanov adopted a social- chauv inist
s tandpoint. A fter the bourg eois- democratic rev olu tion in
February 1917 he returned to Russia after 37 years in emigration
and went to Petrograd.
Having been many years abroad, Plekhanov was out of touch w
ith the R us s ian r e v olut ionar y mov ement . On hi s retur n
to
Russia he was a captiv e to the social- reformist and social- chau
vinist theories of the Second International and was unable to
understand the intricate concatenation and peculiarity of social
development in Russia. We know how he attacked the course for a
socialist revolution, steered by Lenin. In his appraisal of the
future of the Russian revolution he proceeded from the Second
I N T R O D U C T O R Y E S S A Y
* * *
The spread of Marxism in the working class and among progres sive
intellectuals at the end of the nineteenth century was hin dered by
the penetr ation of bourg eois, anti- Mar x ist theories in the
wor king - clas s and r e v olut ionar y mov ement. In the
West the struggle against revolutionary Marxism was waged not only
by bourg eois idea lis t and eclectic professors (e.g., B r ent
ano, Som- bart, Schulze- Gav ernitz) but by the ir followers , the
theore ticians of the Second International, Bernstein, Kautsky,
Hochberg and others, too. In Russia, where the works of Marx and
Engels were then litt le known in the original, attempts to
“criticise” Marxism from the bourg eois s ta ndpo int, to debase
and disc re dit it openly or covertly, came not only from the
official ideologists of the landlord and monarchic state and
liberal bourgeois professors, but also from the liberal Narodniks,
and then from the legal “Marxists” and the Economists.
Great, in the circumstances, was the importance of Plekhanov’s
Marxist writings of the eighties and nineties, which were pub
lished in Russia as well as abroad and in which the ideas of Marx
ism were defended and their lofty scientific and revolutionary
content substantiated and brought to light.
In his boundless faith in the victory of Marxist ideas, Plekhanov
courageously and fearlessly opposed all kinds of “critics” and
distorters of Marxism. He was the first in Russia to give a Marxist
analysis of the erroneous views of the Narodniks, to oppose the
Marxist outlook to the utopias of Narodism and to show the historic
role of the working class of Russia, thereby dealing a severe blow
to Narodism.
16 V . F OMIN A
social theories, it gives a bril l iant characterisation of the
scienti fic socialism of Marx and Engels, brings out the profound
meaning of the well- known Marx ist propositioni “Eve ry class
struggle is a political struggle”, and speaks of the necessity of
combining the revolutionary struggle in Russia with correctly
understood scienti fic socialism.
This pamphlet of Plekhanov’s was translated into Polish and
Bulgarian in the nineties of the last century.
Besides Socialism and the Political Straggle, his subsequent
w or ks, Our Differences (1885) and The Development of
the Monist V iew of His tory (1895), also
cleared the way for the victory of Marxism in Russia and were the
most important theoretical wor ks of Rus s ia n Marx is ts in
tha t period.
In these writings Plekhanov provided the first creative applica
tion of Marxism to the analysis of economic conditions in Russia
after the Reform and showed the immediate needs of the Russian
revolutionary movement and the political tasks of the Russian
w or k ing class. He la id bar e the r e actio nar y essence
of the so- called socialist views of the Nar odniks , w hich had
nothing in common w ith scientific socialism.
In Our Differences Ple khanov continued the cr iticis m of
the theoretical doctrine of the Narodniks as a whole and
particularly of their economic “theory” and their erroneous views
on the peasant ques tion in Russ ia. L enin, in his W ha t
the ‘''’Frie nds of the People” A re and How They
F ig ht the Social- Democrats, called Plekhanov’s Our
Differences the “first Social- Democratic w ork” of a
Rus s ian Mar x is t. Eng els g av e a hig h appr ais al of
it.
The Development of the Monist View of History (1895),
one of Plekhanov’s best Marxist works, was written in London, where
; he went after being deported from France in 1894. Lenin wrote f
that it “had helped to educate a whole generation of Russian
j Marxists”. ]
There are other books by Plekhanov akin to The Development of
the Monist View of History by their theme. They are:
Essays on the History of Materialism, which was written
in 1894 and pub lished in Stuttgart in 1896 in German and had
enormous success abroad, and his work For the Sixtieth Anniversary
of Hegel's Death (1891), also first published in G er
man and described as excellent by Engels, and other philosophical
works of later years.
I N T R O D U C T O R Y E S S A Y 17
od into a number of foreign languages and soon became widely known,
Engels wrote on January 30, 1895: “George's book has been published
a l a most oppor tune tim e .” On Fe bruary 8, 1895, he wrote to
Plekhanov: “In any case, it is a great success that you were
able to get it publis he d inside the country.”
In this book Plekhanov dwelt mainly on questions of the mate
rialist conception of history. In a polemic with the liberal Narod
niks Mikhailovsky, Kareyev and others, he set himself the task of
exposing the idealism of subjective sociology.
These works of Plekhanov and others of that period clearly reflect,
his great Marxist erudition and his profound knowledge of the
history of philosophic and social thought. They reveal the historic
preparation of Marxism on the basis of past progressive social
thought, its sources and component parts, and shed light on major
problems of dialectical and historical materialism, political
economy and scientific socialism. By his light against var ious
forms of idealism, particularly positivism and K a ntia n ism. and
also “economic” ma te ria lis m, Plek hanov contributed much that
was new and original to the argumentation of Marxist ideas, and
gave concrete expression and development to proposi tions of
Marxism.
* * *
In fighting against idealism, metaphysics and the reactionary
utopias of Narodnik “socialism”, Plekhanov defended materialism in
philosophy and history and disclosed the objective nature of the
laws governing social development and the dialectics of the
historical process.
lie considered it. his main tas k first and fore most to e x plain
the proposition that Marx ism was a pplicable to the historical
conditions in Russia.
The main question in the Narodnik economic theory was tha t
of the no n- capitalis t de v elopment of Rus s ia , w hether
Russia “must" or “must not" go through the “school” of capi
talism.
The subjective Narodniks maintained that Russia was follow ing a
road of her own and that as capitalis m was “ar tific ially
transplanted” into Russia, it was accidental and a decline, a
retrogression, for the “exceptional” Russian economic system. It
was therefore necessary to “hold back”, to “stop” the
develop-
2 - 0 1 3 2 9
18 V . F OMINA
ment of capitalism, to “put an end to the breaking up” by capi
talism of the traditional foundations of Russian l i fe. This Narod
nik position was reactionary and aimed in essence at preserving
survivals of feudal relations. A dv ocating the impos s
ibility of c a pita lis t de v e lopm e nt in
Russia, the Narodniks attempted to distort the ideas of Marx and
his follow ers in that country. Mik hailov s k y , for ex ample,
stated tha t Marx had a pplied his his tor ical scheme uncr
itically to Russ ia and that the Russ ian Marx ists were just as
uncr itically copy ing those “ready- made schemes" of Marx and ig
nor ing f acts pointing to Russia’s “exceptional road”, distinct
from capitalism. Mikhai lovsky, Vorontsov and others maintained
that Marxism as a theory was applicable in a certain degree to the
West European countries only, but completely inapplicable to
Russia.
In opposition to the Nar odnik appraisal of Mar x ism, Plekha- nov
conv incing ly proved tha t Marx ism was f ully applicable to the
economic and political conditions in Russia.
In order to bring out all the fallacy of the Narodnik economic
theory, Plekhanov compared the conditions of capitalism’s rise and
its histor ic role in the Wes t w ith the co nditions of its deve l
opment in Russia, ascertained the general preconditions for Ihe
development of capitalism in various countries and hence drew the
conclusion that it was a mistake to oppose Russia to the W es
t. He show ed the unte na bil ity of the N ar odnik s ’ m y th
about the “special” character of Russian economic development.
Plekha nov gave a profound Marxist analysis of Ihe economic
relation ships in Russia since the Reform and of the capitalist
road of development of town and country in his book Our
Differences. This work is full of historical facts and
statistics describing the various fields in the economic life of
Russia. It shows very well the penetration of foreign ca pital into
Rus s ia, the ever - gr owirg dependence of small handicraft
industry on commercial capital, the process of proletarianisation
of the craftsmen and the trans formation of small handicraft
production into a domestic system of large-scale production.
“Capitalism is going its way,” Plekha nov w rote, “it is ous ting
independent producers from the ir shaky positions and creating an
army of workers in Russia by the same tested me thod as it has alr
ea dy practise d ‘in the W e s t’.” *
Plekhanov was just as convincing when he revealed the penetra tion
of ca pitalis m in ag riculture too, the disinteg ra tion of the
“foundations of the peasant m/r”—the village commune (ob-
shchina).
* See this volume, p. 231.
I N T R O D U C T O R Y E S S A Y 19
The Narodniks, who were fighting capitalism from the petty-
bourgeois standpoint, saw the village commune as an indestruc tible
stronghold, a universal remedy for all the evils of capitalism and
the basis for the socialist tr ans for mation of Rus s ia, allo w
ing capitalism to be by passed. Idea lis ing Ihe pre- capitalist
forms of life, they were completely mistaken in their appraisal of
the actual situation and they argued, Plekhanov said, like metaphy
sicians, who do not understand the dialectic contradictions of
life. They kept talking about a supposed “popular” production, free
from inner contradictions, and regarded Ihe people as a kind of
rigid mass. They considered historical phenomena metaphysi cally,
apart from 1heir actual development and change.
The Narodniks refused to notice the weakening and disintegra tion
of Ihe village communes. In Our Differences P lek hanov showed
by facts that these communes display ed indubitable v ita lit y as
long as they remained within the conditions of natural economy.
They began to disintegrate, not under the influence of circum
stances outside and independent of them , but by v ir tue of inner
causes, of the fact that “the dev elopment of money economy and
commodity production litlle by little undermines communal land
tenure”.*
Plekhanov was profoundly convinced that Russia was develop ing
along the road of capitalism not, as the subjectivists thought,
because of the ex istence of a ny ex ter nal force or my ste rious
law dr iv ing her on to that r oad, but because there was no ac
tual internal force that could divert her from that road.
“Capitalism is favoured by the whole dynamics of our
social life,” he wrote.
T he princ ipal conclusion to be drawn f rom the analy sis of Russ
ian re ality was tha t large- scale priva te ca pitalis t
production in Russia was expanding and developing unceasingly while
the Narodnik illusion of a supposed “popular production” and the
other utopian outlooks were being shattered by life itself.
In his works Plekhanov proved that “by the inherent character of
its organisalion the rural commune tends first and foremost to give
place to bourgeois, not communist, forms of social life....” T he
com mune’s “role w ill he not active, but passive; it is not in a
position to advance Russia on the road to
communism...."**
Plekhanov’s greatest historic merit was that besides investi gating
the paths of Russia’s economic development he provided a Marxist
solution to the question of the class forces and the character of
the class struggle in Russia. It was typical of the Narodniks to
idealise the “people”; they considered the peasantry as the main
revolutionary force and ignored the role of the prole
* Ibid., p. 241. * * Ibid., p. 330.
2*
20 V . FO MINA
tariat. Plekhanov was the first in Russia lo oppose to their utopia
the doctrine of the historic role of the Russian working class in
the emancipation struggle.
The Narodniks’ position was based on the erroneous idea that
industry was hardly developing in Russia and that consequently the
inconsiderable worker stratum was not increasing.
Plekhanov showed by convincing arguments why the revolu tionaries
should rely precisely on the proletariat, the growing force in
society , connected w ith the most progr essive for m of pro
duction, big factory production, and not on the peasantry, who,
although they were more numerous, must inevitably divide, as com
modity production dev eloped, “into two hostile camps— the exploit
ing minority and the toi l ing majority”.*
Plekhanov was the first in Russia to prove that the working class
was to play the chief role in the impending Russian revolu tion.
“The initiative in the communist movement can be assumed on ly by
the w or king class in our indus tr ial centres, the class
whose e mancipa tion can be achie v ed only by it s ow n
conscious efforts.”**
This conviction that Plekhanov had of the historic future of the
working class of Russia was clearly illustrated in his speech a t
the 1889 Inte r nat ional W or k ing Me n’s S ocialist Congress
111 Paris. He then proclaimed: “The revolutionary movement in
Russia can triumph only as the revolutionary movement of the
wor ker s. T her e is not and cannot be any other w ay out
for us !” * * *
To the vulgar economists, who attached to the political organi
sation of society an utterly negligible significance, he opposed
the Marxist proposition that wherever society is split into classes
the antagonism between the interests of those classes necessarily
leads them to struggle for political domination. It is, therefore,
a mistake to recommend that the workers should fight only in the
economic field and to ignore the political tasks of the working
class. T hat, P lek hanov a rg ued, is nothing but the line of re
nounc ing revolutionary class struggle, revolution and socialism.
The class, political struggle against tsarism and the bourgeoisie
is the only way to fulfil the task of the historical emancipation
of the working class. This struggle culminates in revolution, the
most powerful manifestation of the class struggle and the means of
achieving the social and economic transformation of society.
Plekhanov contested the Narodnik utopian conception that Russia was
on the very eve of a socialist revolution. The Narod niks proceeded
fr om the v iew tha t there was no bourg eoisie in
* Ib id . , p. 273. * * Ib id ., p.
330.
* * * Ibid ., p. 399.
IN T R O DU C T O R Y E S S A Y 21
Russia and that, therefore, the bourgeois revolution would pass her
by, but that the Russian peasantry showed a propensity lo communism
and that, therefore, conditions were favourable for a popular
socialist revolution. In Plekhanov’s opinion, socialism was
imposs ible w it hout the economic pr econdit ions . T he impe nd
ing re v olution in Rus s ia could only be a bourg eois one. In his
early works Plekhanov gave serious attention to the peasant
question and thought it indispensable for the workers, who were
eventually to win political freedom, to carry on revolutionary
work and spread the ide as of scie ntif ic s ocia lis m amo
ng the peas antry.
But as he maintained that the peasantry as a class was break ing
up, Ple k hanov fa iled to take into account the fact that one of
the prima ry tasks of the bourg eois- democratic re v olution in
Russia was to fight for the abolition of landed proprietorship and
that the peasantry was destined to play an enormous progressive
role in that fight.
In his very first works Plekhanov speaks a number of times of the
passivity, the political apathy and conservatism of the peasantry.
This error showed that he underestimated the revolu tionary
potential of the peasantry and as a result he subsequently fell
into the erroneous Menshevik interpretation of the peasant ques
tion and of the Soc ial- Democr ats ’ a tt itude to the peasa nts.
A t the be g in nin g of the eig htie s , w hen the r e v
olut io nar y pro
letarian movement in Russia was still in its embryonic stage,
Plekhanov was a bri l l iant champion of Marxism. For its t ime the
programme of revolutionary activity which he set forth in Our
Differences was a considerable step forward in the fight for
the s preading of Mar x ism in Russ ia. T he members of Bla g oy ev
’s T ochissk y ’s and B r usne v ’s Social- Democra tic circles w
ho were then doing pra ctical work in Russ ia and mainta ined
contact w ith the Emancipation of Labour group highly appraised
Plekhanov’s, works and drew atte ntio n to the ir s ig nif
icance in s pr eading revo lutionary theory during the period of
disorder and vacillation. They requested that the pamphlets { Our
Differences and Socialism and the Political
Struggle) be sent in “as large quantities and as soon as
possible”.
22 V . F OMIN A
means and objects of production to social ownership, which would be
possible only as a result of a communist revolution. In his article
“A Draft Programme of Our Parly”, Lenin expressed the opinion that
there were elements in Plekhanov’s draft which were abs olute
ly indis pe ns able for the prog ramme of a Social-
Democratic labour party.* Plekhanov’s Socialism and the Political
Struggle and Our
Differences fulfilled a great historic task. It was under
their in fluence that the first Russian Marxists turned their eyes
and their hopes towards the working class, tried to develop its
class self- consciousness, to create its rev olutionar y or g anis
atio n—the party—and aimed their work at helping the working class
to rise to the fight against the bourgeois and landlord regime.
Plekhanov pointed out “ the task of the Rus s ian r ev olutionar
ies — the foundation of a re v olutionary working- class party ”.*
* Rut not until the middle of the nineties did the formation of a
revo lutiona r y Marx ist party become possible.
* * *
T he significance of jPle k lianov ’s ac tiv ity as an outst anding
Ma rx ist philosopher in the field of theory is not lim ite d to
his masterly application of a number of basic propositions of
Marxist theory to the his tor ica l condit ions of Rus s ia or to
his defence and .substantiation of Marxism in the fight against its
enemies.
In his philosophical works Plekhanov endeavoured to defend,
substantiate and popularise all Marx and Engels’ new contribu tions
to philosophy. The greatness of dialectical and historical
materialism, Plekhanov stressed, consists in its having overcome
the l imitations of metaphysical material ism and idealism and
explained all aspects of human life.
Plekhanov proclaimed that “the appearance of Marx’s material ist
philosophy was a g enuine re v olution, the greatest re v olution
known in the history of human thought”.*** He considered
Marx’s
* Seo V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, V ol. 4, p. 232. * *
Ibid., p. 264.
I N T R O D U C T O R Y E S S A Y 23
materialist philosophy as the inevitable anti natural result of the
development of the whole history of social thought, as a higher
stage in the dev elopment of philos ophy ; he saw Ma rx ’s rev olu
tionary outlook as the reflection of the class interests of the
proletariat.
Plekhanov mainly directed his attention to the propaganda of
historical materialism and disclosed its real content; this was a
vital necessity of the time, for the bourgeois opponents of Marx
ism both in the West and in Russia tried to debase historical
materialism to the level of vulgar “economic” materialism and
replace it by a ll sorts of non- sciontiiic theories —rac ism, M a
lth u s ianism, the theory of “factors” , the g eog raphical theory
and others, or else they passed over in complete silence the materi
alist conception of history formulated by Marx.
In his Development of the Monist View of History , Plekhanov
poleinised against Mikhailovsky, “who had not noticed” Marx's
historical theory and, moreover, tr ied to hush up Mar x ’s mas ter
ly ideas for the benefit of subjectivism. Plekhanov showed that
many experts 011 history, economics, the history of political
relations and the history of culture knew nothing of Ma rx ’s his
tor ical materialism and yet the results that they had achieved
obviously testified in fav our of Ma rx ’s theory . Ple k hanov was
convinced that there would be many discoveries confirming that
theory. “As to Mr. Mikhai lovsky, 011 the other hand, we are
convinced of the contrary : not a single discover y w ill jus tify
the ‘s ubjectiv e’ point of view, either in five years or in five
thousand.”*
Plekhanov repeatedly wrote that the materialist conception of
history for mulated by Marx was one of the gre atest achieve ments
of theore tical thoug ht in the ninet ee nth century and an epoch-
making service rendered by Marx. Nobody before Marx had been able
to give a correct, strictly scientific explanation of the history
<if social life. Marx was the first to extend materialism to the
development of society and he created the science of society.
A t the same tim e P le k ha nov stres sed tha t the mate r
ia lis t
conception of history, while being one of the paramount achieve
ments of Ma rx ism , is only a part of the mater ialist outlook of
Marx and Engels. It is a mistake to see the “most important element
of Marxism” in historical materialism alone. The materialist expla
nation of history presupposes the materialist conception of
nature.
Plekhanov clearly and convincingly demonstrated the organic unity
of Marx's philosophical, sociological and economic theories, the
close interc onnection of the basic propos itions of Mar x ism ,
and described Marxism as the integral, coherent revolutionary
w orld out look of the pr ole tar iat.
* See thi s v olume, p. 655.
24 V . F OMINA
The striving to single out the most important in the phenomena of
social life, their material basis, is in striking evidence all
through Plekhanov’s exposition of Marx's materialist views of huma
n society and its histo ry . It is fr om I his sta ndpoint that he
analyses the philosophical views of materialists before Marx, the
utopian s ocialists , the ninetee nth- century French sociologists
and historians, the views of Comte, Spencer, Hegel, the Bauer
brothers, Fichte, Weisongriin and others, and underlines that Mar x
’s masterly discover y — the mater ialist conception of histor y —
corrects the radical error of the philosophers and sociologists
before him, who proceeded from idealist premises in their analysis
of society.
Plekhanov shows that Marx’s materialist scientific explanation of
the social- his torical process deriv es f rom one sing le premise:
the objective basis of social life, the economic structure of
society.
Plekhanov thoroughly substantiates the Marxist conception of Ihe
laws governing society. lie is inlorestod in the way the question
of the laws of social development is posed in the teachings of Mar
x ’s hist or ica l predecessors, the eig hteenth- century French
mater ialists and the nineteenth- century utopian socialists. l ie
stresses that, despite certain isolated materialist guesses, they
remained idealists in their conception of history and were unable
to grasp social development’s objective necessity and conformity to
law and hence to roveal the roots of the ideas mo tiv at ing human
activity. Plekhanov showed that it was Marxism that, first made a
scientific inv es tig ation of the histor ical process. Marxism
revealed the objective nature of the laws of history, w hich
w or k w ith the force of natur a l law s and w ith unr e le nting
necess ity; he showed tha t changes in s ocial r ela tions , often
unforeseen by man but necessarily resulting from his activity, tak
e place in accordance w ith definite laws of social life.
People’s activity, their ideas and views do not depend on chance;
they are subordinate to the laws of historical development, and in
order to discover those laws, Plekhanov wrote, the facts of hum a
ni ty ’s past life must bo studied w ith the help of Marx 's
dialectical and materialist method. Only he who understands the
pasl, who sees the succession and connection between histor ical ev
ents, their co ndit iona lity and not a chaos of for tuities , can
foresee the future.
Plekhanov assessed very highly the role of dialectics in Ihe life
of society. The dialectical method, applied to social pheno mena.
ho pointed out, has worked a complete revolution. “We can say
without exaggeration that we are indebted to it for Ihe
understanding of human history as a law- governed process.” *
I N T R O D U C T O R Y E S S A Y 25
This moans that the qualities of the social environment depend
jus t as l i t t le ori the w ill and consciousness of man as
thos e of the geographical environment, Plekhanov said. He
emphasised Marx’s thought that it is incorrect to look for the laws
of society in nature.
Plekhanov, it should be noted, did not leave uncriticised (he even
now w idespread pseudo- scientific bourg eois “ theories ” w hich
apply biological laws to society and thereby reduce social progress
lo biolog ical e v olution. He derided the positivis ts, the
social- Darwinists, all those who dreamed of reforming social
science by means of natural science, by the study of physiological
laws. He called (hem U t o p i a n s . People who consider society
from this standpoint, he wrote, find themselves in a blind alley,
for physiol ogy. biolog y , me dicine a nd zoology are unable to ex
plain the- specific sphere of social development.
Plekhanov showed and emphasised the distinction between Marxism and
Darwinism. Darwin succeeded in solving the question of the origin
of vegetable and animal species, whereas Marx solved the question
of how the various forms of social organisation arise. If Darwin
was inclined to apply his biological theory to the explanation of
social phenomena, Plekhanov wrote, that was a mistake. Therefore,
when Plekhanov himself wrote in his Development of the Monist View
of History that Marxism is Dar w inis m applied
to soc ia l sciences, he was obv ious ly us ing an unfortunate
expression which by no means reflected his actual opinion of the
relation between Marxism and Darwinism.
The objective laws of material production, the laws of the class
strugg le —these are the key to the under s tanding of the inner
logic of the social process, and of the whole wealth and variety of
social re lat ions . It is here I ha I the causes of social
phenomena must bes ought. Plek hanov e x plains that o ther
phenomena of social life—ideology, for instance—are also governed
by their specific laws. For the materialist, the history of human
thought is a law- governed and necessary process. The train of
human thought is also subject to its own par ticular laws. Nobody w
ill identif y , say, the laws of logic and those of commodity
circulation. I?ut Marxists do not consider, as the idealists did,
that we can seek the ultimate cause, the basic motive force behind
the intellectual development of mankind, in the laws of thought.
The laws of thought cannot answer the question: what determines the
afflux and character of new impressions? These questions can be
elucidated only by anal ysing soc ia l li fe and its reflect
ion in man's consciousnes s.
26 V . F OMIN A
sides of social lift* are interdependent. Historical necessity does
not preclude freedom of action in man. In studying the objective
conditions of the material existence of mankind, Marxists thereby
study the relations between people, and also their thoughts, ideals
and strivings. The subjective voluntarists' assertion thal man's w
ill and a ct iv ity are entire ly free and independent of social
conditions is untenable. In practice the w ill is only “a pparently
” free; the idea of complete freedom of w ill is an illus ion .
Freedom of w ill does not ex ist of its elf — it is a result of ihe
knowledge of historical necessity, knowledge of Ihe laws of
progress. The free dom of the individual, Plekhanov holds, consists
not only in knowing the laws of nature and history and being able
to submit to Ihose laws, but also in being ablo to combine them in
the most advantageous manner.
11 is just as erroneous, Ple k hanov s aid, to seek the motiv e
force of historical development outside the practical activity of
human beings. Bourgeois historians and sociologists attempted to
ascribe to Marxism an absolute metaphysical determinism,
maintaining that, according to Marx, historical necessity works of
itself, without any human participation, for inasmuch as the
w or k ing of objectiv e necessity is recog nis ed, no room
is lef t, they say, for free human activity.
Plekhanov completely exposed that falsification of Marxist views
and refuted the standpoint according to which historical necessity
works auto ma tica lly ; he proved that it is human ac tiv ity
which makes history.
lie s k ilf ully refuted the assertions that people are subject In
an iron law of necessity, that a ll their actions are predeter
mined, and so on. “No, ... once we have discovered that iron
law, it depends on us to overthrow its yoke, it depends on us to
make necessity Ihe obedient slave of reason,"*
Plekhanov writes, quoting Marx.
Not only does dialectical materialism leach llial it is absurd to
revolt against economic necessity, it shows how that necessity must
be made use of practically. It thus rejects the fatalist point of
view and proclaims the great and insuperable force of human
activity, of human reason, which, once it has come to know
the inner laws of necessity, strives to transform reality and make
it more rational. “People made and had to make their history
unconsciously as long as the motive forces of
historical develop ment worked behind their backs, independently of
their con sciousness. Once thoso forces have been discovered, once
Ihe laws by w hich they w ork hav e been s tudied, people w ill be
able to tak e them in their own hands and s ubm il the m to Iheir
own rea-
* See this v olume , p. 660.
I N T R O D U C T O R Y K S S A Y 27
son. The service rendered by Marx consists in having discovered
those forces and made a rigorous scientific study of their work
ing.”*
Plekhanov made it clear that historical materialism's task consists
in ex plaining the sum- total of social life. However , in order to
explain lhe whole historical process consistently, one must remain
true to the Marxist principle of first finding out the very
foundation of social life. According to lhe theory of Marx and
Engels, that basis is lhe development of the productivo forces, the
production of mat e ria l w ealth. B ut in order to produce, people
must establish between themselves certain mutual rela tions which
Marx called rela tions of production. T he Sum- total of these
relations constitutes the economic structure of society, out of
which all other social relations between people develop. From the
standpoint of Marxism, the historical progress is deter mined, in
the final analy sis , nol by m an ’s w ill, but by the dev el
opment of the material productive forces. Their development leads
to changes in the economic re lations. T hat is w hy the st udy of
history must begin with the study of the slate of the productive
forces in the country concerned, its economy, out of which social
psychology and the various ideologies develop.
In the light against idealism Plekhanov refuted the assertions made
by Mikhailovsky and Kareyev that “the efforts of reason” play the
decisive role in the development of the productive forces, the
means of production, in the process of creating and applying the
instruments of labour. lie showed that the very a bil it y to
produce tools is deve loped in the process of act ion on nature, in
the process of w inning the means of subsist ence. B y acting on
nature, man changes his own nature. “He develops all his capacities
, a mong them also the ca pacity of ‘too l- mak ing’. But at any
given time the measure of that capacity is determined by the
measure of the development of productive forces already
achieved."**
T he indis s olubility , the unity of the inter re lations between
the productive forces and the relations of production which Marx
established, is called by Plekhanov the basic cause of social
progress. He cloar ly sees the dialec tics of their dev elop ment
in the fact that relations of production are the consequence, and
the productive forces the cause. But the consequence in turn
becomes a cause, the relations of production become a new source, a
form of development of the productive forces.
Plekhanov also elucidates, although he not infrequently over
estimates, the influence of nature—a natural, and, as he puts it,
most impo r tan t pre condition of human his tor y —on the
* Ibid., p. 422. ** Ibid., p. 587,
28 V . F OMIN A
deve lopment of society. T hus, in his early w orks, par ticular ly
in The Development of the Monist View of History, he noted
that so cia l re lations hav e an infinite ly g reater influence on
the process of history than natural conditions. In Essays on the
History of Mate rial ism— another of his earlier w ork s—he
wrote that the m utua l influence of the productive forces and the
relations of production is the cause of social development, which
has its own logic and its own laws, independent of the natural
environment, and that this inner log ic “may even enter into
contradiction w ith the demands of the environment”. He speaks in
the same spirit of the indirect influence of climate, of the fact
that the historical destiny of peoples does not depend exclusively
on the geographical envi ronment, for “geog raphy is far from e x
plaining ev er y thing in ; history”. The relative stability of the
geographical environment compared w ith the v ar iab ility of the
histo rical destinies of peoples, Plekhanov writes, confirms this
conclusion. This means, he goes^ on, tha t m a n’s dependence on
his ge og raphical e nv ir onm ent is 1' a variable magnitude which
changes with every new step in I histo r ical deve lopment. He was
also correct in ass erting that the ' geographical environment
promotes or hinders the development of the productiv e forces. A nd
yet even in these early works Plekha- J nov slips into formulations
which show that he exaggerates the i role of the natural,
geographical environment—he explains the co ndition of the
productiv e forces by the features of the geographi- i cal
env ir onme nt. T his was a concession to the so- called geog
raphi- I cal trend in sociology . J
In his Development of the Monist View of History , he treats
popu- " lat ion as an integ ra l element in social progress, whose
g row th, howev er, is not the basic cause of tha t progress. He
quotes M a r x ’s proposition that abstract laws of reproduction
exist only for animals and plants, whereas the increase (or
decrease) of population in human society is determined by its
economic structure.
I N T R O D U C T O R Y E S S A Y 29
of conscious and org anise d a c tiv ity : I hoy can only s
ubordina te themselves to and Mindly follow the “heroes”.
The Narodnik ideologists held that historical progress is accom
plished exclusively by critically thinking individuals, as a par
ticular and higher variety of the human race. The critically
thinking individual was a “hero", the one who carries along the
“crow d”, as contras ted to the “hero” . The crow d, as the Nar
odnik s see it, is “a mass alien to every creative element,
something in the nature of a vas t q ua ntit y of ciphers, w hich
acquire some positive significance only in the event of a k ind,
‘cr itica lly thi nk ing ’ entity condescendingly taking its place
at their head”.* Elsewhere, IMekhanov noted that the Nar odnik s g
iv e the name .crowd to millions of producers out of whom “ the
hero w ill mould w hatever he considers necessary”.** This was the
extremely harmful cult of the individual, of the “hero", who stands
above the masses.
In one of the variants of Essays on the History of
Materialism, Plekhanov gave a remarkable explanation of the
harm done by the cull of historical personalities. The actions of
these people are not infrequently considered as the cause of great
historical move ments. “ It is in this w ay that the roles of
‘Moses’, A br aha m', ‘Lycnrgus’ and others assume the incredible
proportions which amaze us in the philosophy of history of Holbach
and all the last century ‘enlighteners'. The history' of the
peoples is turned into a series of ‘Lives of Illustrious Men’.”
That is why “religion, morals, customs, and the entire character of
tho people are repre sented as having been formed by one man acting
according to a pre- considered plan. T hus there rema ins no trace
,” P lek hanov says, “of any idea of social science, of the laws on
which man depends in histor ical dev elopment” . T his point of v
iew , he noted, has nothing in common w ith science.
Since the Nar odnik ideologis ts as a r ule did not trust the
masses and recognised only the “single combat” of isolated indiv
idua ls w ith the autocracy , the y w ent ov er, as P le k ha
no v pointed out ,
to lhe pernicious tactics of individual terror, which retarded the
development of tho revolutionary initiative and activity of the
w orking class and the peasantry . T he unsuccessful a ttempt
s to wage the strug g le ag ainst ts ar is m by the ef forts
of indiv idua l heroes alone, divorcement from the popular masses,
led the Narodniks to still more serious errors and made them evolve
towards liberalism. Clearly realising the harmfnlness of the cult
of the individual, of “heroes”, for the development of a mass revo
lutionary movement. Plekhanov was not content with criticising the
political and theoretical bankruptcy of the Narodnik ideolo
* See this volume, p. 577. * • Ibid., p. 733.
30 V . F OMIN A
g ists ’ view s on this ques tion and der iding the ir immense
conceit; he at the same time set examples of profound understanding
of the Marxist teaching on the laws of social development and the
role of the masses and of individuals in history.
Mikhailovsky, the “Achilles of the subjective school”, Plekhanov
w rote , im ag ines t ha t Marx is ts “m us t only ta lk abo
ut ‘the self deve lopment of the forms of production and ex chang
e’ “If y ou imagine,” Plekhanov said to the Narodniks, “that, in
the opinion of Marx, the forms of production can develop ‘of
themselves’, y ou are cr ue lly mis tak e n. W ha t are the
social relations of produc tion? They are relations between men.
How can they develop, then, without men?”* It is the working
masses, Plekhanov main tains, who advance the development of
production. W hile , in the v ie w of the s ubjectiv is ts ,
P le k ha nov w rote , the
hero operates and the producer co- operates, the Ma rx ist v iew is
tha t the producers do not co- operate, but operate. T he de v elop
ment of society is achieved only by the operations of the produc
ers themselves.
He proved by examples from social life that history is made by the
masses, the millions of producers, not by “heroes” according to
their caprice or fantasy. “It is not the utopian plans of various
reformers, but the laws of production and exchange, which deter
mine the now cont inually g row ing working- class moveme nt.”*
*
The subjectivists attribute to outstanding individuals deeds
w hich only the masses can accomplis h; no t indiv idua ls ,
but the
popular masses, the classes, play the decisive role in historical
development, in Russia’s social reorganisation. The subjectivists
and the voluntarists, Plekhanov wrote, cannot rise from the acts of
individuals to the acts of the masses, to the acts of whole social
classes. The Narodniks, like the bourgeois sociologists, are
inclined to see in the political activity of great people the chief
and almost only mainspring of historical development. They give too
much attention to the genealogy of kings and leave no room for the
independent activity of the popular masses.
The attention of historians, Plekhanov wrote, must be centred on
the lif e of t he popula r masses. T he people mus t be the hero of
history, he emphasised. The real history of a country is the
history of the people, the history of the citizens. “...No great
step can be made in the his tor ical progress of m an k ind, not
only w ithout the par ticipa tion of people, but even w itho ut the
pa rt icipat ion of the great majority of the people, i.e., of the
masses."***
P lek hanov noted that : “So long as there ex ist ‘heroes’ who
imagine that it is sufficient for them to enlighten their own
heads
* Ib id . , p. 652. * * Ib id . , p.
424.
I N T R O D U C T O R Y E S S A Y 31
to bo able to lead the crowd wherever they please, and to mould it,
like clay, into anything that comes into Iheir heads, the king dom
of reason remains a pretty phrase or a noble dream. It begins to
approa ch us w ith sev en- league strides only w hen the ‘crow d'
itself becomes the hero of historical action, and when in it, in
that colourles s ‘crow d’, there deve lops the appro pria te
conscious ness of self.”*
The greatness of Marx’s philosophy, Plekhanov wrote, consists in
that, unlike many other philosophical trends, which have doomed man
to inactivity and passive acceptance of reality, it appeals to his
power of creation. Marx called to activity the proletariat, the
class which has a great historical role to play in modern society.
It is to it, the proletariat, the revolutionary class in the full
sense of the w’ord, that the Marxists appeal. The prole tariat.
uses Ma r x ’s philos ophica l theory as a re liable g uide in its
struggle fo r e ma ncipat ion. T his theory infuses into the
proletar iat an energy hither to unequalle d. T he w'hole practical
philo sophy of Marxism amounls to action. Plekhanov called
dialectical materialism the philosophy of action.
Hut in attributing decisive significance in historical development
to the action of the masses, Marxism is nevertheless far from
denying the role of the individual in history, from reducing it to
nil. A n out s tanding in div idua l, iri indis s oluble
contact w ith the
masses and expressing their interests and aspirations, may in
definite historical circumstances play a great role in society by
arousing heroic self- consciousness in the masses; by his progres
sive activity ho accelerates the advance of society. Hence “...the
development of knowledge, the development of human conscious ness,
is the greatest and most noble task of the thinking personal ity. L
icht, mohr L ic ht ! ’—thal is w hat is most of all needed.... One
should not leave the torch in the narrow study of the ‘intel
lectual’. ... Develop human consciousness.... Develop the self-
consciousness of the producers ” .* *
The significance of an outstanding individual’s social activity,
Plekhanov stressed, depends on how correctly that individual
understands the conditions of development of society, and is
determined by his nearness to the people, to tho progressive class.
Hut nn great man can impose on society relations which no longer
conform to the condition of the productive forces.
T hus Plek hanov b r illia nt ly criticised the idealist cult of
the individual in the middle of the nineties and explained the
Marxist teaching on the role of the people and of the individual in
history.
* See this v olume, pp. 661-62. ** fbld.
32 V . F OMIN A
Plekhanov's Marxist works still help in tilt* fight to eliminate
the remaining survivals of the cull of the individual.
Substantiating the paramount role of Ihi* people in history,
Plekhanov sought to prove tlial only the revolutionary movement of
the people, of the working class, could overthrow a political
monster such as Russian autocracy and lead to the dictatorship of
the proletariat, to the triumph of socialism. This was of great
importance to the Russian emancipation movement, in which Blanquist
and anarchist ideas were being spread in Ihe eighties. Plekhanov
defended the idea of the dictatorship of the proletar iat. in
Socialism and the Political Struggle , Our Differences and
other works. He pointed out that the dictatorship of the prole
tariat is ihe first act, the sign of the social revolution. The
task of Ihe dictatorship of Ihe proletariat is not only to destroy
the political domination of the bourgeoisie, it is also lo organise
social and political life. “Always and everywhere,” he noted,
“political power has been the lev er by w hich a class, hav ing
achieved do m ina tio n, has carr ied out the social uphea v al
necessary for its welfare.. . .”* W he n he la ter ado pted
Me ns he v ik v iew s, P le k ha nov , w hile
not openly renouncing the Marxist principle of the dictatorship of
the proletariat, let himself be influenced by reformist constitu
tional illusions and evaded Ihe answer to concrete practical ques
tions in the struggle for the dicta tor s hip of the prole tariat.
A mong the hig hly impor ta nt ques tions of his tor ical
mate r ia l
ism w hich Plek hanov worked out, a prominent place is given lo the
question of the rise and development of ideology, the origin of
forms of social consciousness and their interaction, the question
of the re lation between the polit ica l anti ideolog ical supers
truc tures and the economic basis, and so on.
Just as there is nothing rigid, eternal and invariable in nature,
so, in the history of social life, changes in the mode of
production are accompanied by changes in ideas, theories, political
institu tions and the lik e — i.e., in the entire superstructure. A
ll this is the historical product of the practical activity of
people.
In his works Plekhanov devoted his main attention to defining how
the development of the forms of social consciousness depends on
material production. He criticised in great detail the idealist
theor y of “s elf- deve lopment” of ideologies , and the notion
that, the general condition of intellects and morals creates not
only the various forms of art, literature and philosophy but also
the industry of a given period, the social environment. Plekhanov
convincingly explains that only the materialist conception
of
* See this v olume , p. 73.
INT K ODU C T O ItY ES S A Y 33
history ran lind the real cause of a given condition of both intel
lects and morals in the production of material values.
In the interaction of society and nature people produce mate rial
values and create the economic basis on which arise the politi cal
system, psychology and ideology. The very direction of intel
lectual work in society is determined in the final analysis by
people’s relations in production. This materialist thesis does not
reject cases of other countries’ ideological and political
influence on the policy and ideology of the country in question.
Plekhanov supplements the study of the interrelations between
economy and ideology w ith in a country , the e lucida tio n of the
dependence of political and ideological development on the economic
structure of society, w ith the s tudy of foreign influences on the
cultura l development of one people or another. “The French
philosophers were f ille d w ith a dm ir ation for the philos
ophy of L ocke; but the y went muc h fur the r tha n the ir
teacher. T his was because the class w hich they represented
ha d gone in France, f ig ht ing ag ainst lhe
old regime, much further than the class of English society whose
aspirations were expressed in the philosophical works of Locke.”* T
his means that foreign influences cannot do aw ay w ith the main
thing, the fact that the features and peculiarities of the social
ideas in a giv en country are ex plained in the final analy s is by
the f undam e nta l inner cause of its dev elopment —the degree of
development of its own economic relations.
No less convincing is Plekhanov’s argument in favour of the
.Marxist proposition on the reverse influence of the forms of super
structure on the economy. The dependence of politics 011
econom ics does not preclude their inte r ac tion, the influence of
pol itic al institutions on economic life. The political system
either promotes the development of the productive forces or hinders
it. The reason w hy a g iv en polit ica l system is cr eated
is to promote the fur the r development of the productive forces.
If the political system becomes an obstacle to their development it
must be abolished.
In societies based on e x plo ita tio n, the r ulin g and the
suhject classes are opposed to one another in the production
process. T he re lations between classes, Ple k hanov e x plains ,
are first and foremost relations into which people enter in lhe
social process of production. The relations between the classes are
reflected in the political organisation of society and tho
political struggle. This struggle is the source from which the
various political theories and the ideological superstructure arise
and develop. Only by taking into account and studying the struggle
between the classes can one come to understand the spiritual
history of society, and draw a correct conclusion that in societies
divided
* Ibid., p. 628.
34 V . F OM IN A
into classes there is always a dominant ideology, which is the
ideology of the dominant class.
Plekhanov’s indisputable services include his bril l iant refuta
tion of the untenable idea, nevertheless obstinately ascribed to
Marxism, that economic conditions determine spiritual l ife w
ho lly and e nt ir e ly (and not merely in the f in al resor t),
and tha t any theory can be deduced directly from a given economic
condi tion. This vulgar fiction which describes Marx’s historical
mate rialism as “economic materialism” was spread at the end of the
nineteenth century by Mikhailovsky and other subjective Narod niks
and bourgeois sociologists in the West.
Mikhailovsky is wrong, Plekhanov wrote, to think that Marx ism
knows only what belongs to economics, that it “breathes only
with the string ”. Marx never considered the economic
development of a given country separate from the social forces
w hich, ar is ing from it , thems elv es influence it s fur
the r directio n. A s regards the de v elopment of ideolo g
ie s, the best ex perts on eco nomic dev elopment w ill at times
find themselves helpless if they have not a certa in artis tic
sense w hich enables them to under sta nd, for example, the
complicated process of the development of social psy chology and
its significance in the life of society , its ada ptat ion to
economics, its connections w ith ideology . T he great writers
Balzac and Ibsen, Plekhanov noted, did much to ex plain the psy
chology of the v arious classes in modern society. “L e t’s hope
that in time there w ill appear many s uch artists, w ho w il
l unde r s tand on the one ha nd the ‘ir on law s ’ of mo v e ment
of the ‘s tr ing ’, and on the other w ill be able to unders tand
and to show how, on the ‘string’ and precisely thanks to its
movement, there grows up the ‘garment of Life' of ideology."*
Marx, Plekhanov argued, never denied the very great impor tance of
politics and ideology (moral, philosophical, religious and
aesthetic concepts) in people’s life. But he first of all deter
mined their genesis, and found it in the economic relations of
society. Then he investigated how the economic skeleton is covered
w ith the liv ing flesh of social and pol itic al forms and
finally—and this is the most interesting, the most fascinating
aspect—how human ideas, feelings, aspirations and ideals arise and
develop.
Plekhanov showed the relative independence of ideological
development, thus refuting the illusion of the absolute indepen
dence of ideology, an illusion so characteristic of bourgeois ide
ologists and re v isionists. T he process by w hich the ideolog
ical superstructure arises out of the economic basis goes on
unnoticed by man. T hat is w hy the l ink between ideological and
economic
* See this volume, p. 653. •<I ..V.
I N T R O D U C T O R Y E S S A Y 35
relations, the dependence of lhe former upon the latter, is not
seldom lost s ig ht of, the for mer are considere d “self-
sufficient” nnd ideology is erroneously regarded as something which
is independent by its very essence. The relative independence of
ideological development is explained, Plekhanov emphasises, first
of all by continuity in the development of each ideological form.
This relative independence is shown by the fact that the
ideologists of any class adopt an active attitude to the legacy of
ideas from the preceding age and use the achievements of pre vious
generations. “The ideologies of evory particular age are always
most, closely connected— w hether pos itiv el y or nega tiv ely —w
ith the ideologies of the preceding age.” * T he moment material
and spiritual labour part, and opposition arises between them,
special branches of the division of labour in spiritual production
appear. The ideologies become, as it were, segregated in re lativ
ely independent fields w ith the inner tendencies peculiar to their
own development. The existence of these phenomena proves that the
relative independence of ideologies is a reality, a historical
fact.
It is an error, Plekhanov writes, to attribute to Marxism the
thought that the content of all of a given society's ideas can be
explained directly by its economic condition. Ideas which arise in
one and the same society often play completely different
roles.
Plekhanov’s profound thoughts on the role and significance of ideas
in the development of society are of enormous interest to this day.
In the eighties and nineties of the last century the Narodniks,
whose utopian ideals were completely out of touch w ith real
life , g r e atly harmed the r e v olut ionar y s trug g le of the
masses by asserting that ideas and theories are independent of
economic, social l i fe. Exposing the subjectivism of Mikhailovsky
and others, Plekhanov gave an independent and original develop ment
of the Mar x ist te ac hing on the role of ideas and theories
.
Ideals may be lofty or base, correct or erroneous. From Marx's
point of view, Plekhanov noted, ideas, ideals are always the
reflection of the material conditions of people's existence. The
only correct ideal is that which corresponds to the aspect of
economic reality which lends towards progress. The metaphysi cian
thinks that if a public personality must base himself upon re ality
it means that he should reconcile himse lf w ith it. B ut the mate
r ialis t and diale ctic ian points out that life in a class
society is antagonistic. The reactionaries base themselves on a
reality which is already obsolete, and yet in it is being born a
new life, the future reality, to serve which means to contribute to
the victory of the new.
•Ibid., p. 636.
36 V . F OMIN A
Marxists attribute great importance to ideas, ideals, although this
is challenged by the Narodnik sociologists. Ideas become a great
power, but 011 the indispensable condition that they are able
to embrace and reflect reality, the course of history, the re
lations between the classes. O nly in that case are they inv in
cible and do they promote progress. In the opposite case they act
as brakes to social development. A class and its political party
may be called revolutionary only if they express the most pro gress
ive tr ends of society , are ve hicles of the most advanced ideas
of their lim e , if they deter mine the task s of tho social
struggle.
Plekhanov called revolutionary ideas “dynamite” which “no other
explosive in the world can replace”.*
Plekhanov, being a Marxist, never tired of calling for the ful
filment of the great ideals of scientific socialism. lie stressed
the exceptional role of revolutionary theory in the proletariat’s
class strugg le. “For w ithout re v olutionar y theory ,” he w
rote, “there is no revolutionary movement in the true sense of the
word.”** He called for the dissemination among the masses of the
progres sive ideas advanced by the most progressive social forces,
and this he saw as a very great factor of progress.
* * *
A t the end of the nineteenth centur y and later , w hen the
bour geoisie were conducting a campaig