25.06.1998

George Plekhanov

From The Call, paper of the British Socialist Party, June 20 1918

It is with the deepest regret we learn of the death of the founder of the Russian Social Democratic Party, George Plekhanov, at a sanatorium on the Russo-Finnish frontier.

Of late years we disagreed with him very profoundly, particularly since the outbreak of war when he fell into the slough of social patriotism of the very worst kind, often even forgetting his whole socialist past, as for instance when he objected to the proposal to expropriate the landowners on the ground that it was not in the interests of the Russian peasants themselves to have rich landowners suddenly become poor without any means of livelihood ...

Nevertheless Plekhanov’s whole life, since that day in December 1876, when as a young student in Petrograd he unfurled the red banner of socialism at the Kazan Square, was given up to devoted work for socialism and labour. The Russian translator of Marx’s Communist manifesto, he was also Marx’s most ardent disciple ...

Using Marx’s principles as a guide, he accurately foretold, as later events have shown, the future economic development in Russia, and upon that he based his whole socialist propaganda amongst the ever extending industrial proletariat of Russia.

Exiled from his native land for the best part of his life, Plekhanov lived at Geneva, Switzerland, where he did an immense amount of theoretical and practical work ... Unfortunately for at least the last 12 years or so his intellectual strength seems to have largely forsaken him ... On the outbreak of war the havoc was completed - he became an ardent nationalist and embraced Russia’s cause against Germany, even before the Revolution had begun to show its head.

When the Revolution triumphed he returned to Russia. The workers, though disagreeing with his present attitude, could not forget his glorious past, and they gave him a great ovation. On the Council of Workmen’s and Soldiers’ Delegates however, and in deference to his past, he was given a consultative voice only, his party not being admitted to representation as being of no importance.

Thus passes away a brilliant yet in the end tragic figure in the international socialist movement ... But this we know: long after the present nightmare - with its ruin of souls, intellects and bodies - has passed away, George Plekhanov will still be remembered and valued for the great and brilliant part he played in his earlier days in building up the Revolution and international socialist working class movement.