UDC 94 (47). 083

E.V. Kostyaev

Was it G.V. PLEKHANOV SUPPORTER OF TSARISM IN THE YEARS OF THE FIRST WORLD WAR?

A detailed analysis of accusations against the “father of Russian Marxism” and the founder of Russian social democracy G.V. Plekhanov in supporting self

moderation and the tsarist government during the First World War and it is concluded 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 of opposition figures with the authorities in critical periods of the history of a 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 (18561918) took a "defensive" position with the outbreak of the First World War, urging the population of Russia to participate in its defense against the German attack, against him from anti-defensive colleagues the party voiced unfounded accusations of supporting the tsarist government. Thus, the Bolshevik Grigory Zinoviev (Radomyslsky), in his article Against the Current, published on November 1, 1914 in the newspaper Sotsial-Demokrat, described how, in an atmosphere of "frenzied rampant chauvinism" at the beginning of the war, Plekhanov appealed to The "culture" of the Russian Cossacks and Nikolai Romanov, and in the summer of 1915 the Bolshevik leader Lenin and the same Zinoviev argued that he had sunk to the declaration of a just war 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 publications available at the moment. For example, the American historian S. Baron writes that Plekhanov, "who had been calling on the Russian people to overthrow the tsarist government for almost forty years," during the war "tried to persuade them to defend the autocracy." S. Tyutyukin considers Plekhanov's misfortune to be that during the war years he failed "to find the line beyond which the protection of workers' interests objectively turned into support of the ruling tsarist regime ..." I. Urilov admits a contradiction when in one place he claims that, having taken a "defensist" 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 with anything, but in another he is fair notes that during the war, Georgy Valentinovich "called for the defense of Russia, not the tsarist government."

Meanwhile, the true attitude of Plekhanov and his associates towards the tsarist government was manifested in their position on the vote of the Duma Social Democrats for or against the allocation of war credits to him. The 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 the Social Democrats in Lausanne, "because the policies of the tsarist government weakened the country's defense ". Under a republican government, the country would have shown not only a tendency to stubborn resistance, but with its victories would have helped republican France, which, under the tsarist government, he believed, could not have been expected. At the same time, however, Plekhanov admitted that it was easier for members of the Duma faction to “observe themselves” than their Western European colleagues, 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 maintain her innocence, rather than a grown 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 showed their inability "neither to deal with the tsarist government, nor to opportunist tactics." In a letter dated January 21, 1915, taken from San Remo to Petrograd by A. Popov (Vorobyov), members of the Unity group who visited him there, and

N. Stoinov, Ida Axelrod, Panteleimon Dnevnitsky (Fyodor Tsederbaum) and Plekhanov advised the Duma faction to vote against war loans, arguing that “although we consider it absolutely necessary to defend the country, but, unfortunately, this is of the first importance. too unreliable in the hands of the autocratic tsarist government.

Due to a series 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 deputy of the Duma, 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 prevailing in the theater of military operations, Plekhanov did not fail to note that voting by the Duma Social Democrats against the allocation of credits would be treason in relation to the people, and the tsarist government would not mentioned.

Plekhanov did not rise with the outbreak of the war and to support the government that defended the Fatherland, as Urilov claims. And, as Tyutyukin writes about this, he did not stop criticizing the foreign and domestic policies of tsarism, directing all his energies to anti-German propaganda. In an open letter to the Bulgarian socialist Petrov of 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 Prizyv newspaper 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 his attitude to the war under the impression of the French situation and solidarizing with the policy of "sacred unity" of the socialists of the countries of Western Europe, Plekhanov made an exception for Russia. In a speech given at the beginning of the war at a meeting of a group of Russian socialists in Geneva, he tried to work out 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 of the voting of loans by Western socialists and their entry into the governments of national unity, but at the same time point out the exceptional conditions that exist in Russia, where socialists are deprived of the opportunity, even for the rightful purposes of the war, to support your autocratic government. " On such a platform of rejection of the support of the tsarist government, even during the world conflict, Plekhanov remained afterwards, therefore it is not very clear why the Menshevik Irakli Tsereteli made the conclusion in his memoirs that he could not hold on to his initial “half-hearted position and, having brought his initial point of view to logical end, became a decisive 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 for or against the provision of war credits by the Duma Mensheviks, then, if we understand its essence, it was not evidence of support for the tsarist government.

To the conversations circulating then in the revolutionary environment that, in defending their country, the Russian proletariat would thereby support tsarism, Plekhanov and his associates replied that in reality it would turn out the other way around: “In the process of Russia's self-defense, the inconsistency of Russian tsarism will inevitably be revealed,” was said in San Remo On February 3, 1915, a letter from Ida Axelrod, Plekhanov and Dnevnitsky to the Petrograd group "Unity", with the content of which Valentin Holgin (Fomin) expressed his solidarity. "The task of agitation is to help uncover this inconsistency." And in the addendum to this letter of February 4, answering the question of party comrades regarding voting for or against military credits, 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 credits (italics of the document - E.K.), to motivate such a vote by the fact that, although we consider the defense of the country absolutely necessary, but, unfortunately, this matter of the first importance is in too unreliable hands of the autocratic tsarist government ".

In the resolution on the war, adopted at the meeting of foreign groups of social democrats "party members" held on August 29-30, 1915 in Geneva, it was noted that the Russian proletariat, participating in the defense of its country, should by no means stop fighting "against the reactionary the government: the more is revealed and will be revealed the inconsistency of this government in the defense of the country from an enemy invasion, the more sharply and will intensify the struggle against Tsarism of all more or less progressive elements of the population; the proletariat is obliged to take on the role of leader in this struggle, leading it in such a way that it not only does not weaken, but increases the country's resistance to the external enemy. "

Anti-government rhetoric also abounded in the resolution on tactics, worked out by Plekhanov together with the Socialist-Revolutionary Avksentiev and unanimously adopted by the joint meeting of Social Democrats and Socialist-Revolutionaries in Lausanne on September 5-10, 1915. Participation in the country's defense became even more obligatory for

russian democracy of all shades in view of the fact, it was said in it, that every day more and more sharply revealed the failure of tsarism even in the defense of the country from an external enemy and more and more penetrates the people of the consciousness of the need for a new, free political order. The growth of this consciousness, and, consequently, the course of the struggle against tsarism, the resolution said, can be accelerated "not by refusal to participate in the people's self-defense and not by wild preaching of" active assistance in the defeat of the country ", but, on the contrary, by the most active participation in all that that somehow increases the chances of victory for Russia and its allies. " This was followed by a phrase, more eloquent than which in terms of defining 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, all particular tasks and secondary considerations must be subordinated. "

Considering that the spirit of this resolution was imbued with the content of the manifesto "To the Conscious Working Population of Russia" adopted at the same meeting, then the picture of support during the years of the world conflict by Plekhanov and his associates of the tsarist government does not form at all. The manifesto did not say - "first the victory over the external enemy, and then the overthrow of the internal enemy." It is quite possible, it was emphasized in it, that "the overthrow of this latter will be a precondition and a guarantee of the deliverance of Russia from the German danger." That is, Plekhanov and his associates considered tsarism an "internal enemy" and saw in the participation of socialists in the country's defense not a means of supporting "our old order, immeasurably weakening 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 global conflict were aimed at the same. England, France and even Belgium and Italy, the manifesto said, far outstripped in political terms the German Empire, which has not yet grown to a "parliamentary regime", therefore, Germany's victory 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. ". Bearing in mind Russia and the tsarist government, in the manifesto, Plekhanov urged the workers not to confuse the Fatherland with the authorities, emphasized 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: "Yours the slogan must be victory over an external enemy, - the appeal emphasized. "In an active striving for such a victory, the living forces of the people will be liberated and strengthened, which, in turn, will weaken the position of the enemy of the internal, that [o] e [st] 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 "Rabochy Mir", the Menshevik Boris Gorev (Goldman) wrote that during the war, considering German imperialism the most dangerous enemy of the proletariat, Plekhanov allowed "Temporary reconciliation" with tsarism. Companions of Plekhanov called this kind of writings "slander" of the authors who "for old memory, clumsily kick the dead lion sideways." After reading Gorev's article, supposedly a Menshevik Vera Zasulich, she wondered how much it was necessary to despise her audience so that, after Plekhanov's famous appeal "to overthrow tsarism in the course of defense" and after the publication of all his articles about the war, support the accusation of preaching "reconciliation with tsarism." In November 1914, one of the leaders of Unity, Aleksey Lyubimov, correctly pointed out that the accusations against Plekhanov and his associates for refusing to fight tsarism "come from a bad conscience." Considering 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 Russian the proletariat to support the tsarist government in its war against 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, there was no limit to the indignation of the Prizyz editorial staff. She did not consider it possible to “ignore this fact unheard of 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 last century, it said, "tsarism was for liberating Russia a symbol of her enslavement, her suffering, her weakness, her 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 for the country significance of tsarism increased even more: “He not only did not think about making society at least partially forget its previous crimes by means of an amnesty, but in the opposite direction.

to all other governments, brought even more enmity and struggle into the country. He did not organize the defense, but harmed it, disorganized it, getting in the way of every public undertaking, suppressing any public initiative. " To prove this, the appeal also cited some examples of similar actions by the tsarist government - the arrest of the Bolshevik deputies of the IV State Duma and the organization of their trial, the erection of obstacles for the work of public organizations, the prohibition in a number of cities of elections to the military-industrial committees from workers, etc. Russian social Thus, democracy faced two enemies - "German imperialism, encroaching on the independence of Russia, and Russian tsarism, suppressing its freedom and helping the external enemy with all its actions, weakening the resistance of the Russian people." And she was forced “in the name of self-defense, in the name of freedom of Russia, in the name of freedom of European democracies” to fight on two fronts, with enemies, external and internal. The act of Tom, the address emphasized, “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, in the eyes of Europe, they increase the prestige of tsarism and , therefore, they give him a new opportunity to harm the country's self-defense. "

When it came to the personal characteristics of individual agents of the tsarist government's policy, another like-minded person of Plekhanov, Grigory Aleksinsky, did not go into his pocket for scathing 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 these were “or old conservative bureaucrats, half out of mind, like G Oremykin, or demoniac reactionaries like Shcheglovitov, or ministers of war entangled in the friendship of German spies, like Sukhomlinov, or anecdotal characters with "lightness in their thoughts," like Maklakov, or mentally ill individuals like the maniac Protopopov, who dreamed of himself that he was a Russian Bismarck, who is destined to "save" Russia. " All this chaos, Alexinsky believed, was used “by some strange behind-the-scenes government, which included an illiterate Siberian peasant, a banker who made millions out of absolutely nothing, and a royal maid of honor in love with a Siberian drake peasant, and a high Orthodox hierarch, and a couple of generals stupid from decrepitude, and. the German princess herself, brought by the game of fate to the throne of a great empire, too huge for her mind, small and, moreover, not quite 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 above statements of Plekhanov and his associates it is clearly seen that they clearly did not fit the role of “lackeys of tsarism”. If this were really so, then at the time in question they freely returned to Russia and calmly propagated their views here. The tsarist government, I think, would have had nothing against replenishing the ranks of its lackeys. However, as you know, this did not happen. Obviously because it understood very well the deep essence of the anti-Tsarist "military" position of Plekhanov and his associates.

LITERATURE

1. Alexinsky G. War and revolution / G. Alexinsky. 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 vols. Book. 1.1900-1917. M., 1991.S. 128-129.

5. State Archives of the Russian Federation. F. 5881. Op. 3.D. 156.L. 1-2, 4; F. 10003. Op. 1. Steering wheel. 351. Maps. 51; Steering wheel. 358. Maps. 60; F. R-6059. Op. 1.D. 4.L. 5ob-6.

6. Lenin V.I. About the Junius brochure // Lenin V.I. Full collection op. T. 30.S. 12.

7. Lenin V.I. About a separate world // Lenin V.I. Full collection op. T. 30.P. 185.

8. Lenin V.I. Socialism and war. (The attitude of the RSDLP to the war) // Lenin V.I.Poln. collection op. Vol. 26, p. 347.

10. "It is necessary to oppose revolutionary phraseology - a revolutionary worldview.": From the correspondence of AI Lyubimov and GV Plekhanov. 1914-1918 // Historical archive. 1998. No. 2.P. 155.

11. Plekhanov G.V. A year at home. Complete collection of articles and speeches of 1917-1918: in 2 volumes. V. 1 / G.V. Plekhanov. Paris, 1921, p. 11.

12. Plekhanov G. V. About the war / G. V. Plekhanov. 4th ed. Pg., 1916.S. 27.

13. Spiridovich AI 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 IG 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 Russian History and Culture,

Saratov State Technical University Yuri Gagarin State Technical University of Saratov

G.V. Plekhanov

Georgy Valentinovich Plekhanov is a philosopher, a well-known figure in the Russian and international socialist movement, theorist and propagandist of the theory of Marxism.

Biography

G.V. Plekhanov was born into the family of a retired military man in December 1856 in the village of Gudalovka, Lipetsk district, Tambov province (now Lipetsk region). He was a capable young man: he graduated from a military gymnasium in Voronezh with a gold medal. Then he also successfully graduated from the cadet school in St. Petersburg and entered the St. Petersburg Mining Institute, where he received the Catherine's scholarship for special success in his studies, but was expelled from the institute for non-payment of tuition.

Activities

In 1876 he joined the "Land and Freedom" organization. " Land and Will " is a secret revolutionary society that existed in Russia from 1861 to 1864, and from 1876 to 1879 it was restored as a populist organization. The inspirers of the first society were Herzen and Chernyshevsky. Their goal was to prepare a peasant revolution. In the second composition of "Earth and Freedom" were AD Mikhailov, GV Plekhanov, later SM Kravchinsky, NA Morozov, SL Perovskaya and others. In total, the organization numbered about 200 people.

Logo of the organization "Earth and Freedom"

The organization's propaganda was based not on the old socialist principles, incomprehensible to the people, but on slogans emanating directly from the peasant environment, that is, the demands of "land and freedom." They proclaimed the goal of their activity in their program "anarchy and collectivism". The specific requirements were as follows:

• transfer of all land to peasants;
• the introduction of full communal self-government;
• the introduction of freedom of religion;
• giving nations the right to self-determination.

Their activities assumed: propaganda, agitation among peasants and other estates and groups, individual terror against the most objectionable government officials and agents of the secret police. The organization had its own charter. G.V. Plekhanov was a theoretician, publicist and one of the leaders of the organization.

In 1879, the organization broke up. A new organization "Narodnaya Volya" with terrorist methods of action and "Black Redistribution" was formed. Populist tendencies persisted in this organization. The organizer and leader of the "Black Redistribution" was G.V. Plekhanov. "Black redistribution" - This is a secret society, which included no more than 100 people. Besides Plekhanov, it also included V. Zasulich, Axelrod, Stefanovich. The organization published a magazine of the same name. Their ideology was directed towards the peasant question: in the Russian community they saw the starting point of socialist development; they believed that, thanks to the community, the "expropriation of large landowners" would lead Russia “To replace individual ownership by collective, that is, will cause the triumph of the highest principle of property relations. This is the very meaning of the expectations of the black redistribution living among the Russian people. "... Chernoperedeltsy treated terror with strong condemnation.

G.V. Plekhanov

In 1879 Plekhanov emigrated to Switzerland, where he began translating the book of Karl Marx and F. Engels "The Communist Party Manifesto" into Russian. In 1883 he created the first Russian Marxist organization in Geneva. "Emancipation of Labor"... Plekhanov believed that Russia had already taken the path of capitalist development, so the theory of Marxism was quite suitable for her. He writes a number of books that set out Marxist ideas as applied to Russia: Socialism and Political Struggle (1883), Our Differences (1885), where he gives a detailed criticism of the theory and tactics of populism, substantiates the conclusion that Russia has entered the path of capitalism, and proves that the foremost decisive force of the coming revolution is not the peasantry, but proletariat, puts forward the task of creating a workers' socialist party in Russia. Two projects of the program of the Emancipation of Labor group written by Plekhanov were of great importance for the founding of Russian Social Democracy: the first of them (1883) contained some concessions to Narodism, and the second (1885) - the main elements of the program of the Marxist party:

• general democratic reforms;
• measures in the interests of workers;
• measures in the interests of the peasants.

Later he created the “Union of Russian Social Democrats Abroad”.

Creation of the newspaper "Iskra"

Iskra newspaper editorial office

“Iskra is a revolutionary illegal newspaper founded by Lenin in 1900. Plekhanov collaborated on it until 1903.

The newspaper's goal was to rally the fragmented revolutionary movement in Russia on the basis of Marxism. Iskra's editorial office was located in Munich. Apart from Plekhanov, members of the editorial board were Lenin, Martov, Axelrod, Zasulich, Parvus and Potresov. After some time, Lenin left his membership in the editorial board. Until 1902 the newspaper was published monthly, and from 1902 - every two weeks. The circulation is about 8 thousand. In 1902, the German government banned the publication of the newspaper on its territory, so the editorial office moved to London, and then, for the same reason, to Geneva.

Participation inII Congress of the RSDLP

The II Congress of the RSDLP was held in 1903 in Brussels, then in connection with the persecution of the Belgian police, it was transferred to London. It was attended by 57 delegates. The congress opened with Plekhanov's opening speech. At the congress, a split occurred between the Iskra-ists, the Economists and the Bundists. A split also arose among the Iskra-ists. Since there were 6 members of the editorial board, sometimes there was a deadlock with the vote, when the result of the vote was 3: 3. They decided to introduce the seventh member of the editorial board, Trotsky. But Plekhanov was categorically against him. Then Lenin decides to expel those members of the editorial board who wrote fewer articles (Zasulich, Potresov, Axelrod).

But also between Lenin and Plekhanov disagreements were outlined. As a result, Plekhanov became the leader of the Menshevik faction of the RSDLP. Later, this faction became the independent Russian Social Democratic Party (Mensheviks).

Plekhanov's activities between revolutions

In 1905-1907. Plekhanov was in exile, therefore he practically did not take any part in the revolutionary events in Russia. But in one of the articles in the Iskra newspaper, he called for an armed uprising in Russia, for a thorough preparation of this uprising, while paying particular attention to the need for agitation in the army.

G.V. Plekhanov

With the outbreak of the First World War, the disagreements between G.V. Plekhanov and the Bolshevik leader Lenin over the attitude to the war became so acute that Plekhanov formed his own Social Democratic group, which included mainly the Menshevik defencists. The group was able to take shape after the victory of the February Revolution. The group's branches worked in Moscow, Petrograd, Baku and other cities. From the beginning of 1917 until January 1918, the group published the newspaper Unity in Petrograd.

Political views boiled down to denying the possibility of building socialism in such a capitalistically undeveloped country like Russia; supported the war "to the bitter end"; demanded the establishment of solid state power.

The group met the October coup with hostility. He believed that “ russian history has not yet ground the flour from which the wheat cake of socialism will eventually be baked. "He published in "Unity" "An open letter to the Petrograd workers", in which he pointed out that the socialist revolution in Russia was premature, because the proletariat is a minority in the country and is not ready for such a mission: “our working class is still far from being able, for the benefit of itself and for the country, to take into its own hands the entirety of political power. To impose such power on him means to push him onto the path of the greatest historical misfortune, which would at the same time be the greatest misfortune for all of Russia. " Plekhanov warned that the peasantry, having received land, would not develop towards socialism, and the hope of an early revolution in Germany was unrealistic. B.V. Savinkov invited him to head the anti-Bolshevik government, but he replied: "I gave forty years of my life to the proletariat, and I will not" shoot him, even when he is on the wrong path. " The group broke up by the summer of 1918.

After 37 years of exile, Plekhanov finally returned to Russia in 1917 as a result of the February Revolution. But since he was on the side of the allied countries, against Germany, and called for the fight against German imperialism, he did not become a member of the Executive Committee of the Petrograd Soviet, and was not allowed there by figures with an anti-war stance. During this period of time, he was only engaged in editing his newspaper "Unity", where he published articles with responses to the most important political events, argued with opponents and ideological opponents. Plekhanov supported the Provisional Government, was against the "April Theses" of V. I. Lenin, calling them "Delirium » ... He believed that the seizure of power "In one class or - even worse - in one party" can have dire consequences. He strongly condemned the desire of the Bolsheviks to take political power into their own hands. He believed that Russia was not yet ripe for a social revolution and for the transition to socialism. I was afraid that if V.I. Lenin will take the place of A.F. Kerensky, “this will be the beginning of the end of our revolution. The triumph of Lenin's tactics will bring with it such disastrous, such terrible economic devastation that a very large majority of the country's population will turn its back on the revolutionaries. "

GV Plekhanov died as a result of illness on May 30, 1918 in Yalkala (Finland) and was buried at the Literatorskie Mostki of the Volkovsky cemetery in St. Petersburg.

Monument at the grave of G.V. Plekhanov in St. Petersburg at the Volkov cemetery. Sculpture by I. Ya. Ginzburg

The most famous works of G.V. Plekhanov:

• "Socialism and Political Struggle"
• "On the development of a monistic view of history"
• "On the materialistic understanding of history"
• "On the question of the role of personality in history"
• "Basic Questions of Marxism"
• "Our Differences"
• "Skepticism in Philosophy"
• "Anarchism and Socialism"
• "Basic questions of Marxism" and others.

In his work "On the question of the role of the individual in history" he wrote: “There is a logic in social relations: as long as people are in these mutual relations, they will certainly feel, think and act in this way, and not otherwise. A public figure would also needlessly fight against this logic: the natural course of things (that is, the same logic of social relations) would have turned all his efforts into nothing. But if I know in which direction social relations are changing, thanks to these changes in the socio-economic process of production, then I also know in which direction the social psyche will change; therefore, I have the ability to influence her. To influence the social psyche means to influence historical events. Therefore, in a certain sense, I can still make history, and I do not need to wait until it is "made."

Books by G.V. Plekhanov

And further: “And not only for the“ initiators ”, not for the“ great ”people alone, a wide field of action is open. It is open to all who have eyes to see, ears to hear, and hearts to love their neighbors. Great is a relative concept. In a moral sense, everyone is great who, according to the Gospel expression, "lays down his soul for his friends."

This is how Plekhanov lived.

Russian history in the faces of 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 seems to be intended for speeches by orators, relatively recently there was a tablet, a modest memorial plaque. From the text it was possible to learn that from this eminence in 1876, at the first political demonstration in Russia, a twenty-year-old young man made his first public political speech Georgy Valentinovich Plekhanov.Now the plaque is gone. Plekhanov Street was renamed into Kazanskaya Street. Plekhanov's name is practically not mentioned in the media, and historians mention him extremely rarely.

Meanwhile, Plekhanov was the first Russian Marxist. In his translations from German, 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. Georgy's father, Valentin Petrovich, was a small local nobleman, a retired staff captain. He owned about 100 acres of land and an old house covered with thatch. Valentin Petrovich had seven children from his first marriage. Georgy was the eldest of 7 children from his second marriage with the governess Maria Fedorovna Belynskaya. After the fire in Gudalovka, in which the manor's house burned down, the Plekhanov nobles lived in a barn, converted into housing.

GV Plekhanov graduated from the Voronezh military gymnasium, spent four months at the Konstantinovsky artillery school, but, not wanting to make a military career, in 1874 he entered the Mining Institute. As a student, Plekhanov not only mastered his specialty, but also formed as a revolutionary populist. Through self-education, he mastered the basics of philosophy, history, political economy, got acquainted with illegal literature, took part in revolutionary activities.

After speaking on December 6, 1876 at a demonstration near the Kazan Cathedral, they managed to escape from the police, but they also had to leave the Mining Institute. Georgy Valentinovich in revolutionary circles began to be called the Orator. He went into an illegal position, became a professional revolutionary. In this capacity, Plekhanov conducted classes in circles, participated in organizing strikes, wrote leaflets, was a liaison, and began publishing in illegal publications. 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 followed on his heels, and in January 1880 Plekhanov went abroad. He was considered a theoretician, first in the Land and Freedom party, and then in the Black Redistribution organization. Abroad there were Plekhanov's associates in the "Black Redistribution" - V. I Zasulich, P. B. Axelrod, L. G. Deich, Ya. V. Stefanovich, V. N. Ignatov. He became close friends with Peter 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 Rozalia 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) by this time were in good health and were very popular in wide European circles. During Karl Marx's lifetime, GV Plekhanov translated into Russian the "Manifesto of the Communist Party" and published it with a preface by the authors (Karl 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 P. L. Lavrov helped his younger friend publish a Marxist work. The fact is that smart Russian people usually considered it their duty to be aware of all new European "trends". Suffice it to recall Alexander I and M. M. Speransky. However, most of the clever 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.

Former associates of Plekhanov associated the future of Russia with the special role of the peasant community, they considered peasants "natural socialists." Plekhanov went against his former comrades. They continued to fight in Russia, and he seemed to some to be theorizing at a safe distance from the Russian police.

Plekhanov did not become a lonely outcast. Together with him, they adopted Marxism and on September 25, 1883 announced a break with Narodism and the formation of the Social Democratic group "Emancipation of Labor" former "black peasants" P. B. Axelrod, V. I. Zasulich, L. G. Deich and V. N. Ignatov. They considered the main goal to be the struggle against 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 its achievement was the promotion of the ideas of Marxism in Russia and the proof of the possibility of applying Marxist ideas to the socio-economic conditions of Russia. The original "Plekhanov" Russian Marxism can be viewed as a kind of Westernism, which began in the 17th century.

Plekhanov, like most of the pioneers, had a hard time. The Narodniks considered him a traitor, especially after the publication of Plekhanov's polemical book Socialism and Political Struggle. The financial situation was difficult. His wife and children (daughters Eugene and Maria) were ill, and Georgy Valentinovich himself suffered from pulmonary tuberculosis from 1887 to the end of his life. Nevertheless, in 1882-1900. 30 works of K. Marx and F. Engels were published in Russian in whole or in excerpts. All in all, the illegal printing house in Geneva issued 84 titles of printed matter.

At the end of 1894, GV 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 contemporary of the impact of this brilliant exposition of Marxism on readers.

In 1895, a young Marxist, Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, came to Plekhanov for acquaintance and joint activity, with whom Plekhanov found many things in common, achievements, but also disagreements, contradictions, conflicts.

Together with Lenin, Plekhanov fought against "legal Marxists" and economists. Plekhanov and Lenin were in charge of publishing the newspaper Iskra and the magazine Zarya. 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 various actions of Plekhanov, which received a sharply negative assessment from Lenin in Soviet historiography. It is hardly worth boring the reader with a detailed description of the bitter struggle within the RSDLP.

After the February Revolution, the patriarch of Russian Marxism returned to his homeland. He, unlike Lenin, who was traveling 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 the Motherland, to achieve victory over Germany, which, according to Plekhanov, was supposed to bring the revolution closer both in Russia and in Germany.

On the night of March 31 to April 1, 1917, Georgy Valentinovich was greeted 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 addressed 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, came out with his strategy of growing 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. Petersburg before the revolution had the highest death rate from tuberculosis.

Plekhanov considered the socialist revolution and the coming to power of the Russian proletariat to be premature.

And Lenin made a revolution and came to power. Plekhanov did not approve of what the Bolsheviks did, but to the proposal of the former Socialist-Revolutionary BV Savinkov to head the government after the overthrow of the Bolsheviks, he categorically refused. “I gave forty years of my life to the proletariat, and I will not shoot him even when he is on the wrong path. And I advise you not to do this. Don't do this in the name of your revolutionary past, ”Plekhanov said to Savinkov. Savinkov did not listen to the advice.

Plekhanov changed hospitals, was between life and death. On May 30 (new style) 1918 he was gone. At the funeral on the Literatorskie Mostki Volkov cemetery, the Mensheviks predominated; at the mourning session of the Petrograd Soviet, the Bolsheviks said goodbye to Plekhanov as their teacher.

In the 1920s. the multivolume collected works of G.V. Plekhanov were published. His name remained in the educational and scientific literature. In front of the building of the Technological Institute in St. Petersburg, in a small public garden, there is a small monument to G.V. Plekhanov.

Peter Berngardovich Struvewas the same age and friend of V. I. Ulyanov. He was born in January 1870 into the family of a Perm governor. The parents of the founder of "legal Marxism" were Russianized 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 the autocracy perishes in Russia, Russia will perish. But I also have a slogan: Down with bureaucracy and long live the people's representation with the right to conference (the right to decide belongs to the autocrat). "

After the death of his father, Peter did not live with his mother, but with actually his adoptive mother 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 his book "Critical Notes on the Question of the Economic Development of Russia," P. B. Struve for the first time in domestic legal literature came out with Marxist, social-democratic positions.

Struve considered capitalism a historical progress and argued that Russia needed to go to the capitalist West for training. 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 V. Ilyin, criticized Struve for excluding him from the prospects for the development of the revolutionary, class struggle. This, however, did not prevent A. N. Potresov (Plekhanov's group "Emancipation of Labor"), V. I. Ulyanov (he worked on the creation of the "Union of Struggle for the Liberation of the Working Class") and P. B. Struve from meeting at Maslenitsa in 1895 For all Marxists, the most urgent task was the struggle against the Narodniks, and for this they collaborated for some time. P. B. Struve visited Plekhanov abroad, 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 about 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 Osvobozhdeniye magazine was published, around which supporters of the constitutional transformation of Russia began to group. Struve worked on a draft program for 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 the Russo-Japanese war exposed the ulcers of the autocratic-bureaucratic system, "pierced the most dull 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. Was elected to the Second State Duma. From 1907 he headed the magazine "Russian Thought", was one of the authors of the sensational collections "Vekhi" (1909) and "From the Depths" (1918).

A well-known philosopher, economist, historian, P. B. Struve in 1917 was elected an academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences. After the Bolsheviks came to power, he became one of the ideologists of the White movement, took part in organizing the struggle against the Reds as a member of the Special Conference under General A. I. Denikin, minister in the government of P. I. Wrangel. P. B. Struve was one of the organizers of the evacuation of P. I. Wrangel's army from the Crimea, and from 1920 he found himself in emigration.

Abroad, P. B. Struve edited the journal Russkaya Mysl (in Prague), the newspaper Vozrozhdenie (in Paris), and taught at the Prague and Belgrade universities. He died and was buried in Belgrade.

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Social life in Russia in the 80s - 90s. XIX century. not rich in external events. It lacks the tension and intensity of political struggle that were characteristic of the 60s and 70s. For populism, liberalism, conservatism, this is the time for comprehending recent experience and defining one's position in the present.

The revolutionary underground.March 1, 1881 was a definite milestone in the development of the revolutionary movement. Decapitated and exhausted by arrests, it is gradually replenished with new fighters from among the youth and the intelligentsia. GA Lopatin made an attempt to restore Narodnaya Volya. On behalf of the members of the IC who found themselves in emigration, he went to Russia in the spring of 1884 to unite provincial circles. In Dorpat we managed to establish a printing house and publish the 10th issue of Narodnaya Volya.

In October, Lopatin was arrested. In his notebook, about 100 Russians and more than 30 foreign addresses were encrypted. Their decryption was followed by a wave of arrests. The authorities were amazed at the scale of Lopatin's activities and its successes. He established contacts with more than 30 points where the Narodnaya Volya groups operated. Their union would have far exceeded the scale of the People's Will organization at the turn of the 1870s - 1880s.

In 1886, the “Terrorist faction of“ Narodnaya Volya ”emerged, founded by students of St. Petersburg University (A. I. Ulyanov, V. D. Generalov, and others). The program of the organization spoke of its proximity to social democracy, but at the same time contained the basic postulates of populism, in particular, the view of the peasantry as a force of the socialist revolution. Expressing the belief that workers would be the most active part of the organization, the program relied on terror. The organizers were arrested on March 1, 1887 before the assassination attempt on Alexander III and executed.

Attempts to revive Narodnaya Volya continued throughout the 1890s, testifying to the vitality of the movement, which promoted slogans of civil liberties and the transfer of land to peasants.

At the beginning of the XX century. the Socialist-Revolutionary Party was created, which declared itself the successor of the "Narodnaya Volya".

Revolutionary emigration.Since the early 1880s. revolutionary emigration has grown noticeably. In Geneva, the “Bulletin of Narodnaya Volya” began to appear, edited by L. A. Tikhomirov, P. L. Lavrov, G. V. Plekhanov.

G.V. Plekhanov

Having emigrated in 1880, Georgy Valentinovich Plekhanov(1856 - 1918) met the French Social Democrats J. Guesde and P. Lafargue, studied the works of K. Marx. In the first issue of the Bulletin of Narodnaya Volya, he already predicted the coming of the social-democratic period of the movement in Russia. The editorial board of Vestnik refused the next job by Plekhanov. It came out as a separate pamphlet entitled Socialism and Political Struggle. It criticized Narodnaya Volya's belief in the possibility of combining a political revolution with a socialist one. Plekhanov argued that in Russia there is still no ground for socialism, and "decrees cannot create conditions alien to the very nature of modern economic relations."

In 1883 Plekhanov and his associates (V.I. Zasulich, L.G. Deich, and others) founded a group "Emancipation of Labor" ... Its main business is the propaganda of Marxism. The group organized the publication of Marx's works in Russian, creating the Library of Contemporary Socialism.

In his work "Our Differences" (1885), Plekhanov gave an analysis of what divided the Narodnaya Volya people from the former black-redirectors who had come to Marxism. The crux of the disagreement was the understanding of the nature and driving forces of the Russian revolution. Plekhanov showed the illusory hopes for a seizure of power by means of a conspiracy. The Narodnaya Volya were "a headquarters without an army" and, even having seized power, they could not have retained it. Disputing 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.

Liberal populism.In the 1880s - 1890s. the reformist trend in populism is growing much faster than the revolutionary trend. Its definition as liberal is conditional. By its nature, like populism in general, it is an anti-bourgeois ideology that protested against capitalism.

After the closure of Otechestvennye Zapiski in 1884, the journal Russkoe Bogatstvo became the main organ of populist democracy. The leading role in it belonged to Nikolai Konstantinovich Mikhailovsky(1842 - 1904). Prominent publicists V. P. Vorontsov, N. F. Danielson, S. N. Krivenko, S. N. Yuzhakov and others collaborated in the journal. They did a lot to study the processes taking place in the village of the post-reform era, the state of the community.

The greatest authority for the raznochinskaya intelligentsia was N.K. Mikhailovsky. He defended his political program, which in legal journalism fit into the words "light and freedom". But the Narodniks lost interest in politics: their thoughts in the 1880s - 1890s. focused on "Small affairs" , to substantiate the significance of which a special theory arose.

N.K. Mikhailovsky

Liberal populists of the 1880s - 1890s advocated universal primary education, the abolition of corporal punishment and the introduction of a small zemstvo unit. The zemstvo could not cope with the solution of village problems from the county center. Another lower echelon of local self-government was required to bring it closer to the peasantry. As before, the Narodniks insisted on supporting the "people's system", "people's production", arguing the need to make it easier for the peasants to acquire land. The program of liberal Narodism, if implemented, would just contribute to the processes against which it opposed: the development of bourgeois relations in the countryside.

Defending the non-capitalist path of development, N.K. Mikhailovsky and his supporters entered into a dispute with the Marxists. Everything that the Marxists considered the norm and hailed as manifestations of progress - the ruin of the peasantry, the growth of the proletariat, the aggravation of class contradictions - Mikhailovsky assessed negatively.

The Raznochinskaya intelligentsia basically supported Mikhailovsky in his polemics with the Marxists, whose ranks in the country were still small. V.I. Lenin in the mid-1890s. just beginning to declare himself as their leader. GV Plekhanov and his associates stayed abroad. Narodism remained a serious social force, expressing the interests of the peasantry.

In the national consciousness, the undermining of the foundations of peasant life was associated with a threat to the country as a whole. In the dispute about the historical necessity of capitalism, the discussion, in fact, was about the fate of millions of peasants, about breaking their foundations of life. The Narodniks turned away from Marxism due to not only ideological, but also psychological and moral motives. Narodnik thought continued to seek opportunities to stop the advance of capitalism.

Liberal movement.The political activity of the liberals in the reign of Alexander III declines: many are leaving politics, turning to economic and educational activities in the zemstvo. Liberal figures were grouped around Vestnik Evropy, Russkaya Mysl and the newspaper Russkiye Vedomosti. In liberal journalism, capitalism was recognized as a progressive system, inevitable for Russia. The ideologists of liberalism considered the system of capitalist relations to be the “final point of social development”. And socialism for them was an expression of "confusion of concepts."

But Russian capitalism did not quite suit the liberals. They dreamed of capitalist progress within the framework of law and order. Liberal publications spoke in favor of a policy regulating spontaneous processes in the economy. Speaking for state intervention in the sphere of private entrepreneurship, "when it can harm the masses," they demanded state control over commercial banks and enterprises.

The ideologists of liberalism BN Chicherin, KD Kavelin, VA Goltsev, like ordinary publicists of the liberal press, defended the legacy of the great reforms from the attacks of the "guardians". They saw the continuation of the reforms as the only correct path for the country. Kavelin's words, spoken by him shortly before his death: “Not revolution, not reaction, but reforms,” can be considered the motto of liberalism.

Liberal movement in the last quarter of the 19th century. growing mainly due to the zemstvo opposition. Liberal groups have formed in many zemstvos. They were quite strong in the Tver, Kaluga, Novgorod zemstvos. Scattered liberal groups and circles tended to consolidate. The Zemsky Union ceased to exist in the very first years of reaction. The ideological and organizational center of the liberal movement was Free Economic Society ... The society, especially its Literacy Committee, studied the activities of zemstvos in the field of education, helping zemstvo teachers and libraries. The unrevolutionary "overthrow" of the government was to follow as a result of the education of the masses. The people had to realize their strengths, rights and the need to "govern themselves."

The activities of the Free Economic Society displeased the government. In a note from the Police Department of the 90s. society appears as the center of the anti-government opposition. Under the pressure of multiplying obstacles, it ceased its activities in 1898. But the more the authorities put obstacles in the way of the liberal movement, the more oppositional moods grew in it.

Conservatives.During the reign of Alexander III, conservative thought was noticeably revived, although not renewed. Conservatives feel confident and at ease. Their publications are multiplying, not experiencing the same constraints that fell on the liberal and democratic press. The most authoritative were Katkov's publications Moskovskie vedomosti and Russkiy Vestnik. Their prestige began to decline after the death of the editor-publisher in 1887. VP Meshchersky's "Citizen" was supported by government subsidies. For Moskovskiye Vedomosti, government announcements, traditionally given to this newspaper, remained a form of financial support from the authorities.

Common to the conservatives was the demand for a "return to the roots" - the elimination from Russian life of the principles introduced by the reforms of the 1860s. The reforms were seen as the reason for the disorganization of economic life and the violation of the "organic development" of Russian statehood. In the speeches of KP Pobedonostsev, MN Katkov, the philosophers KN Leont'ev and VV Rozanov, the imperfections of Western democracy, its costs are presented as its essence and are used to prove the unsuitability of this form of government. Parliamentarism called Pobedonostsev “the great lie of our time”. Autocratic monarchy is the highest form of power, capable of expressing the true popular aspirations without intermediaries.

The "guardians" still refused to acknowledge the existence of the agrarian question in the country. The conservative press argued that it was not the size of the allotment that determined the strength of the peasant economy, but the means of processing it and the possibility of earning it on the side.

The Conservatives did not create their own organizations. But their influential groupings existed in the zemstvo and noble assemblies, as well as in the highest spheres of power.

Russian social life in the last quarter of the 19th century. it became much more complicated, being represented by numerous trends and groupings: the populists of the old and the newest persuasion, early Marxists, liberals of various shades, Slavophiles, "guardians". All these social forces were at enmity with each other. Meanwhile, liberals and conservatives, liberals and populists, populists and Marxists had their points of contact. But KD Kavelin's dream of a consensus never came true.

Questions and tasks

1. Did the government manage to liquidate the revolutionary movement in Russia? In what form and on what scale did it continue to exist? 2.

Expand the essence of the program of assistance to the countryside, developed by the liberal populists. Which of its provisions were realistic and which were utopian? 3. What changes took place in the liberal movement in the 1880s? 4.

Why was the 1880s the heyday of Russian conservatism? Justify your answer.