Ma Jiahong: Re-examining Plekhanov's Thought in the Process of the Russian Revolution
Plekhanov’s life was inextricably linked to the Russian Revolution. Whether considering his theory and practice, or his successes and failures, he can only be better understood when placed within the context of the Russian socialist movement. However, research has historically gravitated toward Plekhanov’s theoretical activities, while studies of his political activities remain relatively scarce. Furthermore, such studies are often confined to evaluating his personal merits and demerits, lacking a profound grasp of the historical characteristics of the Russian Revolution. In view of this, the present article seeks to re-examine Plekhanov’s political activities by proceeding from the internal logic of the Russian Revolution, hoping that this re-examination will deepen our understanding of the Revolution’s specific features.
I
It is a well-known fact that Plekhanov’s transition from Populism to Marxism, beginning with the organization of the Emancipation of Labour group [1], opened a new page in the history of the Russian Revolution. But in what context did this event occur? General research has followed this explanation: at that time, Russian capitalism was developing rapidly, and the strength of the working class was continuously growing. The Populists had reached the end of their rope [2], and the era urgently required a new doctrine to guide a new revolutionary movement. Plekhanov’s transition and the beginning of the Russian Marxist movement were precisely the inevitable results of the aforementioned reality. The problem with this narrative is that it replaces concrete historical analysis with general theoretical deduction, which does not quite square with the actual situation. To conduct a concrete historical analysis, one must first examine the conditions of economic development at that time.
The reforms of 1861 [3] opened the way for the development of capitalism in Russia, but development did not proceed smoothly during the first thirty years. On one hand, this was due to backward technical levels; on the other, it was because the prevalence of pre-capitalist economic relations and a deep-rooted bureaucracy set up numerous obstacles to capitalist development. After the 1860s, a series of industrial sectors of great importance to capitalism were established one after another; however, the application of advanced technology remained very slow. Even in the cotton textile industry, which used machinery earliest, hand-weaving was only gradually phased out after the 1870s. As for sectors such as mining, technical renewal was not gradually achieved until after the 1890s. Because large-scale machine industry was slow to be established, domestic crafts and scattered manufactories occupied an important position for a long time. In commerce, the capitalist sales market did not expand quickly between the 1860s and 1880s due to the suppression of the natural economy, and it remained extremely unstable. In agriculture, the labor-service system [4] and sharecropping were widespread in many provinces, representing an intrusion of pre-capitalist relations into the capitalist commodity economy, which played a certain inhibitory role in capitalist development. Thus, in fact, in the national economic life of the 1860s through the 1880s, capitalist and pre-capitalist relations were half-new and half-old, intertwined with one another, and capitalism had not yet demonstrated a clear advantage. Particularly from the beginning of the 1880s—marked by the accession of Alexander III in 1881 [5] and the economic crisis of 1882—Russian economic development entered a period of stagnation lasting about a decade.
Linked to the economic conditions described above, the number of Russian industrial workers grew to some extent during this period, and their consciousness also improved, yet they had not yet formed an independent class politically. Most workers possessed a strong peasant consciousness and exhibited indifference toward political life. Although a small number of worker organizations had appeared in some industrial centers, they were essentially under the influence of Populism. In light of these facts, attempting to justify Plekhanov’s transition using the economic and class conditions of Russia in the early 1880s is somewhat forced; it is a specious argument that does not conform to the research methods of Marx’s historical materialism.
In fact, Lenin’s relevant assertions long ago made this point very clear. He stated that between 1884 and 1894, "Social-Democracy existed without a working-class movement," and that "the theoretical doctrine of Social-Democracy arose altogether independently of the spontaneous growth of the working-class movement; it arose as a natural and inevitable outcome of the development of thought among the revolutionary socialist intelligentsia." This sentence grasps the essence of the matter: rather than mechanically attributing the Russian Marxist movement founded by Plekhanov to the economic and class conditions of the time, it is better to seek the true causes in the development of the history of Russian social thought.
As is well known, starting from the mid-19th century, generations of advanced Russian intellectuals exerted arduous intellectual efforts to seek the freedom and happiness of their people. Among them—such as Herzen, Chernyshevsky, and the Populists of the 1870s—there were distinct characteristics: on the one hand, they were convinced that their country could utilize its unique conditions (the village commune) to follow a path of independent development different from Western Europe; on the other hand, they thirstily sought the latest intellectual achievements of the West, hoping the two could be combined so that Russia might leap over the sufferings of capitalism and stride directly toward socialism. This unique intellectual mixture was most prominent among the Populists of the 1870s. While the Populist theorists of that time vigorously promoted their ideals of the backward small peasantry, there was a shadow of Marx’s doctrine in almost all of them. To a certain extent, introducing and citing Marx became a vogue in Russian intellectual circles in the 1870s. This inadvertently prepared the weapons of criticism in advance for overcoming the Populists' own errors.
Plekhanov threw himself into his political career in exactly this kind of zeitgeist. His early works already showed that he had a considerable understanding of Marxism. As the Populist movement suffered continuous setbacks, a few advanced intellectuals were bound to develop doubts about the doctrines they had previously believed in without question. Around the beginning of the 1880s, Gleb Ivanovich Uspensky demonstrated in his literary works how ignorant and backward the Russian peasants—sanctified by the Populists—actually were, while Plekhanov, Axelrod, and others intellectually questioned the old dogmas. It was precisely by means of the achievements already attained by previous Russian intellectual circles that Plekhanov and others rapidly moved toward Marxism through reflection. According to the memoirs of Lev Grigorievich Deich, one of the earliest members of the Emancipation of Labour group, Plekhanov began to have doubts about Populism between 1879 and 1880. In the article "The Land Commune and Its Possible Future," published in early 1880, while defending Populist orthodoxy, Plekhanov expressed deep anxiety about the possibility of the commune being completely destroyed by capitalist pressure. Facing these troubling questions, after more than two years of meticulous study, Plekhanov finally confirmed that Marxism was the only "guiding thread" that could lead him out of the labyrinth. In 1883, he proposed that a systematic critical evaluation should be made of the Populist theory that still held absolute dominance in the revolutionary camp, and in the same year, he organized the Emancipation of Labour group with four others. In summary, the decisive driving force behind this intellectual transition was entirely the result of the interaction between the history of the Russian political movement and intellectual evolution and advanced Western European thought, rather than the vague notion of so-called capitalist economic development. In other words, when Plekhanov turned to Marxism, he had in fact exceeded the limitations of his own country’s economic conditions and attained the advanced spiritual achievements of the entire world.
From this intellectual transition of Plekhanov, one can see that the Russian Marxist movement possessed the gene of "leapfrog development" from the very beginning, which also formed a sharp contrast with the progressivist view of history advocated by the Second International at that time.
II
The aforementioned background determined the basic direction and character of the theoretical and political activities during the most brilliant period of Plekhanov’s life between 1880 and 1890.
The task Plekhanov undertook was to prove, in advance, the historical necessity and mission of the working class before Russian capitalism had fully developed and before the working class had truly stepped onto the stage of history independently. This was undoubtedly a Herculean task. The work possessed two characteristics: first, the emphasis had to be placed on the theoretical aspect, because theoretical activity itself was the greatest politics of this period; second, in the theoretical aspect, it was necessary to lean toward philosophy, because the conditions of the era were insufficient to prove the necessary premises and possibilities of capitalism from a purely economic perspective, whereas philosophy could provide an abstract but extremely useful method for social analysis by grasping the totality of a thing’s past, present, and future. Plekhanov possessed rich philosophical cultivation; therefore, it was he, and not any other member of the Emancipation of Labour group, who was able to powerfully prove the future trends of Russian social development in an era when the actual economic level was far from sufficient. Many people dismiss this, blaming Plekhanov for favoring philosophical abstraction from the start and neglecting practical concreteness and specificity; some even believe that Plekhanov’s emphasis on dialectical materialism committed the same error as the Second International—namely, yielding to a passive fatalism. I beg to differ with this view.
In fact, Plekhanov’s understanding of the materialist conception of history is explained very clearly in the text The Development of the Monist View of History. He realized that it was precisely because Marx’s doctrine discovered the governing role of iron laws of necessity that people could become conscious of the scope of necessity’s action and, to a certain extent, obtain the possibility of transcending it. In this process, human reason does not come to a standstill at existing reality; on the contrary, human reason will actively act upon the external environment, making reality more rational and subordinating it to the requirements of the further development of productive forces. "Only after recognizing the internal laws of necessity itself, and only after the power of necessity itself conquers necessity, can human reason celebrate its triumph over blind necessity; therefore, developing knowledge and developing human consciousness is the greatest and noblest task of the thinker." From this, it can be seen that Plekhanov’s understanding of the materialist conception of history was not a passive historical fatalism, but rather a very active historical theory that celebrated human reason and endowed human beings with a supreme subjective status in the creation of history.
How, then, did Plekhanov utilize the materialist conception of history to analyze Russia’s capitalist path?
First, based on the materialist conception of history, he directly shifted the problem from the subjective realm to the objective realm. "Must" Russia pass through capitalism, or is it "unnecessary"? Faced with this favorite debate of the Populist theorists, Plekhanov believed that the way the question was asked was itself wrong—the issue was not what one’s desires were, but what the historical facts were. The correct approach should be to study the actual historical situation and understand its developmental process. However, the Russian economy at that time was a mixture of the old and the new; viewed only from phenomena, it possessed many developmental possibilities. Populist theorists used this as a basis to deny the necessity of Russian capitalism. In response to this phenomenon, Plekhanov applied the analytical method of historical materialism to point out that nothing is static and everything is in eternal motion. This required that research, on the one hand, should begin with the "actual, real process," conducting the most concrete and rigorous empirical investigation of things, while on the other hand, understanding that "the phenomena of social life can only be understood in motion, in their process of emergence, development, and decline." This method of historical materialist analysis gave Plekhanov a vision that general empirical observation could not reach, allowing him to see the future of capitalism in its early stages of development. For example, Russian capitalism at that time did indeed rely heavily on state support, which led Populists to believe that capitalism had no future in Russia. But Plekhanov pointed out that any new economic and class relationship initially exists within the old relationships and grows by relying on the old "nutrient solution"; to conclude from this that the new relationship is hopeless "is equivalent to not understanding history." On the issue of capitalist sales markets, the direction of development for the village commune, and many other issues, Plekhanov relied on the scientific logic of dialectics to triumph over the Populists.
Second, Plekhanov provided a negative proof for the inevitability of Russian capitalism. Here, based on the materialist conception of history, Plekhanov conducted a comprehensive analysis of the social forces the Narodniks [6] believed could be relied upon (such as the peasantry, military officers, the "enlightened Tsar," etc.). He pointed out that due to the constraints of their own economic living conditions, these groups fundamentally lacked the capacity and desire the Narodniks expected of them. This revealed, from a theoretical height, the reasons why the Narodniks repeatedly struck a wall in reality. Could the Narodniks, then, rely on their own conspiratorial actions to leapfrog over capitalism and directly realize socialism? Plekhanov explicitly believed that the heroic bravery and self-sacrifice of a small minority could never achieve this goal. Even assuming they did seize power through conspiracy, there would still be no possibility of realizing socialism. At that point, their "Provisional Government" would be unable to hand over the seized power to the people, but would instead "transform itself into a permanent government." It would then face a choice: either remain indifferent to the growth of capitalism, or "seek a way out in the ideals of 'patriarchal and authoritative communism,' introducing into those ideals only the change that the management of national production would be handled not by the Peruvian 'Sons of the Sun' [7] and their officials, but by a socialist aristocracy." In short, without the corresponding foundations for socialism, the future could only be capitalist.
Third, historical dialectics led Plekhanov to an evaluation of capitalism that was diametrically opposed to that of the Narodniks. In the eyes of the Narodniks, capitalism was an absolute evil; Plekhanov, however, pointed out the progressive significance of capitalism in history. While capitalism certainly brought disaster to small producers, every set of social relations contains two internal contradictory aspects: it can be examined in its present form, or it can be examined in the direction of its transition toward a future, higher social form. The former is a static examination, while the latter is dynamic. "What interests the historian or the practical revolutionary is not the static but the dynamic, not the conservative aspect but the revolutionary aspect, not the harmony of social relations but their contradictions." Thus, the progressiveness of capitalist development lies in the fact that it is precisely from its "bad side"—from its suffering—that new social forces grow, thereby preparing the preconditions for a higher form of social life. Dialectics stipulated that while proletarian revolutionaries point out the inevitability and progressiveness of capitalism, they are not, as the Narodniks mocked, supposed to open "dram-shops" [8] of capitalism themselves. Rather, through propaganda and guidance directed at the "dram-shop" employees, they are to "expand their strength in opposing the shop, resisting the shop owner, and opposing any power of drunkenness, to the extent that history has given or will give them."
In summary, Plekhanov utilized the data of the time to the maximum extent to analyze the current state and future of the Russian economy, thereby proving that a bourgeoisie was growing under the protection of Tsarism: the number of factories and production techniques were greatly increasing and improving; the number of workers was surging; cottage industries were transforming into large-scale industry; and the rural communes were differentiating and disintegrating while capitalism penetrated agriculture day by day. In short, the rule of capitalism in Russia was already an unalterable reality. This led Plekhanov to firmly believe as early as the first half of the 1880s that Russia’s prospect "will first be the victory of the bourgeoisie and the beginning of the political and economic liberation of the working class." In the 1890s, based on the further development of capitalism, he asserted: "Russia is on the eve of a change in its system." Therefore, he vigorously appealed to the revolutionary intellectuals to turn their gaze toward the workers: "The experience of our revolutionary movement clearly indicates to us that the power of the intellectuals alone cannot defeat Tsarist autocracy. To overthrow it, a new army must be brought into the battle—a force that until now has only been a potential reserve—this is the army of the working class." He also directly pointed out the immediate tasks of the workers and linked these tasks to future goals. He proposed that the future goal of realizing socialism in Russia would not take as long as it did in Western Europe. "The flowers of our capitalism will wither before they have time to fully bloom; this is guaranteed to us by the powerful influence of international relations." The Russian proletariat should make full theoretical preparations in advance so that the distance between the bourgeois revolution and the proletarian revolution could be greatly shortened.
The significance of Plekhanov's aforementioned theoretical activities was not fully recognized in the past. Stalin once commented that Plekhanov's influence on the proletariat was limited to the "upper strata" for a certain period. This statement may have some merit. However, it must be understood that it was precisely this influence on the "upper strata" that possessed profound historical significance. For as previously mentioned, Plekhanov unfolded his activities to disseminate Marxism before the Russian workers' movement stepped onto the stage of history. His brilliant works, together with the works of Marx and Engels that he vigorously introduced, greatly redirected the ideological orientation of the advanced Russian intellectuals and pre-cultivated a group of individuals well-versed in Western European socialist theory and experience. This led to the following consequences: First, unlike in Western Europe, the Russian Marxist party was not formed during a stage where the workers' movement was relatively developed, but in its early stages; the parallelism of a mature theory and party alongside a worker mass that was not yet mature but full of spontaneous spirit of resistance constituted a major characteristic of the Russian Revolution. Second, from this characteristic, there inevitably arose a "subjective force" demanding the formulation of a strategy for an accelerated revolution based on the Marxist critique of capitalism. In this way, when Plekhanov vigorously integrated the Russian Revolution into the general tide of international socialism, he also endowed it with a unique character. In other words, the "theoretical leapfrogging of stages" that he represented and promoted laid the foundation for the later "practical leapfrogging of stages." Although Plekhanov himself did not clearly realize this, once the historical movement began, it inevitably had to follow its own internal logic to its conclusion.
III
After the revolutionary stage began, Plekhanov became a tragic figure. During this period, his main political opponent was Lenin. The essence of the debate between the two lay in Lenin’s advocacy for relying on theoretical consciousness and rigor. In Lenin’s view, by using "the dedicated determination and perseverance of our predecessors, the revolutionaries of the 1870s, to inspire our movement, which is hundreds and thousands of times broader and deeper than theirs," it would certainly be possible for the Russian Revolution to leap over general historical procedures and become the vanguard of international socialism. Plekhanov, fearing the possible consequences of Lenin's proposal, rejected the proposal itself. However, what Lenin's proposal objectively relied upon was precisely the "accelerated momentum" (提前定势) of the previous socialist movement and the sharp contradictions of early Russian capitalism. Plekhanov’s rejection of Lenin’s proposal was tantamount to denying the further unfolding of his own previous theoretical activities. This contradictoriness invited a series of political failures for him.
The first was the question of Party organization. Plekhanov had struggled for twenty years to establish a mature socialist party in Russia, so it was not surprising that he supported Lenin against Martov at the Second Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP). However, shortly thereafter, under pressure from the Mensheviks, he turned toward a position of conciliation and compromise. From then on, he consistently advocated for the various factions within the Party to transcend their differences and unite, emphasizing that "Party unity is absolutely necessary." Why did Plekhanov, who had always been known for his sharp attitude in theoretical debates, suddenly develop a fondness for organizational conciliation? The reason was that he regarded the question of organization as a mere "detail" compared to Party unity. But what caused him to place unity above organizational rigor? This was because his view on the significance of the political party in the Russian Revolution was vastly different from Lenin's. Lenin believed that the conscious mastery of theory made the capacity, initiative, and perseverance of Social Democrats significantly higher than that of the general masses of workers; therefore, one should "place the powerful force of millions of workers rising 'spontaneously' for struggle under their command (if one may put it this way)!" Thus, the high degree of centralization and strict division of labor within the Party itself took on vital significance. Plekhanov, like the vast majority of socialists who thought in Western European terms, was convinced that the socialist revolution was a product of historical development itself; the Party could only act as a catalyst in this process and could not artificially manufacture a revolution. This was also the mainstream view of the Second International period. From the perspective of a general view of history, this was certainly correct. But the problem lay in the fact that the Russian socialist party significantly led the class it sought to represent; this fact provided a great possibility for the Party to seize power by "commanding" the worker masses. And it was precisely this possibility that Lenin seized. Plekhanov, fearing that Lenin's organizational plan would "realize the ideal of the Persian Shah"—that is, lead to the absolute dictatorship of the Central Committee—refused to consider this possibility, which destined him to be unable to become a true leader during the practical stage of the Russian Revolution.
The second was the question of the revolution. Plekhanov always held fast to the conviction that socialism could only be established upon the material achievements of capitalism; based on this, he deduced that Russia first required capitalist economic development and a bourgeois-democratic revolution to clear the obstacles to economic development. Theoretically, this was undoubtedly correct. However, he had to face this question: When socialist theory and parties formed prematurely in Russia, adding a brand-new political factor to the bourgeois-democratic revolution, what should be done? Clearly, different choices were possible here. Lenin believed that this new "subjective force" should be utilized to boldly exclude the bourgeoisie, with the proletarian party itself pushing the bourgeois revolution forward. After the revolution's victory, it should be rapidly turned toward the socialist revolutionary stage. This choice was unacceptable to Plekhanov. Plekhanov had a considerable understanding of the consciousness and initiative of the proletariat in the democratic revolution, as well as the conservative and compromising nature of the bourgeoisie. For example, during the 1905 Revolution, he declared that the proletariat "must play a decisive role"; he attacked the bourgeoisie, saying they "have no intention at all of becoming soldiers of the revolutionary army"; and he emphasized that the proletarian party should maintain its independence, and so on. Nevertheless, he remained convinced that before the corresponding material conditions existed, talking about a socialist revolution to seize power was harmful. The proletarian party could consciously realize its future socialist tasks during the stage of opposing autocracy, but it could never change the general course of history based on mere ideals. Thus, Plekhanov's strategy was to require the socialist party to consciously push the bourgeoisie (even if it was useless) to oppose autocratic rule, forcing it to create conditions for the future socialist revolution, while the party should never "meddle in others' business" (越俎代庖) [9]. This determined that he naturally viewed Lenin's strategy as "Blanquism" and condemned it with all his might; even after the October Revolution of 1917, he loudly appealed: "No, our working class is still far from being able to take all political power into its own hands for its own benefit and the benefit of the country. To impose such power upon it means pushing it onto the path of the greatest historical disaster, which would simultaneously be the greatest disaster for all of Russia." However, the fatal wound of this great theorist at this point was that he had unconsciously slumped into the position of a collaborator of the "dram-shops" he had opposed in his youth. We recall that he once required socialists to teach the employees of capitalist "dram-shops" to oppose the owners; now, when these employees hoped to seize the management of the shop in one fell swoop, he attempted to stop them based on the scale of the shop's development and the employees' management level. No matter how good his intentions or how thorough his thinking, such an advocacy was unlikely to succeed in the actual movement of the Russian Revolution.
The third issue concerns the question of war. It is well known that Plekhanov adopted a defensist position during the First World War. Lenin lashed out at this, considering him to have degenerated into a renegade. But what caused this transformation? Was it merely a result of his early experience in military academy? This was not the case; the reason still lay in his incorrect estimation of the trajectory of the Russian Revolution. Since the realization of socialism in Russia had to be predicated on the full development of capitalism, then "everything that delays the economic development of our country is a supporter of our reactionary forces, for such reaction is the specific political consequence of the state of economic backwardness within Russia." If Germany were to defeat Russia in the war, it would retard Russia's economic development, thereby postponing the realization of socialist goals. It was precisely this inference that prompted Plekhanov—an opponent of the Tsarist government—to advocate for defending his own country against German aggression. However, would not a Russian defeat lead to the arrival of a revolutionary situation, thereby providing a golden opportunity for the proletarian party to seize power? The slogan "defeat for one's own government" proposed by Lenin was derived precisely from this analysis; Plekhanov, however, rejected it because, in his view, such an approach would only bring about catastrophe. Nevertheless, the history of political movements does not submit to theories of historical development. In 1917, the laboring masses, who had been crushed beyond endurance by Russian capitalism and the world war, were quickly united under an anti-war stance by Lenin’s powerful call. Plekhanov failed once again.
In summarizing Plekhanov's various political errors, many commentators attribute the cause to his "dogmatism" or the "mechanism" and "vulgar materialism" in his philosophical thought—arguing, for instance, that he spoke only of the role of economic constraints and not of the counter-reaction of politics. These claims are not necessarily fair; Plekhanov’s critics often fall into a kind of vulgar dualism or "theory of factors" [10], criticizing even that which is correct. In the view of this article, the reason for Plekhanov's political errors does not lie in his historical outlook. This is because Plekhanov—unlike other Marxists of his time (such as Paul Lafargue)—never called the historical outlook he espoused "economic materialism." He was deeply convinced that before using economics to explain historical phenomena, the economy itself first required explanation. "Society is by no means a mechanical sum of individual factors; there is only one factor in society, and that is man." Therefore, "if one is to seriously understand the materialist conception of history, one must never start from factors, but can only start from 'man'." Plekhanov was able to fully understand that the materialist conception of history places "man" in a dual position: in the long river of history, man acts both as the engine—that is, satisfying the most elementary needs for survival and life—while simultaneously "seeing in the already formed human relations an insurmountable force, which belongs to all people in general, but to no one in particular." The contradiction between the productive forces and the relations of production is unified in the "monism" of "man" who is eternally engaged in practice.
What, then, was the ultimate cause of Plekhanov’s political errors? This article argues it was because he refused to recognize the particularity of Russian history itself—namely, that the Russian socialist revolution could not wait until material conditions were highly mature to occur, but had to take a leap-frog path. This leap could not be realized as long as it remained subordinate to the banner of Narodnism [11], but once it took the workers' revolution as its main theme, it became unstoppable.
IV
Why would a figure of such extraordinary theoretical wisdom and brilliant talent fail to understand, or rather refuse to acknowledge, the particularity of the Russian socialist movement that he himself had actively pioneered? From the perspective of personal factors: his long-term residence abroad and seclusion in his study, his cold and solitary temperament, and his arrogant self-confidence in his own talent played a role. He believed in a process of gradual historical development, inherited the perspective of universal history [12] found in Marx’s doctrine, and was deeply embedded in the organizational network of the Second International. These realistic and personal factors all played an important part. However, there are deeper reasons related to the era and history.
Plekhanov always held fast to the following view: there is an indispensable historical connection between the economic development of a socialist society and that of a capitalist society. Based on this basic principle, Marxists long believed that the socialist revolution would first occur in the developed capitalist regions of Western Europe, for only there were the material conditions and subjective forces for revolution first present. However, as "history transformed into world history," the situation underwent a major change. Although Western Europe occupied a central and superior position in the world system, due to changes in its own internal structure, it gradually lagged behind on the path toward socialist revolution. Russia, where capitalism had only recently begun, possessed the conditions for revolution due to acute social contradictions and a mature theory of social revolution. A significant turning point occurred in the trajectory of the international socialist movement.
Fundamentally, this change did not deviate from the theoretical framework of Marxism, because it was ultimately a product of the world as a whole entering the capitalist era and the economic differences between different regions. Yet the entire historical process became extremely complex as a result, involving basic principles of the materialist conception of history, the basic strategy of the socialist revolution, and even a series of major fields such as the path of socialist construction after the revolution. Solving these problems thoroughly in theory required the accumulation of a large amount of historical practical experience as a prerequisite, and such conditions clearly did not exist at the time. Hegel once said: "As the thought of the world, philosophy appears only when reality has gone through its formative process and attained its completed state... the concept necessarily teaches what history shows." At that time, reality had indeed just begun its formative process, and necessity could only appear in the form of possibility. As a theorist adept at abstract thinking and pursuing the thoroughness and rigor of theoretical logic, Plekhanov was unable to adapt to such a reality. He neither opposed Marxism outright in the face of new changes like Bernstein did, nor could he, like Lenin, "first jump into the real battle, and then see what happens." Plekhanov needed first to grasp everything from the height of historical philosophy and necessity before deducing his own political stance. This often forced him into a dilemma where he could not understand the new reality, and his theoretical strengths actually degenerated into political disadvantages; indeed, his theoretical writings had already explained a priori the reasons for Lenin’s political success.
In his book The Role of the Individual in History, Plekhanov admits on the one hand that, from the perspective of the specific consequences of social development, heroic figures can entirely accelerate or delay the process of major historical events. They can determine the way an event is realized, give the inherent direction of an event this or that character, and use their superior strength to provide regularity to the chaotic and fluctuating power of the masses. On the other hand, he also points out two major conditions for heroic figures to influence the historical process: first, the emergence of a heroic figure is situated within historical trends and necessary needs—"Any talent that appears in reality... can only exist by virtue of this trend; without this trend, they would never cross the threshold from possibility to reality." Second, the influence of the individual on historical trends is subject to the state of the productive forces and the relations of production at the time—"The character of an individual is a factor in social development only where, when, and to the extent that social relations permit it." The Role of the Individual in History is an important supplement to The Development of the Monist View of History. These two texts serve as mutual references, allowing Plekhanov to provide a full and complete interpretation of the materialist conception of history—the latter emphasizing necessity, while the former is grounded in contingency. If historical necessity is likened to laid-down railroad tracks, then heroic figures are like the switchmen on the train; they appear at the intersection of many necessary processes and, at the most critical moment, determine why history develops forward in one way rather than another.
Plekhanov's aforementioned thesis on heroic figures provides the best footnote for Lenin: at the historical juncture of Russia's defeat in WWI and its internal and external crises, Lenin keenly perceived the universal demand of the masses for "land, peace, and bread." Utilizing a highly organized and disciplined vanguard of revolutionaries, he decisively made the decision to launch the October Revolution, successfully advancing the process of the Russian Revolution. As Engels said, what is theoretically impossible may be historically possible; although Plekhanov had no intention of providing a footnote for Lenin, he long ago attested to the reasons for his own failure.
Politically, Plekhanov committed opportunistic errors in his later years by obstructing the revolutionary tide. Historically, he did not ground himself in the specific circumstances of the Russian Revolution; although he added a new force to history through his efforts, he refused to use this force to change history. Theoretically, he overemphasized the enormous difficulties that backward countries would face after a revolution, thereby denying the rationality of the revolution itself. This was certainly incorrect, but it also seems to prove that his views still belonged to the debates between different schools of thought among Marxists.
Penetrating a century of history to look back at Plekhanov’s life and thought, one should fully affirm his merit in bringing the socialist cause of Russia and even the entire East into the tide of world socialism. At the same time, one must see how, in the specific field of the Russian Revolution, this theoretical vision constrained his political agency. This constraint was mainly manifested in three aspects: first, compared with Western Europe, Russia's economic base and the level of development of the workers' movement were not yet sufficient to possess the historical conditions for engendering a socialist revolution. Plekhanov was the first to encounter and introduce mature Western European socialist doctrines and experience in struggle. This meant that the Russian Marxist party, at its founding, inherited intellectual and civilized achievements rooted in Western European historical development. In its early stages, it was difficult for the fledgling Russian Social Democratic Labour Party not to take the development trajectory of Western European workers' parties—with their longer histories and more mature political experience—as its model and standard. Second, issues such as the particularity of the Russian Revolution emerged only with the development of the Party and the advancement of its struggle. Without being on the front lines of political struggle and observing the ebb and flow of the revolutionary situation in real-time, it was difficult to advance one's cognition of the specific conditions of revolutionary work. Living abroad for a long time, Plekhanov was highly connected to the Second International and Western European parties in his thought and social activities, leaving his grasp of the immediate situation in Russia relatively detached. Third, as part of the first generation of Russian Marxists, Plekhanov’s work was primarily focused on ideological propaganda and theoretical foundation-laying. Living long in his study, Plekhanov excelled in theory; his work possessed the characteristics of abstraction and universality. He was concerned with the constraints of general conditions such as the economic base on the socialist revolution, but was relatively lacking at the experiential level of politics—judging specific revolutionary situations, building revolutionary organizations, and precisely formulating revolutionary tasks. Compared to Lenin, Plekhanov tended to focus on the feasibility of the Russian Revolution rather than its possibility, and gave more weight to the commonality of the socialist revolution rather than the particularity of Russia’s specific conditions. This re-examination of Plekhanov’s influence and limitations regarding the Russian Revolution allows us to fully recognize that universal theory must be grounded in specific experience. Only an excellent political practice that highly grasps the unity of universality and particularity can be the source of creating political possibilities.
(Author's affiliations: School of International Studies, Renmin University of China; International Institute of Social History, Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences) Web Editor: Tong Xin Source: Marxism & Reality, Issue 5, 2022