The Development of the Monist View of History

Book excerpt: The "father of Russian Marxism", George Plekhanov (1857-1918) directed most of his writings against the Russian "populist" movement to which he once belonged. He insisted that although, in principle, in semi-feudal societies such as the Russian, the first revolution would of necessity have to be a "capitalist" one. However, he noted that bourgeoisie was too weak to bring it about and thus it fell upon the proletariat to conduct "both" revolutions. However, he condemned the methods of Lenin and the Bolsheviks soon after 1917. In books such as Socialism and the Political Struggle (1883), Our Differences (1884) and On the Development of the Monist View of History (1895), Plekhanov argued that a successful Marxist revolution could only take place after the development of capitalism. According to Plekhanov, it was the industrial proletariat who would bring about a socialist revolution. Plekhanov was strongly opposed to the political views of people who argued that it would be possible for a small group of dedicated revolutionaries to seize power from the Tsar. Plekhanov warned that if this happened, you would replace one authoritarian regime with another and that a "socialist caste" would take control who would impose a system of "patriarchal authoritarian communism.