In 1883, Plekhanov and his like-minded people (V. I. Zasulich, L. G. Deich, and others) founded the Emancipation of Labor group. Its main business is the propaganda of Marxism. The group organized the publication of Marx's works in Russian, creating the "Library of Modern Socialism".
In the work "Our Differences" (1885), Plekhanov gave an analysis of what divided the Narodnaya Volya from the former Chernoperedelists,
rished to Marxism. The core of the disagreement was the understanding of the nature and driving forces Russian revolution. Plekhanov showed the illusory nature of hopes for the seizure of power through a conspiracy. The Narodnaya Volya were "headquarters without an army" and, even having seized power, they could not hold it. Challenging the Blanquist ideas, Plekhanov, following K. Marx, ruled out the possibility of a non-revolutionary development of Russia. Only the main role in the socialist revolution was no longer assigned to the "revolutionary minority", but to the proletariat.
Conclusion
As a result of the reforms of the 60-70s. XIX century, to which she responded under the threat of a political catastrophe, Russia began a large-scale transition to industrial society generally of the same type that existed in the advanced countries of the West and was based on a market economy and parliamentary democracy. However, the burden of reforms turned out to be too heavy for the government and society. Interruption of the process of social transformations in the 80-90s. and even attempts to reverse history preserved in Russia a huge burden of feudal-serf remnants, which not only alienated the country from states that successfully continued modernization, but also sharply narrowed the possibility of its peaceful evolution to a full-fledged industrial society.
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAThe world historical process objectively spurred the economic and socio-political modernization of Russia. Thus, she was put in a tight time frame.
Russia failed to effectively use the time allotted to it in order to implement necessary reforms. The liberal movement, which was a supporter of the reformist path of development, was unable to implement it. Russia entered the revolution divided into the traditionalist-monarchist, liberal and strengthened revolutionary-socialist camp. Stolypin reforms were frustrated by the fluctuations of the supreme power and the polarized society.
As a result, in 1914 Russia was drawn into world war for which she was not ready. In the wake of the economic and socio-political crisis caused by the war, in February 1917, the autocracy fell. Liberals and socialists were in power and further development countries were already unpredictable.
List of used literature
1. Aleksandrova T.M. Russian history; 19th century. - M., 2006
2. Antonov V.F. revolutionary populism. - M., 1995
3. History of Russia from ancient times to the end of the 20th century. - M., 2001
4. Pavlenko D.I. Russian history. - M., 2004
5. Pantin I.K., Plimak E.G. Revolutionary tradition in Russia. - M., 1986
6. Shatsiklo K.F. Russian liberalism on the eve of the revolution of 1905-1907. - M., 1985
UDC 94 (47). 083
E.V. Kostyaev
WAS G.V. PLEKHANOV A SUPPORTER OF TSARISM DURING THE FIRST WORLD WAR?
A detailed analysis of the accusations against the "father of Russian Marxism" and the founder of Russian social democracy G. V. Plekhanov of supporting self-
monarchy and the tsarist government during the First World War and concludes that these accusations are completely unfounded.
Social Democracy, Menshevism, World War I, defencism, tsarism
DID G. V. PLEKHANOV SUPPORT TSARIS1H DURING THE FIRST WORLD WAR?
The detailed analysis refers to the charges against "the father of the Russian marxism" and the fooudee af the Ruusiaa aooial aemoocaay G. V. Plekhanov who supported the autocracy and the tsarist government during the First World War. The conclusions are made about the total inconsistency of the charges.
Social democracy, Menshevism, First World War, defensism, tsarism
The topic of the relationship between opposition figures and the authorities in critical periods in the history of a particular state has always been and remains very relevant. Therefore, when the “father of Russian Marxism” and the founder of Russian social democracy, Georgy Valentinovich Plekhanov (1856-1918), took a “defensive” position with the outbreak of World War I, calling on the population of Russia to participate in its defense against a German attack, it was addressed to him by anti-defense-minded colleagues unfounded accusations of supporting the tsarist government were heard throughout the party. Thus, the Bolshevik Grigory Zinoviev (Radomyslsky), in an article “Against the Current”, published on November 1, 1914 in the newspaper Sotsial-Democrat, narrated how, in the atmosphere of “frantic revelry of chauvinism” at the beginning of the war, Plekhanov appealed to "culture" of the Russian Cossacks and Nikolai Romanov, and in the summer of 1915 the leader of the Bolsheviks Lenin and the same Zinoviev claimed that he stooped to declaring war just on the part of tsarism.
The topic of Plekhanov's attitude to the tsarist government, firstly, is not sufficiently covered in the historical literature, and secondly, it is interpreted differently in the currently available publications. Thus, the American historian S. Baron writes that Plekhanov, “who for almost forty years called on the Russian people to overthrow the tsarist government,” during the war “persuaded them to defend the autocracy.” S. Tyutyukin considers Plekhanov's misfortune that he failed during the war years "to find the line beyond which the protection of the interests of the workers objectively turned into support for the ruling tsarist regime ...". I. Urilov admits a contradiction when in one place he claims that, having taken a “defensive” position at the beginning of the world conflict, Plekhanov called on the Russians to “support their government in the fight against Germany and its allies”, and he does not argue in any way, but in another it is fair notes that during the war, Georgy Valentinovich "called for the defense of Russia, and not the tsarist government."
Meanwhile, the true attitude of Plekhanov and his like-minded people towards the tsarist government was manifested in their position regarding the vote of the Duma Social Democrats for or against the allocation of military credits to him. Duma deputies from the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party (RSDLP) acted “like true socialists, not voting for the budget,” Plekhanov said on October 11, 1914 in a report at a meeting of social democrats in Lausanne, “because the policy of the tsarist government weakened the defense of the country ". Under a republican government, the country would not only show a tendency to stubborn resistance, but with its victories would help republican France, which, he believed, could not be expected under a tsarist government. At the same time, however, Plekhanov admitted that it was easier for members of the Duma faction to “keep themselves” than their Western European counterparts, because, as the French socialist Samba put it about the behavior of Russian social democracy, “it is easier for a five-year-old girl to keep her innocence, than an adult woman. However, in conclusion of the report, Plekhanov nevertheless expressed the hope that the war would lead to the triumph of socialism in Russia, since the Social Democrats had shown their inability "neither to make deals with the tsarist government, nor to opportunist tactics." In a letter dated January 21, 1915, taken from San Remo to Petrograd by members of the Unity group A. Popov (Vorobiev) who visited him there and
N. Stoinov, Ida Axelrod, Panteleimon Dnevnitsky (Fyodor Tsederbaum) and Plekhanov advised the Duma faction to vote against military credits, arguing that, “although we consider it absolutely necessary to defend the country, but, unfortunately, this matter is of the first importance too unreliable hands of the autocratic tsarist government.
In connection with a number of heavy military defeats in the spring and summer of 1915, which brought tangible territorial losses to Russia, Plekhanov changed his position. In July 1915, he wrote to the Menshevik Duma deputy Andrei Buryanov: “...You and your comrades...simply cannot vote against war credits. .voting against loans would be treason (in relation to the people), and abstention from voting. cowardice; vote for!” . Having changed his point of view on the question of voting for or against war credits in connection with the circumstances that had developed in the theater of operations, Plekhanov did not fail to remark that voting the Duma Social Democrats against the allocation of credits would be a betrayal of the people precisely, while the tsarist government did not mentioned.
Plekhanov did not get up with the outbreak of the war to the position of supporting the government that defended the Fatherland, as Urilov claims. And he did not stop, as Tyutyukin writes about it, to criticize the external and internal politics tsarism, directing all its forces to anti-German propaganda. In an open letter to the Bulgarian socialist Petrov dated October 14, 1914, Plekhanov noted that he was, and remains, "an implacable enemy of reaction." And when, in a letter from Geneva dated October 12, 1915, Georgy Valentinovich complained to his like-minded prince Konstantin Andronnikov (Kakheli) that his manuscripts did not reach the editorial office of the newspaper Call in Paris, he added: “Obviously, censorship (where, probably there is a tsarist official) finds that we are more dangerous for tsarism than Nashe Slovo. And she's right! .
Defining their attitude to the war under the influence of the French situation and in solidarity with the policy of "sacred unity" of the socialists of the countries Western Europe, Plekhanov made an exception for Russia. In a report delivered at the beginning of the war at a meeting of a group of Russian socialists in Geneva, he tried to develop an anti-war platform that could unite them. In this platform, according to Plekhanov, it should have been noted that our socialists “understand and approve the voting of credits by Western socialists and their entry into governments of national unity, but at the same time point out the exceptional conditions that exist in Russia, where the socialists are deprived of the opportunity, even for the right purposes of the war, to support their autocratic government." Plekhanov remained on such a platform of rejection of the support of the tsarist government even during the world conflict, and therefore it is not very clear why the Menshevik Irakli Tsereteli concluded in his memoirs that he could not maintain his initial “half-hearted position and, having brought his initial point of view to logical end, became a resolute supporter of the policy of national unity in Russia. If this meant a change in the course of the war in Plekhanov's point of view on the question of voting by the Duma Mensheviks for or against the granting of war credits, then, if you delve into its essence, it was not evidence of support for the tsarist government.
To the talk then circulating in the revolutionary milieu that, in defending their country, the Russian proletariat would thereby support tsarism, Plekhanov and his like-minded people replied that in reality it would turn out the other way around: San Remo February 3, 1915 to the Petrograd group "Unity" a letter from Ida Axelrod, Plekhanov and Dnevnitsky, with the content of which Valentin Olgin (Fomin) agreed. “The task of agitation is precisely to help expose this inconsistency.” And in an addendum to this letter dated February 4, answering the question of party comrades regarding voting for or against military loans, its authors indicated: “We very, very much advise the faction, and if it did not agree, our deputy (Buryanov - E.K. .), voting against the corresponding loans (emphasis in the document - E. K.), to motivate such a vote by the fact that, although we consider it absolutely necessary to defend the country, but, unfortunately, this matter of the first importance is in too unreliable hands of the autocratic tsarist government » .
In a resolution on the question of the war, adopted at the Conference of Foreign Groups of Social Democrats "Party" held in Geneva on August 29-30, 1915, it was noted that the Russian proletariat, participating in the defense of its country, should by no means stop fighting "against the reactionary by the government: the more the failure of this government to defend the country from enemy invasion is and will be revealed, the more sharpened and will continue to sharpen the struggle against Tsarism of all more or less progressive elements of the population; the proletariat is obliged to assume the role of leader in this struggle, conducting it in such a way that it not only does not weaken, but increases the strength of the country's resistance to the external enemy.
Anti-government rhetoric abounded in the resolution on tactics worked out by Plekhanov together with the Socialist-Revolutionaries Avksentiev and unanimously adopted by the joint meeting of the Social Democrats and Socialist-Revolutionaries in Lausanne on September 5-10, 1915. Participation in the defense of the country became even more mandatory for
Russian democracy of all shades, in view of the fact, it said, that every day more and more sharply “the failure of tsarism is revealed even in the matter of defending the country from an external enemy, and more and more the consciousness of the need for a new, free political order penetrates into the people.” The growth of this consciousness, and, consequently, the course of the struggle against tsarism, the resolution said, could be accelerated "not by refusing to participate in the cause of people's self-defense and not by the wild preaching of" actively contributing to the defeat of the country ", but, on the contrary, by the most active participation in all that which in one way or another increases the chances of victory for Russia and its allies.” This was followed by a phrase more eloquent in terms of determining the anti-government nature of the position of Plekhanov and his associates is difficult to come up with: “The liberation of Russia from the internal enemy (the old order and its defenders), achieved in the process of its self-defense from foreign invasion, is that great goal, which is unconditionally all particular tasks and secondary considerations must be subordinated.
If we take into account that the content of the manifesto “Toward the Conscious Working Population of Russia” adopted at the same meeting was imbued with the spirit of this resolution, then the picture of support for the tsarist government during the years of the world conflict by Plekhanov and his associates is not at all formed. The manifesto did not say - "first victory over the external enemy, and then the overthrow of the internal enemy." It is quite possible, it emphasized, that "the overthrow of this latter will be a precondition and guarantee of delivering Russia from the German danger." That is, Plekhanov and his associates considered tsarism " internal enemy"And the participation of socialists in the defense of the country was seen not as a means of supporting" our old order, which immensely weakens the strength of Russia's resistance to an external enemy, "but a factor that shook its foundations. Their calls for support of Russia's allies in the world conflict were aimed at the same. England, France and even Belgium and Italy, it was said in the manifesto, were far ahead in political terms of the German Empire, which has not yet grown to a “parliamentary regime”, therefore the victory of Germany over these countries would be a victory of the monarchical principle over the democratic, the victory of the old over new: “And if you seek to eliminate the autocracy of the tsar at home and replace it with the autocracy of the people,” the appeal read, “then you must wish success to our Western allies. ". With Russia and the tsarist government in mind, in his manifesto Plekhanov urged the working people not to confuse the Fatherland with the authorities, stressed that the state belonged “not to the tsar, but to the Russian working people”, therefore, defending it, he defended himself and the cause of his liberation: “your the slogan should be victory over the external enemy, the appeal emphasized. “In an active striving for such a victory, the living forces of the people will be freed and strengthened, which, in turn, will weaken the position of the internal enemy, that is, our current government.”
Already after the death of Georgy Valentinovich, in the article "Plekhanov and the tactics of social democracy" in No. 8 of the newspaper "Working World", the Menshevik Boris Gorev (Goldman) wrote that during the war, considering German imperialism the most dangerous enemy of the proletariat, Plekhanov allowed in the fight against him "temporary reconciliation" with tsarism. Plekhanov's comrades-in-arms called such writings "slander" of authors who "according to old memory, clumsily kick a dead lion sideways." After reading Gorev's article, the supposedly Menshevik Vera Zasulich was surprised at how despised her audience had to be in order, after Plekhanov's well-known appeal "on the overthrow of tsarism in the course of defense" and after the publication of all his articles on the war, to support the accusation of preaching "reconciliation with tsarism". In November 1914, one of the leaders of Unity, Alexei Lyubimov, correctly pointed out that reproaches against Plekhanov and his associates for refusing to fight tsarism "come from an unclean conscience." Taking into account the content of the documents analyzed above, including the appeal “To the conscious working population of Russia”, one should recognize the legitimacy of these words and the sincerity of Plekhanov himself, who wrote in April 1917 in the article “The War of Nations and Scientific Socialism”: “I never called on the Russian the proletariat to support the tsarist government in its war with the governments of Austria and Germany.
When on May 10, 1916, it became known from French newspapers that during a trip to Russia, the socialist and French Minister of Armaments Albert Thomas introduced himself and negotiated with Nicholas II, the indignation of the editors of the Call knew no bounds. She did not consider it possible "to pass by this unheard-of fact in the history of socialism", considered it "the duty of her socialist conscience to openly protest against it" and make a corresponding appeal to the members of the French Socialist Party (FSP). Over the past century, it said, “for liberating Russia, tsarism was a symbol of its enslavement, its suffering, its weakness, its poverty,” all “the hatred and anger of democratic Russia focused on this symbol and its bearer - the Russian Tsar.” With the outbreak of the war, it was noted further, this fatal significance of tsarism for the country increased even more: “Not only did he not think about how, by means of an amnesty, to force society to at least partially forget his previous crimes, but, on the contrary, 134
to all other governments, brought more enmity and strife into the country. He did not organize the defense, but harmed it, disorganized it, standing in the way of every public undertaking, suppressing any public initiative. For proof, the appeal also cited some examples of such actions by the tsarist government - the arrest of Bolshevik deputies of the IV State Duma and the organization of their trial, the erection of obstacles to work public organizations, the prohibition in a number of cities of elections to military-industrial committees from workers, etc. Russian Social Democracy, thus, faced two enemies - “German imperialism, which encroaches on the independence of Russia, and Russian tsarism, which suppresses its freedom and helps with all its actions external enemy, weakening the strength of the resistance of the Russian people. And she was forced "in the name of self-defence, in the name of the freedom of Russia, in the name of the freedom of the European democracies" to fight on two fronts, with external and internal enemies. The act of Tom, it was emphasized in the appeal, “is dangerous for him and the republican government of France, because by doing so they cover up with their moral authority everything that has been done and is being done by those who are now in power in Russia, they, in the eyes of Europe, increase the prestige of tsarism and , therefore, give him a new opportunity to harm the cause of the country's self-defense.
When it came to the personal characteristics of individual conductors of the policy of the tsarist government, another like-minded person of Plekhanov, Grigory Aleksinsky, did not go into his pocket for biting expressions. Trying to disorganize and disperse social forces, he believed, the old government could not, however, single out from its midst any capable statesmen, ministers were replaced one after another, but all of them were “either old conservative bureaucrats, half out of their minds, like Goremykin, or demoniac reactionaries like Shcheglovitov, or military ministers entangled in friendship German spies, like Sukhomlinov, or anecdotal characters with "lightness in thoughts", like Maklakov, or mentally ill individuals, like the maniac Protopopov, who dreamed of himself that he was the Russian Bismarck, who was destined to "save" Russia. All this chaos, Aleksinsky believed, was used by “some strange behind-the-scenes government, which included an illiterate Siberian peasant, ... and a banker who made millions from absolute nothing, and a royal maid of honor in love with a Siberian drake peasant, and the highest Orthodox hierarch, and a couple of generals stupid from decrepitude, and. the German princess herself, brought by a game of fate to the throne great empire, too big for her mind, small and not entirely healthy. Our former tsar considered it necessary to be guided by the opinion and advice of these people, preferring them to the voice and will of the whole people.
From the cited statements of Plekhanov and his associates, it is clearly seen that they were clearly not suitable for the role of "lackeys of tsarism". If this were true, then at the time in question they returned to Russia without hindrance and calmly propagated their views here. The tsarist government, it seems, would have nothing against replenishing the ranks of its lackeys. However, as you know, this did not happen. Obviously, because it understood the deep essence of the anti-tsarist "military" position of Plekhanov and his associates very well.
LITERATURE
1. Aleksinsky G. War and revolution / G. Aleksinsky. Pg., 1917. S. 20.
2. Baron S. Kh. G. V. Plekhanov - the founder of Russian Marxism / S. Kh. G. Baron. SPb., 1998. S. 392, 398.
4. Returned journalism: in 2 books. Book. 1. 1900-1917. M., 1991. S. 128-129.
5. State Archive Russian Federation. F. 5881. Op. 3. D. 156. L. 1-2, 4; F. 10003. Op. 1. Roll. 351. Map. 51; Roll. 358. Map. 60; F. R-6059. Op. 1. D. 4. L. 5ob-6.
6. Lenin V.I. On the Junius brochure // Lenin V.I. Full coll. op. T. 30. S. 12.
7. Lenin V.I. About a separate world // Lenin V.I. Full coll. op. T. 30. S. 185.
8. Lenin V.I. Socialism and war. (Attitude of the RSDLP to the war) // Lenin V. I. Poln. coll. op. T. 26. S. 347.
10. “It is necessary to counter revolutionary phraseology with a revolutionary worldview.”: From the correspondence of A. I. Lyubimov and G. V. Plekhanov. 1914-1918 // Historical archive. 1998. No. 2. S. 155.
11. Plekhanov G.V. Year at home. complete collection articles and speeches of 1917-1918: in 2 vols. Vol. 1 / G. V. Plekhanov. Paris, 1921. S. 11.
12. Plekhanov G. V. About the war / G. V. Plekhanov. 4th ed. Pg., 1916. S. 27.
13. Spiridovich A. I. Party of Socialist-Revolutionaries and its Predecessors. 1886-1916 / A. I. Spiridovich. 2nd ed., add. Pg., 1918. S. 527-529.
14. Tyutyukin S. V. Menshevism: Pages of history / S. V. Tyutyukin. M., 2002. S. 286.
15. Urilov I. Kh. History of Russian Social Democracy (Menshevism). Part 4: Formation of the Party / I. Kh. Urilov. M., 2008. S. 23, 276, 280.
16. Tsereteli I. G. Memories of the February Revolution. Book. 1 / I. G. Tsereteli. Paris, 1963, p. 216.
17. Baron S. H. Plekhanov in war and revolution, 1914-17 / S. H. Baron // International Review of Social History. Vol. XXVI (1981). Part. 3. P. 338, 343-344.
18. Hoover Institution Archives, Boris I. Nicolaevsky collection, Series 279. Box 662. Folder 17.
Kostyaev Eduard Valentinovich - Eduard V. Kostyaev -
Candidate of Historical Sciences, Associate Professor Ph. D., Associate Professor
Department of the History of the Fatherland and Culture, Department of the Russian History and Culture,
Saratov State Technical University Yuri Gagarin State Technical University of Saratov
Russian history in the faces Fortunatov Vladimir Valentinovich
5.4.2. At the Origins of Russian Marxism: Plekhanov and Struve
On the right wing of the Kazan Cathedral in St. Petersburg, above a small elevation, which seemed to be intended for speakers, there was a tablet, a modest memorial plaque, relatively recently. From the text one could learn that from this elevation in 1876, at the first political demonstration in Russia, the first public political speech was made by a twenty-year-old young man Georgy Valentinovich Plekhanov. Now there is no memorial plaque. Plekhanov Street was renamed into Kazanskaya Street. Plekhanov's name is practically not mentioned in the media, and historians rarely mention him.
Meanwhile, Plekhanov was the first Russian Marxist. In his translations from German language For more than a century, the terminology created by K. Marx and F. Engels has been living in the Russian language.
How did Georgy Valentinovich come to Marxism? He was born on December 11, 1856 in the village of Gudalovka, Lipetsk district, Tambov province, into a poor noble family. George's father, Valentin Petrovich, was a small estate nobleman, a retired staff captain. He owned about 100 acres of land and an old thatched house. Valentin Petrovich had seven children from his first marriage. George was the eldest of 7 children from his second marriage to governess Maria Feodorovna Belynskaya. After the fire in Gudalovka, in which the manor house burned down, the Plekhanov nobles lived in a barn, converted into housing.
G. V. Plekhanov graduated from the Voronezh Military Gymnasium, spent four months at the Konstantinovsky Artillery School, but, not wanting to do military career, in 1874 he entered the Mining Institute. On the student bench, Plekhanov not only mastered his specialty, but also formed himself as a revolutionary populist. Through self-education, he mastered the basics of philosophy, history, political economy, got acquainted with illegal literature, and took part in revolutionary activities.
After a speech on December 6, 1876, at a demonstration near the Kazan Cathedral, he managed to escape from the police, but he also had to leave the Mining Institute. Georgy Valentinovich in revolutionary circles began to be called the Orator. He went underground, became a professional revolutionary. In this capacity, Plekhanov conducted classes in circles, participated in the organization of strikes, wrote leaflets, was a liaison officer, and began to publish in illegal print media. For several years (1874-1880), the young revolutionary was a diligent visitor to the Imperial Public Library, where he "swallowed" hundreds of books.
G. V. Plekhanov .
The police were on his heels, and in January 1880 Plekhanov went abroad. He was considered a theorist, first in the Land and Freedom party, and then in the Black Redistribution organization. Plekhanov's like-minded people in the "Black Redistribution" were abroad - V. I. Zasulich, P. B. Axelrod, L. G. Deich, Ya. V. Stefanovich, V. N. Ignatov. He became close friends with Pyotr Lavrovich Lavrov, the leader of the so-called "propaganda" trend in populism.
Monument to G. V. Plekhanov .
In Europe, another trend was dominant - Marxism. Plekhanov, together with his common-law wife Rosalia Markovna Bograd, attended meetings of the Social Democrats, met Karl Marx's son-in-law Paul Lafargue and the famous French socialist Jules Guesde. It is worth recalling that both Karl Marx (1818-1883) and Friedrich Engels (1820-1895) were in good health by this time and were very popular in wide European circles. Even during the life of K. Marx, G. V. Plekhanov translated into Russian the "Manifesto of the Communist Party" and published it with a preface by the authors (K. Marx and F. Engels), written by them at the request of P. Lavrov. This happened in May 1882. From that year on, Plekhanov considered himself a Marxist.
One can express surprise at the fact that the populist PL Lavrov helped his younger comrade to publish a Marxist work. The fact is that smart Russian people usually considered it their duty to be aware of all the new European "trends". Suffice it to recall Alexander I and M. M. Speransky. However, most of the smart Russian people believed that Russia had its own historical path, its own historical mission, its own special living conditions. Therefore, many believed that a revolution could not happen in Russia. And the workers will never become the majority of the population, as in England.
Plekhanov's former comrades-in-arms linked the future of Russia with the special role of the peasant community, considered the peasants "natural socialists." Plekhanov went against his former comrades. They continued to fight in Russia, while he, it seemed to some, was theorizing at a safe distance from the Russian police.
Plekhanov did not become a lone outcast. Together with him, they accepted Marxism and on September 25, 1883, they announced a break with populism and the formation of the Social Democratic group "Emancipation of Labor" by the former "Chernoperedel" P. B. Axelrod, V. I. Zasulich, L. G. Deich and V. N. Ignatov. main goal they considered the struggle against the autocracy and the organization in Russia of a party of the working class with a program based on the ideas of scientific socialism, and the first stage in achieving it was the propaganda of the ideas of Marxism in Russia and proof of the possibility of applying Marxist ideas to the socio-economic conditions of Russia. The original "Plekhanov" Russian Marxism can be regarded as a kind of Westernism, the beginning of which was laid back in the 17th century.
Plekhanov, like most of the pioneers, had a hard time. The populists considered him a traitor, especially after the publication of Plekhanov's polemical book Socialism and the Political Struggle. It was hard financial situation. His wife and children (daughters Eugene and Maria) were ill, and Georgy Valentinovich himself suffered from pulmonary tuberculosis from 1887 until the end of his life. Nevertheless, in 1882-1900. 30 works by K. Marx and F. Engels were published in Russian in whole or in excerpts. In total, 84 titles of printed matter were issued in an illegal printing house in Geneva.
At the end of 1894, G. V. Plekhanov's book "On the Development of a Monistic View of History" was legally published in St. Petersburg. “People literally became Marxists overnight,” said one of his contemporaries about the impact of this brilliant exposition of Marxism on readers.
In 1895, the young Marxist Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov came to Plekhanov for acquaintance and joint activities, with whom Plekhanov found many common deeds, achievements, but also disagreements, contradictions, and conflicts.
Together with Lenin, Plekhanov fought against the "legal Marxists" and economists. Plekhanov and Lenin were at the head of the Iskra newspaper and the Zarya magazine. Together they held the Second Congress of the RSDLP, which adopted the Program prepared by the recognized founder of Russian Marxism, Georgy Valentinovich Plekhanov. Plekhanov left the Second Congress as a Bolshevik.
Lenin's tough, uncompromising position, long-standing ties with old comrades who suddenly turned out to be "Mensheviks", a sincere desire to preserve the unity of the ranks of the Russian Social Democrats led to Plekhanov's various actions, which received a sharply negative assessment from Lenin in Soviet historiography. It is hardly worth boring the reader with a detailed characterization of the acute struggle within the RSDLP.
After the February Revolution, the patriarch of Russian Marxism returned to his homeland. He, unlike Lenin, who traveled through Germany, returned through France, England on a steamer across the Baltic Sea with a group of French and English socialists. Plekhanov, in contrast to Lenin, was against the defeat of the tsarist government in the First World War. He criticized the tsarist government, but at the same time called on the Russian Social Democrats to defend their homeland, to achieve victory over Germany, which, according to Plekhanov, should have brought the revolution closer both in Russia and in Germany.
On the night of March 31 to April 1, 1917, Georgy Valentinovich was met with orchestras and banners at the Finland Station. He was greeted by the chairman of the Petrograd Soviet, the Menshevik I. S. Chkheidze. On April 2, Plekhanov spoke to the delegates of the Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies and argued that Russia must continue the war to a victorious end. On April 3, Lenin arrived in Petrograd and came up with his strategy of developing the bourgeois revolution into a socialist one. But Plekhanov fell ill on April 3, and in the following time he did not get better: Petersburg is not Switzerland. Before the revolution, St. Petersburg had the highest death rate from tuberculosis.
Plekhanov considered the socialist revolution and the coming to power of the Russian proletariat premature.
And Lenin made a revolution and came to power. Plekhanov did not approve of what the Bolsheviks had done, but he categorically refused the offer of the former Socialist-Revolutionary B.V. Savinkov to head the government after the overthrow of the Bolsheviks. “I have given forty years of my life to the proletariat, and I will not shoot him even when he goes on the wrong path. And I do not advise you to do this. Do not do this in the name of your revolutionary past,” Plekhanov told Savinkov. Savinkov did not heed the advice.
Plekhanov changed hospitals, was between life and death. On May 30 (new style), 1918, he died. At the funeral at the Literary bridges of the Volkov cemetery, the Mensheviks predominated; at the funeral meeting of the Petrograd Soviet, the Bolsheviks said goodbye to Plekhanov as to their teacher.
In the 1920s a multi-volume collection of works by G. V. Plekhanov was published. His name remained in educational and scientific literature. In front of the building of the Technological Institute in St. Petersburg, in a small square, there is a small monument to G.V. Plekhanov.
Pyotr Berngardovich Struve was the same age and friend of V. I. Ulyanov. He was born in January 1870 in the family of a Perm governor. The parents of the founder of "legal Marxism" were Russified Germans from the Baltic states. At the age of 14, the young man wrote in his diary: “I have established political convictions, I am a follower of Aksakov, Yuri Samarin and the entire brilliant phalanx of Slavophiles. I am a National Liberal, a Soil Liberal and a Land Liberal. My slogan is autocracy. When autocracy dies in Russia, Russia will die. But I also have a slogan: Down with the bureaucracy and long live popular representation with the right of deliberation (the right of decision belongs to the autocrat).
After the death of his father, Peter did not live with his mother, but with the actual adoptive mother of A. M. Kalmykova, a well-known public figure. Studying at St. Petersburg University, studying the humanities, visiting a number of European countries led the young man to Westernism and a critical attitude towards tsarism. At the age of 24 (1894) in the book “Critical Notes on the Question of economic development Russia” P. B. Struve for the first time in Russian legal literature spoke from Marxist, social democratic positions.
Struve considered capitalism to be a historical progress and argued that Russia needed to go to school with the capitalist West. Struve characterized socialism as a factor of reform, the gradual evolution of capitalism itself.
G. V. Plekhanov and V. I. Ulyanov, speaking under the pseudonym of V. Ilyin, criticized Struve for excluding him from the prospects for the development of revolutionary, class struggle. This, however, did not prevent A. N. Potresov (Plekhanov's group "Emancipation of Labor"), V. I. Ulyanov (worked on the creation of the "Union of Struggle for the Emancipation of the Working Class") and P. B. Struva to meet at Shrovetide in 1895 For all Marxists, the most urgent task was the struggle against the populists, and for this they collaborated for some time. P. B. Struve went abroad to Plekhanov, spoke on behalf of the Russian delegation with a report on the agrarian question and social democracy at the International Socialist Congress in London (1896) and even became the main author of the Manifesto of the Russian Social Democratic Party (1898).
Ultimately, Struve rejected the orthodox Marxist theory of the collapse of capitalism, class struggle and socialist revolution. At the beginning of 1901, after difficult negotiations with Plekhanov, Lenin and others on joint publishing activities, Struve finally broke with the Social Democrats and switched to a purely liberal position. In June 1902, in Stuttgart, under the editorship of Struve, the first issue of the journal Osvobozhdenie was published, around which supporters of the constitutional transformation of Russia began to group. Struve worked on the draft program of the constitutional-democratic Party of People's Freedom, and in January 1904 the founding congress of the "Union of Liberation" was held. Struve believed that Russo-Japanese War opened the ulcers of the autocratic-bureaucratic system, "pierced the most stupid heads and petrified hearts."
Since the 1900s P. B. Struve is one of the leaders of Russian liberalism. In 1905 he became a member of the Constitutional Democratic Party and its Central Committee. He was elected to the Second State Duma. From 1907, he headed the Russian Thought magazine, and was one of the authors of the sensational collections Milestones (1909) and From the Depths (1918).
A well-known philosopher, economist, historian, P. B. Struve was elected an academician in 1917 Russian Academy Sciences. After the Bolsheviks came to power, he became one of the ideologists of the White movement, participated in organizing the fight against the Reds as a member of the Special Conference under General A. I. Denikin, a minister in the government of P. I. Wrangel. P. B. Struve was one of the organizers of the evacuation of the army of P. I. Wrangel from the Crimea, and since 1920 he ended up in exile.
Abroad, P. B. Struve edited the journal "Russian Thought" (in Prague), the newspaper "Vozrozhdeniye" (in Paris), taught at Prague and Belgrade universities. He died and was buried in Belgrade.
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From the book Complete Works. Volume 4. 1898 - April 1901 author Lenin Vladimir IlyichTo the Draft Agreement with Struve (115) Representatives of the social-democratic group Zarya-Iskra and the democratic opposition group Svoboda agreed among themselves on the following: 1) The Zarya group publishes a special supplement under the journal of the same name
From the book Complete Works. Volume 7. September 1902 - September 1903 author Lenin Vladimir IlyichMr. Struve, exposed by his collaborator No. 17 of Osvobozhdeniye, brought much pleasure to Iskra in general and to the writer of these lines in particular. For Iskra, because it was pleased to see some result of its efforts to push Mr. Struve to the left, it is a pleasure to meet
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From the book Complete Works. Volume 24. September 1913 - March 1914 author Lenin Vladimir IlyichMr. Struve on the "Rehabilitation of Power" Mr. Struve is one of the most outspoken counter-revolutionary liberals. Therefore, it is often very instructive to look closely at the political discourses of a writer who has especially vividly confirmed the Marxist
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Georgy Plekhanov
This December marks the 160th anniversary of the birth of Georgy Valentinovich Plekhanov, an outstanding Russian thinker and public figure. The emergence of Russian social democracy is associated with his name. Plekhanov went down in history as an outstanding political figure, the most prominent Marxist theorist, philosopher, historian, publicist. Plekhanov was one of the founders of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party. He enjoyed great prestige in the RSDLP, for many years had a significant impact on the development of the party.
From Populism to Marxism
He was born in 1856 into a noble family (his father is a retired staff captain) in the village of Gudalovka, Tambov province. He enters a military gymnasium in Lipetsk, then goes to St. Petersburg to study at an artillery school, then goes to the Mining Institute and immerses himself in the social and spiritual life of the capital of the empire, gets acquainted with the hard life of workers, but spends most of his time in underground activities among participants in the populist movement .
He began his social and political activities under the influence of the ideas of revolutionary democrats such as Belinsky, Herzen, Chernyshevsky, Dobrolyubov.
In 1876, during the first political demonstration in Russia of workers and students at the Kazan Cathedral in St. Petersburg, he delivered an anti-monarchist speech in defense of Nikolai Chernyshevsky, who was exiled to Siberia, after which he went underground.
G. V. Plekhanov participated in the “going to the people”, gained fame as a theorist, publicist and one of the leaders of the populist organization “Land and Freedom”. In 1879, after the split of the organization, he spoke out against the tactics of conspiracies and terrorist methods of struggle, leading the propaganda "Black Redistribution". However, under the influence of the ideas of European social democracy, which then stood on Marxist positions, he revised his populist views. As is known, the Russian populists saw in the peasant commune that existed in Russia the basis for the future socialist society in Russia. The theorists of populism believed that Russia could, thanks to the community and the absence of private property of peasants in the land, move to socialism, bypassing the capitalist stage of development.
After several years of revolutionary underground and police persecution through illegal channels, he leaves Russia and in January 1880 ends up in the Swiss city of Geneva. In this city, Plekhanov had a conflict with a group of Ukrainian political emigrants headed by M. Drahomanov, who adhered to national-isolationist views. Speaking about the significance for Plekhanov of his polemical speeches against Dragomanov, Plekhanov’s ally in the Emancipation of Labor group Lev Deutsch wrote: “About this time and partly under the influence of clashes with Dragomanov, Plekhanov began to turn from Bakunism, anarchism and federalism to statehood and centralism” . Deutsch noted that this departure was the result of a deeper study of the works of Marx and Engels, as well as acquaintance with the European labor movement.
In the Russian public thought he was the first to give a critical analysis of populist ideology from the standpoint of Marxism (Socialism and the Political Struggle, 1883; Our Differences, 1885). At the same time, the paradox of the situation lay in the fact that the views of Marx himself in relation to the Russian populists were not so unambiguous.
In a letter to Plekhanov's colleague Vera Zasulich, Karl Marx assessed the prospects for the Russian rural community much more optimistically than his follower Plekhanov.
In 1883, in Geneva, together with like-minded people, he founded the Emancipation of Labor group, which distributed the works of Marx and Engels in Russia. During the 20 years of the existence of the Emancipation of Labor group, G. V. Plekhanov wrote and published hundreds of works that contributed to the widespread dissemination of socialist ideas in Russia. A whole generation of Russian Social Democrats was brought up on Plekhanov's theoretical works. Plekhanov met and was well acquainted with Friedrich Engels, who highly appreciated his first Marxist works.
Creation of a party
Since the beginning of the 90s. he is one of the leaders of the 2nd International, an active participant in its congresses. At the end of 1894 - beginning of 1895, on the initiative of Plekhanov, the "Union of Russian Social Democrats Abroad" was created. In 1900-1903, along with V. Lenin, he participated in the creation and management of the Iskra newspaper. In 1901 Plekhanov was one of the organizers of the Foreign League of Russian Social Democracy. He took a direct part in the preparation and work of the 2nd Congress of the RSDLP (1903), the development of the draft party program. For several years he represented the RSDLP at the International Socialist Bureau of the 2nd International. Plekhanov was very critical of the Socialist-Revolutionary (Socialist-Revolutionary) Party, which acted as the ideological heir to the traditions of revolutionary populism, ironically calling it the Socialist-Reactionary Party in the German Social Democratic press.
Georgy Plekhanov was an adherent of revolutionary rather than reformist methods of political struggle.
At the same time, he warned against ill-conceived, hasty actions during the 1905 revolution, assessing the December armed uprising in Moscow as premature, saying that "we should not have taken up arms." Plekhanov actively advocated cooperation between socialists and liberals (Kadets) in the struggle for democracy in Russia. The significance of Plekhanov as a public and political figure lies primarily in the fact that he substantiated the strategy of the Russian Social Democrats in the struggle against the tsarist autocracy (the conquest of democratic freedoms that allow the working class and all working people to fight for their social rights). Plekhanov was an ardent supporter of the unity of the party, he considered the split into Mensheviks and Bolsheviks to be its tragedy.
On the defensive positions
When the First World War began, Plekhanov, in contrast to the Bolsheviks, who advocated the defeat of tsarism, and the Menshevik internationalists, believed that the Russian workers, together with the whole people, should stand up for the defense of their fatherland from the aggression of German militarism. He spoke out against the anti-war international revolutionary Manifesto of European Socialists, adopted at a conference in Zimmerwald (Switzerland) in 1915, which was signed by representatives of the Bolsheviks, Mensheviks and Socialist Revolutionaries. Plekhanov's differences with the majority of Russian socialist parties were connected with a different understanding of the causes of the First World War.
Plekhanov, unlike many of his associates, who assessed it as imperialist and reactionary on both sides, considered the German and Austro-Hungarian monarchies to be the culprit in unleashing the war.
At the same time, he was not completely alone among the socialists. Anarchist ideologist Prince Pyotr Kropotkin and a prominent socialist-revolutionary, writer, former participant in terrorist acts Boris Savinkov acted as "defencists". In assessing the First World War, as they said then, his social-patriotic position approached the views of the Cadets - supporters of the war to a victorious end in alliance with the Entente countries (France and Great Britain). G. V. Plekhanov greeted the February Revolution with satisfaction and after its victory, despite his poor health (he suffered from tuberculosis), hastened to return to his homeland from forced emigration. Speaking at the Tauride Palace, Plekhanov explained his views as follows:
“They call me a social patriot,” he said. What does social patriot mean? A person who has well-known socialist views and at the same time loves his country. No, comrades, you will not tear this feeling of love for long-suffering Russia out of my heart!”
Plekhanov and October Revolution
Plekhanov led the Social Democratic group Unity, which did not align with either the Mensheviks or the Bolsheviks. Despite the requests of many politicians, including Prince Lvov and Kerensky, he refused to join the Provisional Government. In August 1917, he spoke at the State Conference (Pre-Parliament) with a call for cooperation between socialists and bourgeois democrats in the context of the ongoing world war.
As you know, Plekhanov considered the revolution of 1917 in Russia as bourgeois. He warned against the premature seizure of power by the working class, referring to the opinion of Friedrich Engels, and called Lenin's famous "April Theses" nonsense.
Plekhanov considered it absurd to call on the workers and peasants to overthrow capitalism if it had not reached the highest stage in the given country, at which it becomes an obstacle to the development of the productive forces. However, the question arises how to define this the highest level, after all, Plekhanov himself believed that in the most developed countries of Europe, the material prerequisites for a social revolution were already ripe at the beginning of the 20th century. He perceived the October Revolution as "a violation of all historical laws", nevertheless he considered it impossible for himself to fight against the working class, even if he was mistaken.
On October 28, 1917, he published an “Open letter to the Petrograd workers” in the newspaper “Unity” in which he wrote that “the socialist revolution in Russia is premature, and our working class is still far from being able, for the benefit of itself and the country, to take into its hands full political power. However, to B. Savinkov's proposal to take part in the anti-Bolshevik struggle, he replied: "I gave forty years of my life to the proletariat, and I will not shoot him even when he goes on the wrong path." According to the memoirs of his wife Rozalia Plekhanova, being already seriously ill, he expressed critical thoughts about Soviet power. He considered the policy of the Bolsheviks as a departure from Marxism, accusing them of Blanquism, populism, and dictatorial methods of government.
Georgy Valentinovich Plekhanov died on May 30, 1918. He was buried at the Volkovo Cemetery in Petrograd. On his last journey, people of various political persuasions came to see him off.
Plekhanov's legacy
Plekhanov made a major contribution to the development of Marxist philosophy. His three-volume work "The History of Russian Social Thought" is a generalizing scientific work. In it, Plekhanov, in particular, showed the connection between the emergence of Russian social democracy and its historical predecessors, the revolutionary democrats. The study of his political and theoretical heritage allows us to better understand the complex political and socio-economic processes taking place in our time.
Georgy Plekhanov, relying on the fundamental provisions of Marxist theory, saw the future of European countries in the transition to a socialist social order as its material and cultural prerequisites mature.
He remained a consistent adherent of the formational approach to socialism and, in this regard, sharply criticized the revisionist views of the German Social Democrat Eduard Bernstein, who revised many provisions of Marxism, advocated the gradual reform of capitalism and put forward the thesis "the ultimate goal is nothing - the movement is everything."
Georgy Plekhanov considered himself an orthodox follower of Marxist theory, his works were recognized in the USSR and published many times. Plekhanov, despite the fundamental differences and harsh criticism of Bolshevism, was highly appreciated by Lenin. Plekhanov's name was mentioned in Stalin's historical report at the ceremonial meeting of the Moscow Council of Working People's Deputies, dedicated to the 24th anniversary of the October Revolution in Moscow on November 6, 1941, among the most prominent figures of the Russian nation.
Dec 16, 2016 Boris Romanov
Plekhanov Georgy Valentinovich (1856-1918), politician, philosopher, theorist of Marxism. Since 1875, a populist, one of the leaders of "Land and Freedom", "Black Redistribution". From 1880 in exile, the founder of the Marxist group "Emancipation of Labor". One of the founders of the RSDLP, gas. "Spark". After the 2nd Congress of the RSDLP, one of the leaders of the Mensheviks. During the revolution of 1905-07 he opposed the armed struggle against tsarism. During World War I, he was a defencist, one of the leaders of the Unity group. In 1917 he returned to Russia, supported the Provisional Government. He reacted negatively to the October Revolution (he believed that in terms of the degree of socio-economic development, Russia was not ready for a socialist revolution). Fundamental works on philosophy, sociology, aesthetics, ethics, history of Russian social thought.
Plekhanov Georgy Valentinovich was one of the founders of the social democratic movement in Russia and the RSDLP.
Georgy Plekhanov was born on November 29 (December 11), 1856, into a small estate family of a hereditary nobleman, retired staff captain Valentin Petrovich Plekhanov and Maria Fedorovna, the great-niece of the famous critic Belinsky. It happened in the village of Gudalovka, Lipetsk district Voronezh province. Valentin Petrovich was married to Maria Fedorovna by a second marriage, and therefore Georgy had many brothers and sisters. From the first marriage, Valentin Petrovich had five sons and three daughters, from the second - four sons and three daughters. George was the firstborn of Maria Feodorovna. The brothers died very early, and Georgy Plekhanov's relationship with his sisters was difficult. And he was only friendly with his younger sister Claudia.
Like many old-timers of the Voronezh province, Tatar blood also flowed in the veins of Georgy Plekhanov.
The formation of the character of Georgy Plekhanov was greatly influenced by his mother, Maria Fedorovna, an educated, well-mannered and kind woman. She did a lot of homework with her beloved first-born in Russian and French, music.
Georgy Plekhanov studied rather mediocrely at the Voronezh military gymnasium, where he had already been seen reading illegal literature.
In August 1873 Plekhanov entered the Konstantinovsky Artillery School. But he realized in time that military service not for him. Plekhanov resolutely and irrevocably left the school after 4 months of study and returned to his mother in Gudalovka.
The following year, he entered the St. Petersburg Mining Institute, where, in addition to his studies, he studied philosophy and was interested in political literature.
From the end of 1875, he began to take part in the underground populist movement. It was at this time that he met his future long-term associates - Pavel Axelrod and Lev Deutsch.
George Plekhanov from 1876, on behalf of the populists, taught classes in workers' circles, for which he was arrested for the first time. He was so seriously carried away by populism that he pushed his studies at the institute into the background. In 1876, Plekhanov, together with a group of like-minded people, took part in the reconstruction of the illegal organization "Land and Freedom" in St. Petersburg. Georgy Plekhanov and his associates set as their goal a settlement among the people, educational propaganda among the peasants, workers and intelligentsia, a peasant revolution, and the nationalization of the land. The created organization published an underground newspaper "Land and Freedom".
In December 1876, Plekhanov delivered a speech at a meeting in St. Petersburg before workers and students in memory of Chernyshevsky. The police tried to arrest him. But Plekhanov was surrounded by workers and he disappeared. From that time on, he had to go underground, and at the beginning of 1877 he went abroad. From the Mining Institute, he was already expelled from the second year for not attending lectures.
In the summer of 1877 Plekhanov returned illegally to Russia and became a professional revolutionary.
In October 1876, the noble and ardent Plekhanov married Natalya Smirnova unsuccessfully. She was a friend of one of the revolutionaries who was under arrest at that time. After the release of her former lover from prison, Smirnova left Plekhanov. However, she bore the name of Plekhanov until the end of her life and agreed to a divorce from him only thirty years after the wedding.
After a short time, Georgy Plekhanov met "his" woman - Rozalia Markovna Bograd, with whom he was confident and happy in family life lived all his life.
Between 1877 and 1879 many of Plekhanov's comrades in Land and Freedom went over to the positions of terrorism. Georgy Plekhanov at that time did a lot of self-education in search of answers to his questions. He did not share the new extremist, or rather the old populist views of his comrades. He became increasingly fond of the more fashionable Marxism.
In 1879, ideological differences led to the split of "Land and Freedom" into two organizations: "Narodnaya Volya" and "Black Redistribution". Georgy Plekhanov, together with Vera Zasulich, Axelrod and other populists, became part of the Black Redistribution. This organization opposed terror as a method of political struggle. Plekhanov and his comrades-in-arms stood up for the gradual enlightenment of the workers.
In Russia, after another assassination attempt on the tsar Alexander III increased police activity. Mass arrests were made. In 1880, by decision of his comrades, in order to avoid arrest, Plekhanov went abroad to Switzerland, to Geneva. Here he published the second issue of the Black Repartition magazine.
Plekhanov gradually moved from populism and Bakuninism to the positions of Marxism. However, he carefully tried on each position of Marx's works for Russia, passed through himself. On many issues he had his own views. By this time, Plekhanov had already discovered in himself the extraordinary talents of a scientist-philosopher, thinker and politician. He treated any idea, any conclusion creatively and sensibly.
In 1882 Plekhanov translated into Russian and published The Manifesto of the Communist Party. In 1883, Plekhanov founded the Emancipation of Labor group instead of the Black Redistribution, which included, besides him, Vera Zasulich, Axelrod, Deutsch, Ignatov. The group was mainly engaged in educational work: translation and publication of the works of Marx and Engels for Russia. Plekhanov also regularly published his own works, which made him Russia's leading social democrat.
In 1883, he published the pamphlet "Socialism and the Political Struggle", where he considered, perhaps, the most controversial issue of Marxism - the problem of the dictatorship of the proletariat. Plekhanov, however, in his work talked about the dictatorship of the enlightened working class, about the democratic dictatorship, and not about the dictatorship of the revolutionaries proposed and implemented by Lenin. Plekhanov specifically emphasized in his work that the dictatorship of the proletariat has nothing in common with the dictatorship of the revolutionaries.
In his subsequent works, Georgy Plekhanov considered the prospects for the development of Russia. He warned the Narodnaya Volya and other ultra-revolutionaries against forceful violent actions (coups, uprisings, revolutions, riots) in order to accelerate the revolutionary process. In essence, Georgy Plekhanov advocated the evolutionary development of Russia, accelerated by educational work.
The first meeting of Georgy Plekhanov with the young Vladimir Ulyanov-Lenin took place in Geneva in 1895, where Lenin came from Russia especially for this meeting. In the very first long conversations, some fundamental ideological disagreements between Plekhanov and Lenin emerged. The young Ulyanov-Lenin believed that the leading revolutionary force in society was the working class and only it. Plekhanov believed that society in Russia could be improved only by its most educated part, its elite - the liberal bourgeoisie and the intelligentsia. But the time of the working class, because of its lack of enlightenment and low culture, has not yet come and will not come for a long time.
Plekhanov has not yet attached much importance to Lenin's overflowing conviction that he was right. The young Marxist at that time was only 25 years old. But he had already confidently brought to the forefront Karl Marx's vague assertion that the working class was progressive in front of all other sections of the population. This ultimately led Lenin to put forward his own idea - the idea of the dictatorship of the proletariat through the dictatorship of the party.
In 1900, five years later, Plekhanov met again in Geneva with Lenin, who had come after his exile to discuss the publication of a joint Social Democratic newspaper and magazine. After rather difficult negotiations, it turned out that there were several people in the social democratic movement who claimed the role of leader. And among them were Lenin and Plekhanov. With difficulty, Plekhanov, Lenin, Axelrod, Martov, Zasulich and Potresov agreed to publish a joint newspaper.
The first issue of the new Iskra newspaper came out in January 1891. It was published in Munich, where Lenin and Krupskaya settled, taking editorial and publishing activities mainly into their own hands.
The ideological differences between Georgy Plekhanov and Lenin intensified. The educated and intelligent Plekhanov was irritated by the overflowing self-confidence of the young Lenin. Plekhanov was repelled by Lenin's indefatigable uncompromisingness and intemperance in disputes, his rude arrogance in people's assessments, his unshakable confidence in his rightness.
Plekhanov, Axelrod, Zasulich, as co-editors, opposed the harsh and derogatory tone of Lenin's articles. The future leader of the Bolsheviks fiercely opposed all his ideological opponents: liberals and liberalism in general, Socialist-Revolutionaries, right-wing Social Democrats, other ideological trends and their representatives. Lenin did not accept the comradely criticism of his comrades-in-arms. He refused to change the offensive tone of his articles towards ideological opponents. The future leader of the Bolsheviks from the very beginning of his political activity set himself only one goal: the armed seizure of power in Russia and the construction of only such a society as he imagined it himself. Fanatically believing in himself, he did not need anyone's advice or teachings.
You will go so far, young man, - only Plekhanov, wise with experience, once said to Lenin with a bitter smile in response to yet another unceremonious Leninist pressure on him.
At the II Congress of the RSDLP in 1903, a struggle broke out over several points of the charter and program of the party between Yuli Martov and his supporters and Lenin. Plekhanov was elected chairman of the congress, Lenin and P.A. Krasikov as deputy chairmen. The main rejection of the future Mensheviks, and Plekhanov too, was caused by the point of the party program proposed by Lenin on the dictatorship of the proletariat. Martov, Axelrod, Zasulich opposed this provision. They considered it fundamentally wrong. Martov and his supporters also advocated a more liberal admission of new members to the party than Lenin suggested. The latter sought to turn the party into a kind of closed "order of swordsmen". Lenin sought to create a militant, cohesive and disciplined revolutionary party. It was precisely such a party of Bolsheviks that Lenin created in the end. Plekhanov, as patriarch of the social democratic movement, as chairman of the congress, adhered to the centrist line in order to avoid a split. However, this was not possible. From that time on, Lenin's supporters, who received the majority of seats in the governing bodies, began to be called Bolsheviks. And Martov's supporters are Mensheviks.
Plekhanov supported Lenin in the main at the Second Congress. He was elected Chairman of the Party Council, its five-member governing body.
After the congress, Plekhanov, having discovered Lenin's intolerance towards the Mensheviks, which was overflowing, his dictatorial habits, demanded the return former members editorial staff of Iskra. In response, the unbending Lenin resigned from the editorial staff.
Already by 1905 Plekhanov's complete ideological incompatibility with Lenin had become clear. Therefore, there is nothing surprising in the fact that Plekhanov assessed the revolution of 1905-07. as the tragic adventure of Lenin and the Bolsheviks. So it was, in fact. The revolution ended with the defeat of the rebels, executions, prisons, hard labor, exile, and the curtailment of liberal reforms in the country. Cruelty and robbery gave rise only to reciprocal cruelty and repression. Unfortunately, this revolution, these riots, taught Emperor Nicholas II nothing. And he led Russia with his uncertain and weak hand straight to civil war.
During the First World War, Georgy Plekhanov took a patriotic stance. He called for the defense of the fatherland, for victory over Germany and its allies. Lenin and the Bolsheviks called for the defeat of Russia in the war, for which the public dubbed them German spies and traitors.
The February Revolution was over, and Georgy Plekhanov returned on March 31, 1917, after a long emigration to Russia. The motherland met the patriarch of the Russian social democratic movement rather coolly. By this time Plekhanov was almost alone. He did not create and did not create a party for himself. He had no one to organize a crowded and enthusiastic meeting. Georgy Plekhanov called Lenin's "April Theses" nonsense. He published an article "On Lenin's theses and why nonsense is sometimes interesting." In this article, Georgy Plekhanov sharply spoke out against the plans for an armed seizure of power by the Bolsheviks.
Plekhanov continued throughout the stormy year of 1917 to take a tough patriotic stance of "war to victory". Many of his many years of comrades-in-arms in the Social Democratic movement, such as the Menshevik Julius Martov, did not share his firm and clear position. They advocated an illusory, unrealistic solution to the problem of war and peace. The Internationalist Mensheviks, including Martov, suggested that the socialists of all countries should unite and seek an end to the war by all countries simultaneously. The idea was, perhaps, good, but not implemented in practice.
In June-July 1917, the threat of a seizure of power by the Bolsheviks and the Left SRs was rapidly growing in Petrograd. The Bolsheviks, under the leadership of Lenin, were purposefully and professionally preparing for an armed coup.
Plekhanov, as a patriot, a great thinker and philosopher, the oldest social democrat, was often visited by socialists, representatives of right-wing parties, military men and simply patriots. He was visited by Chairman of the State Duma Rodzianko, Admiral Kolchak and even the Black Hundreds Purishkevich, who killed Grigory Rasputin. All of them probed the ground about the possibility of appointing the moderate and pragmatic Georgy Plekhanov as chairman of the Provisional Government. And the energetic and resolute former Socialist-Revolutionary militant, and now the Minister of War, Boris Savinkov, directly made this proposal to Plekhanov in October. But Plekhanov refused, declaring: "I have given the proletariat for forty years and will not shoot them even when they follow the wrong path."
After the October Revolution, Georgy Plekhanov, together with Zasulich and Deutsch, wrote an "Open Letter to the Petrograd Workers." They prophesied civil war, devastation, innumerable troubles that soon fell on the country and its citizens.
The very next day after the publication of this letter, armed sailors came to the apartment where Plekhanov and his wife Rozalia Markovna were staying. They searched and threatened to shoot. The purpose of this brazen intimidating action of the Bolsheviks, sanctioned by Lenin, was obvious: to intimidate and suppress Russia's oldest Social Democrat. Force him to leave his home again. Vladimir Lenin gave an object lesson to one of his most capable students - Joseph Stalin, how to deal ruthlessly with their ideological opponents.
Plekhanov was forced to go underground, then he went to Finland. Once again in a foreign land, Georgy Plekhanov fell seriously ill. He was shocked by what happened. Soon he was gone.
Georgy Plekhanov prophetically foresaw the results of the historical adventure of Ulyanov-Lenin. The liberals, whom Lenin so scoffed at in his works, all over the world managed to build democratic societies with developed systems of social protection for their citizens. The Social Democrats, whom Lenin hated and persecuted, managed to create state systems that were close in embodiment to the best ideas of the classics of socialism. Lenin, with the help of his pseudoscientific ideas and "teachings" about the dictatorship of the proletariat and the development of the bourgeois revolution into a proletarian revolution, forcibly turned
