Leon Trotsky: A Note on Plekhanov

April 25, 1922

[Leon Trotsky, Portraits Political & Personal, New York 1977, p. 28-33, title “Georgi Plekhanov”]

The war has drawn the balance sheet on an entire epoch of the socialist movement; it has weighed and appraised the leaders of this epoch. Among those whom it has mercilessly liquidated is also to be found G.V. Plekhanov. This was a great man. It is a pity to think that the entire young generation of the proletariat today who joined the movement since 1914 is acquainted with Plekhanov only as a protector of all the Aleksinskys, a collaborator of all the Avksentievs, and almost a co-thinker of the notorious Breshkovskayas — that is to say, they know Plekhanov only as the Plekhanov of the epoch of “patriotic” decline. This was a truly great man. And it is as a great figure that he has gone down in the history of Russian social thought.

Plekhanov did not create the theory of historical materialism; he did not enrich it with new scientific achievements. But he introduced it into Russian life. And this is a merit of enormous significance. It was necessary to overcome the homegrown revolutionary prejudices of the Russian intelligentsia, in which the arrogance of backwardness found its expression. Plekhanov “Russianized” Marxist theory and thereby denationalized Russian revolutionary thought. Through Plekhanov it began to speak for the first time in the language of real science; established its ideological bond with the world working class movement; opened real possibilities and perspectives for the Russian revolution by finding a basis for it in the objective laws of economic development.

Plekhanov did not create the materialist dialectic, but he was its convinced, passionate, and brilliant crusader in Russia from the beginning of the eighties. And this required the greatest penetration, a broad historical outlook, and a noble courage of thought. These qualities Plekhanov combined also with lucidity of expression and an endowment of wit. The first Russian crusader for Marxism wielded his sword superbly. How many wounds he inflicted! Some of them, like those he inflicted on the talented epigone of Narodism, Mikhailovsky, were of a fatal nature. In order to appreciate the force of Plekhanov’s thought one has to have an understanding of the density of that atmosphere of populist, subjectivist, and idealist prejudices which prevailed in the radical circles of Russia and the Russian emigration. And these circles represented the most revolutionary force to emerge from Russia in the second part of the nineteenth century.

The spiritual development of today’s advanced working class youth proceeds (happily!) along entirely different paths. The greatest social upheaval in history sets us apart from the period when the Beltov-Mikhailovsky duel took place.* That is why the form of the best — i.e., precisely the most brilliantly polemical — works of Plekhanov has become dated, just as the form of Engels’s Anti-Dühring has become dated. For a young, thinking worker, Plekhanov’s viewpoint is incomparably more understandable and familiar than the viewpoints that he demolishes. Consequently, a young reader has to give more attention and use more imagination to reconstruct in his mind the views of the Narodniks and subjectivists than to appreciate the force and accuracy of Plekhanov’s blows. That is why his books cannot attain wide circulation today. But the young Marxist who has the opportunity to work systematically on broadening and deepening his world outlook will invariably turn to the original source of Marxist thought in Russia — to Plekhanov. For this it will be necessary each time to work oneself back into the ideological atmosphere of the Russian radical movement from the sixties to the nineties. No easy task. But in return, the reward will be a widening of one’s theoretical and political horizons, and the aesthetic pleasure that a successful effort toward clear thinking gives in the fight against prejudice, stagnation, and stupidity.

* Under the pseudonym Beltov, Plekhanov in 1896 managed to get his most successful and brilliant work, The Development of the Monist View of History, past the tsarist censor. — L.T.

In spite of the strong influence of the French literary masters on Plekhanov, he remained entirely a representative of the old Russian school of publicists (Belinsky, Herzen, Chernyshevsky). He loved to write at length, never hesitating to make digressions and in passing to entertain the reader with a witticism, a quotation, another little joke. . , . For our “Soviet” era, which slashes words that are too long and compresses the pieces to make one word, Plekhanov’s style seems out of date. But it reflects an entire era and, of its kind, it remains superb. The French school left its positive mark on his style, in the form of precision in formulation and transparent clarity in exposition.

As an orator Plekhanov was distinguished by the same qualities he possessed as a writer, both to his advantage and disadvantage. When you read books by Jaurès, even his historical works, you get the impression of an orator’s speech, transcribed. With Plekhanov it is just the reverse. In his speeches you hear the writer speaking. The writing of orators and the oratory of writers may reach very high levels. Nevertheless, writing and oratory are two different fields and two different arts. For this reason Jaurès's books tire one with their oratoric intensity. And for the same reason the orator Plekhanov often produced the secondhand — hence, dampening — effect of a skillful reader of his own articles.

He was at his peak in the theoretical disputes in which whole generations of the Russian revolutionary intelligentsia never tired of immersing themselves. Here the material of the controversy itself brought the art of writing and that of oratory closer together. He was weakest in speeches of a purely political nature, those which pursued the task of uniting the audience around practical, concrete conclusions, fusing their wills into one. Plekhanov spoke like an observer, like a critic, a publicist, but not like a leader. He was never destined to have the opportunity to directly address the masses, summon them to action, lead them. His weak sides come from the same source as does his chief merit: he was a forerunner, the first crusader of Marxism on Russian soil.

We have said that Plekhanov left hardly any works that could become theoretical tools in wide everyday use by the working class. The sole exception is, perhaps, the History of Russian Social Thought, but this work is far from irreproachable in point of theory; the conciliatory and patriotic tendencies of Plekhanov’s politics of the last period succeeded — at least partly — in undermining even his theoretical foundations. Entangling himself in the insoluble contradictions of social patriotism, Plekhanov began to seek guidance outside the theory of the class struggle — now in national interests, now in abstract ethical principles. In his last writings he makes monstrous concessions to normative morality, seeking to make of it a criterion of politics (“the defensive war is a just war”). In the introduction to his History of Russian Social Thought he limits the sphere of action of the class struggle to the field of domestic relations; in international relations he replaces the class struggle by national solidarity.** This, however, is no longer according to Marx, but rather according to Sombart. Only those who know what a relentless struggle Plekhanov waged for decades against idealism in general, normative philosophy in particular, and the school of Brentano, with its pseudo-Marxist falsifier Sombart — only they can appreciate the depth of Plekhanov’s theoretical downfall under the pressure of national patriotic ideology.

** “The course of development of any given society divided into classes is determined by the course of development of those classes and their mutual relations, i.e., first, by their mutual struggle where the internal social order is concerned, and, secondly, by their more or less friendly collaboration where the question of the defense of the country from external attack arises.” (G.V. Plekhanov, History of Russian Social Thought, Moscow, 1919, page 11, Russian edition.) — L.T.

But this downfall was prepared: Plekhanov’s misfortune came from the same source as his immortal merit — he was a forerunner. He was not a leader of the proletariat in action but only its theoretical precursor. He polemically defended the methods of Marxism but had no possibility of applying them in practice. Though he lived for several decades in Switzerland, he remained a Russian emigre. Opportunist, municipal, and cantonal Swiss socialism, with its extremely low theoretical level, scarcely interested him. There was no Russian party. For Plekhanov its place was taken by the Emancipation of Labor Group, i.e., a close circle of co-thinkers (composed of Plekhanov, Axelrod, Zasulich, along with Deutsch, who was doing hard labor in Siberia). Since he lacked political roots, Plekhanov strove all the more to strengthen the theoretical and philosophical roots of his position. As an observer of the European workers’ movement, he very often left out of consideration the most colossal manifestations of political pettiness, pusillanimity, and conciliationism on the part of the socialist parties; but he was always on the alert in regard to theoretical heresy in socialist literature.

This imbalance between theory and practice, which arose out of the whole course of his life, proved fatal for him. In spite of his wide theoretical groundwork, he showed himself unprepared for great political events: even the 1905 revolution caught him unawares. This profound and brilliant Marxist theoretician oriented himself toward the events of the revolution by means of empirical, essentially rule-of-thumb appraisals; he felt unsure of himself, said as little as possible, and evaded definite answers, begging the question with algebraic formulas or witty anecdotes, for which he had such a great fondness.

I first saw Plekhanov at the end of 1902, i.e., in the period when he was concluding his superb theoretical campaign against Narodism and against revisionism, and found himself face to face with the political questions of the revolution. In other words, the period of decline had begun for Plekhanov. I only once had the opportunity to see and hear Plekhanov at full flower, so to speak, and in all his splendor: that was in the program commission of the Second Party Congress (July 1903, in London). The representatives of the Rabocheye Delo Group (Martynov and Akimov), the representatives of the Bund (Lieber and others), and a few of the provincial delegates were attempting to introduce amendments to the draft of the party program, mainly the work of Plekhanov, amendments that for the most part were incorrect theoretically and poorly thought out. In the commission discussions Plekhanov was inimitable and — merciless. On every question or even minor point that arose he quite effortlessly brought to bear his outstanding erudition and forced his listeners, even his opponents, to the realization that the problem only began precisely where the authors of the amendment thought it to end. With a clear, scientifically finished conception of the program in his mind, sure of himself, of his knowledge, his strength; with a merry, ironical twinkle in his eyes; with his whiskers bristling merrily too; with slightly theatrical but lively and expressive gestures, Plekhanov, who chaired the session, illuminated this heavily attended gathering like a human firework of erudition and wit. This was reflected in the admiration that lit up all faces, even those of his opponents, where delight struggled with embarrassment.

Discussing tactical and organizational questions at the same congress, Plekhanov was infinitely weaker and sometimes seemed quite helpless, producing bewilderment among the very delegates who had admired him on the program commission.

As early as the Paris International Congress in 1889 Plekhanov had declared that the revolutionary movement in Russia would conquer as a workers’ movement or not at all. That meant that in Russia there was not and could not be a revolutionary bourgeois democracy capable of triumphing. But from this there followed the conclusion that the victorious revolution, achieved by the proletariat, could not end other than with the transfer of power into the hands of the proletariat. From this conclusion, however, Plekhanov recoiled in horror. Thus he politically denied his old theoretical premises. New ones he did not create. Hence his political helplessness and vacillations, crowned by his terrible patriotic fall from grace.

In the period of the war and in the period of the revolution, nothing remained for the true disciples of Plekhanov but to wage an irreconcilable struggle against him.

Since Plekhanov’s death, his often surprising and invariably worthless admirers and adherents of his period of decline have brought together all of his worst writings and published them in a separate edition. By this they only helped to separate the false Plekhanov from the real one. The great Plekhanov, the true one, belongs entirely and wholly to us. It is our duty to restore to the young generation his spiritual figure in all its stature. These hasty lines do not of course represent even an approach to this task. But it must be accomplished and will be highly rewarding. Yes, it is high time a good book was written about Plekhanov.