A Re-examination of Plekhanov’s Thought in the Course of the Russian Revolution

Plekhanov’s life was intimately bound up with the Russian Revolution. Whether his theory and practice, his successes and failures, can only be better understood against the backdrop of the Russian socialist movement. However, past studies of Plekhanov have mostly focused on his theoretical activities, with relatively few examining his political activities; moreover, they are largely confined to evaluating his personal merits and demerits, lacking a deep grasp of the historical characteristics of the Russian Revolution. In view of this, this article attempts to start from the internal thread of the Russian Revolution, re-examine Plekhanov’s political activities, and hopes that through this re-examination, it can deepen our understanding of the characteristics of the Russian Revolution.

普列汉诺夫的一生与俄国革命息息相关。无论他的理论与实践、成功与失败，都只有放在俄国社会主义运动的背景下才能更好地加以理解。然而，历来研究普列汉诺夫理论活动者居多，研究其政治活动者相对较少，且多局限于对他个人功过是非的评价，缺乏对俄国革命历史特点的深入把握。鉴于此，本文力图从俄国革命的内在线索出发，重新考察普列汉诺夫的政治活动，并希望从这种再考察出发加深对俄国革命特点的认识。

I

一

It is a well-known fact that Plekhanov’s transformation from a populist into a Marxist, beginning with the organization of the Emancipation of Labour Group, opened a new page in the history of the Russian Revolution. But against what background did this event occur? General studies all follow this explanation: at that time, Russian capitalism was developing rapidly, and the strength of the working class was continuously growing. The populists were already in decline, and the times urgently needed a new doctrine to guide the new revolutionary movement. Plekhanov’s transformation and the beginning of the Russian Marxist movement were precisely the inevitable result of the above reality. The problem with this statement is that it replaces concrete historical analysis with general theoretical deduction, which does not quite match the actual situation. To conduct concrete historical analysis, one must first examine the state of economic development at the time.

普列汉诺夫由民粹主义者转变为马克思主义者，以组织“劳动解放社”为起点，揭开了俄国革命史上新的一页，这是尽人皆知的事实。但这一事件是在怎样的背景下发生的？一般研究都沿袭如下解释：当时俄国资本主义发展迅速，工人阶级力量不断成长壮大。民粹派已日暮途穷，时代迫切需要新的学说来指导新的革命运动。普列汉诺夫的转变和俄国马克思主义运动的开始正是上述现实的必然结果。这种说法的问题在于：它用一般的理论推断代替具体的历史分析，与实际情况不甚相符。进行具体的历史分析，要首先考察当时的经济发展状况。

The reform of 1861 [1]1 The reform of 1861 refers to the emancipation of the serfs in Russia, a major reform initiated by Tsar Alexander II. opened the way for the development of capitalism in Russia, but development in the first thirty years was not smooth. On the one hand, this was due to the backwardness of technology; on the other hand, it was because the widespread existence of pre-capitalist economic relations and the deeply entrenched bureaucratic system set up numerous obstacles to the development of capitalism. After the 1860s, a series of industrial sectors important to capitalism were gradually established, but the application of advanced technology was still very slow. Even in the cotton textile industry, which was the first to use machinery, it was only after the 1870s that handloom weaving was gradually phased out; as for sectors like mining, technological renewal was not gradually achieved until after the 1890s. Because large-scale machine industry was slow to establish, domestic handicrafts and scattered manufacture long occupied an important position. In commerce, the capitalist market, constrained by the natural economy, did not expand quickly between the 1860s and 1880s and was extremely unstable. In agriculture, the intrusion of capitalist commodity economy was widely resisted by the labour-service system and sharecropping in many provinces, which played a certain role in hindering capitalist development. So in fact, in the national economic life of the 1860s–1880s, capitalist and pre-capitalist relations were mixed, old and new intertwined, and did not show a clear advantage. Especially from the early 1880s, marked by the accession of Alexander II in 1881 and the economic crisis of 1882, Russia’s economic development entered a period of stagnation lasting about ten years.

1861年的改革为资本主义在俄国的发展开辟了道路，但前30年发展并不顺利。一方面是由于技术水平的落后；另一方面也是因为前资本主义经济关系的普遍存在、根深蒂固的官僚制度为资本主义的发展设置了重重障碍。19世纪60年代以后，陆续建立起了一系列对资本主义具有重要意义的工业部门，但是，先进技术的应用仍然十分迟缓，即使最早使用机器的棉纺织业，也是到了19世纪70年代之后才逐步淘汰手摇纺织；至于采矿业等部门，直到19世纪90年代以后才逐渐实现技术更新。由于机器大工业迟迟难以建立，家庭手工业和分散的工场手工业长期占据重要地位。在商业中，资本主义的销售市场由于受到自然经济的抑制，在19世纪60—80年代扩展得并不快，且极不稳定。在农业中，许多省份普遍存在着工役制和对分制对资本主义商品经济的侵入，对资本主义发展起到了一定阻滞作用。所以事实上，在19世纪60—80年代的国民经济生活中，资本主义与前资本主义关系新旧参半、彼此交织，并未显示出明显优势。特别是从19世纪80年代初开始，以1881年亚历山大二世继位和1882年经济危机为标志，俄国经济发展进入一个持续十年左右的停滞期。

Related to the above economic situation, during this period the number of industrial workers in Russia grew to a certain extent, and their consciousness also improved, but they had not yet formed an independent class politically. Most workers had a strong peasant consciousness and were indifferent to political life; although a few workers’ organizations had appeared in some industrial centres, they were basically under the influence of populism. Comparing the above facts, using the economic and class conditions of Russia in the early 1880s to argue for Plekhanov’s transformation is somewhat far-fetched, because this is only a specious argument and does not conform to Marx’s method of historical materialism.

与上述经济情况相联系，在此期间，俄国产业工人数量有一定增长，自觉性也有所提高，但尚未在政治上形成一个独立的阶级。大多数工人具有浓厚的农民意识，对政治生活表现淡漠，少数工人组织虽已在一些工业中心出现，但基本上处于民粹主义影响之下。对照以上事实，用19世纪80年代初俄国的经济和阶级状况论证普列汉诺夫的转变，未免有些牵强，因为这只是一种似是而非的论证，并不符合马克思历史唯物主义的研究方法。

In fact, Lenin’s relevant thesis has already made this issue very clear. He said that between 1884 and 1894, “the Social-Democratic Party existed without a working-class movement,” and “the theoretical doctrine of Social-Democracy also arose completely independently of the spontaneous growth of the working-class movement; it arose as the natural and inevitable result of the ideological development of the revolutionary socialist intelligentsia.” [2]2 This is a paraphrase of Lenin’s argument in *What Is To Be Done?* (1902) about the relationship between socialist consciousness and the spontaneous working-class movement. This statement grasps the essence of the problem, namely, rather than mechanically attributing the Russian Marxist movement founded by Plekhanov to the economic and class conditions of the time, one should seek the real cause in the history of the development of Russian social thought.

其实，列宁的相关论断早已把这一问题讲得非常清楚。他说，在1884—1894年间，“社会民主党是在没有工人运动的条件下存在的”，“社会民主党的理论学说也是完全不依赖于工人运动的自发增长而产生的，它的产生是革命的社会主义知识分子的思想发展的自然和必然的结果”。这句话抓住了问题的实质，即与其机械地把普列汉诺夫创始的俄国马克思主义运动归之于当时的经济和阶级状况，不如到俄国社会思想史的发展中寻找真正的原因。

It is well known that from the mid-19th century onward, several generations of advanced Russian intellectuals made arduous intellectual efforts to seek the freedom and happiness of their people. Among them, figures such as Herzen, Chernyshevsky, and the populists of the 1870s had distinct characteristics: on the one hand, they were convinced that their country could use its unique conditions (the rural commune) to take an independent path of development different from that of Western Europe; on the other hand, they eagerly sought the latest intellectual achievements of the West, hoping to combine the two so that Russia could skip the suffering of capitalism and leap directly to socialism. This unique intellectual mixture was most prominent among the populists of the 1870s. At that time, while the populist theorists vigorously promoted the ideal of their backward small peasants, almost all of them also bore the shadow of Marx’s doctrine. To a certain extent, introducing and citing Marx became a fashion in Russian intellectual circles in the 1870s. This unconsciously prepared in advance the critical weapon for overcoming the populists’ own errors.

众所周知，从19世纪中期开始，几代先进的俄国知识分子为探求本国人民的自由幸福，付出了艰辛的思想努力。他们中如赫尔岑、车尔尼雪夫斯基和19世纪70年代的民粹派等存在鲜明特点：一方面确信本国可利用自己的独特条件（农村公社）走不同于西欧的独立发展道路；另一方面又如饥似渴地寻求西方的最新思想成就，希望两者结合使俄国跳过资本主义苦难，直接跨向社会主义。这种独特的思想混合在19世纪70年代民粹派那里表现得最为突出。当时的民粹主义理论家在大力宣扬其落后小农的理想时，几乎又都存在着马克思学说的影子。在一定程度上，介绍、引证马克思成了19世纪70年代俄国思想界的一种风尚。这也就不自觉地为克服民粹派自身的错误提前准备了批判武器。

It was in this atmosphere of the times that Plekhanov threw himself into political work. His early writings already showed that he had a considerable understanding of Marxism. As the populist movement suffered repeated setbacks, a minority of advanced intellectuals inevitably began to doubt the doctrines they had previously believed in without question. Around the early 1880s, Gleb Ivanovich Uspensky [3]3 Gleb Ivanovich Uspensky (1843–1902) was a Russian writer known for his realistic portrayals of peasant life, which often challenged populist idealizations. in his literary works revealed how ignorant and backward the Russian peasants, whom the populists had sanctified, actually were, while Plekhanov, Axelrod, and others began to question the old dogmas intellectually. It was precisely by drawing on the achievements already made by previous Russian intellectual circles that Plekhanov and others, through reflection, quickly moved towards Marxism. According to the recollections of Lev Grigorievich Deutsch, one of the earliest members of the Emancipation of Labour Group, Plekhanov began to doubt populism around 1879–1880. In an article published in early 1880, “The Land Commune and Its Possible Future,” while defending orthodox populist views, Plekhanov expressed deep concern about the possibility of the commune being completely destroyed by capitalist pressure. Faced with troubling questions, after more than two years of careful 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, which still held an absolute dominant position in the revolutionary camp, and in the same year, together with four others, he organized the Emancipation of Labour Group. In summary, the decisive driving force behind this ideological transformation was entirely the result of the interaction between the history of Russia’s political movement and ideological evolution and advanced Western thought, not the so-called general statement of capitalist economic development. In other words, when Plekhanov turned to Marxism, he had in fact transcended the limitations of his country’s economic conditions and obtained the advanced spiritual achievements of the entire world.

普列汉诺夫正是在这样的时代氛围中投身政治事业的。他的早期著作已显示出他对马克思主义有相当了解。随着民粹运动的不断受挫，少数先进知识分子必然会对自己之前笃信不疑的学说产生怀疑。大约在19世纪80年代初，格列布·伊万诺维奇·乌斯宾斯基就在自己的文学作品中展现了被民粹派奉为神圣的俄国农民实则多么愚昧落后，而普列汉诺夫、阿克雪里罗得等人则在思想上对以往的信条提出了质疑。普列汉诺夫等人正是借由先前俄国思想界已取得的成就，在反思中很快走向马克思主义。按照“劳动解放社”最早成员之一列·格·捷依奇的回忆，普列汉诺夫是从1879—1880年对民粹主义产生怀疑的。在1880年初发表的《土地公社及其可能的前途》一文中，普列汉诺夫在维护民粹派正统观念的同时，对村社被资本主义压力完全摧毁的可能性表示出深深的忧虑。面对令人困扰的问题，普列汉诺夫经过两年多的细心钻研，终于确认，马克思主义才是唯一能使他脱离迷宫的“引路之线”。1883年，他提出，应该对至今仍在革命阵营中占绝对优势的民粹主义理论作系统的批判的评价，并于同年，与其他四人一起组织“劳动解放社”。综上所述，造成这种思想转变的决定性推动力，完全是俄国政治运动和思想演变史与西欧先进思想之间交互作用的结果，而非因所谓的资本主义经济发展这种笼统的说法。换句话说，当普列汉诺夫转向马克思主义时，他在事实上已超出了本国的经济条件局限，获致了整个世界的先进精神成果。

From this ideological transformation of Plekhanov, it can be seen that the Russian Marxist movement from its very beginning had the gene of “leapfrog development,” which also formed a sharp contrast with the progressivist view of history advocated by the Second International at the time.

从普列汉诺夫这一思想转变可以看出，俄国马克思主义运动从一开始就具有“超越式发展”的基因，这也和当时第二国际所倡导的进步主义历史观形成了鲜明的对比。

II

二

The above background determined the basic direction and features of Plekhanov’s theoretical and political activities during the most brilliant period of his life, the 1880s–1890s.

上述背景决定了1880—1890年间普列汉诺夫一生中最光辉时期的理论及政治活动的基本方向和面貌。

The task that Plekhanov shouldered was to prove in advance the historical necessity and its mission, before Russian capitalism had fully developed and before the working class had truly stepped onto the historical stage independently. This was undoubtedly an arduous undertaking. This work possessed two characteristics: first, the focus had to be placed on theory, because theoretical activity itself was the greatest politics of this period; second, within theory, one had to lean toward philosophy, because the conditions of the age were insufficient to prove the necessary preconditions and possibilities of capitalism from a purely economic angle, whereas philosophy, by grasping the totality of things in their past, present and future, could provide an abstract but extremely useful method for social analysis. Plekhanov possessed rich philosophical cultivation, so it was he, and no one else in the Emancipation of Labour Group, who could, in that era when the actual economic level was far from adequate, forcefully demonstrate the future trend of Russian social development. Many people took exception to this, reproaching Plekhanov for leaning from the outset toward philosophical abstraction while neglecting the concreteness and specificity of practice, and even believing that Plekhanov’s emphasis on dialectical materialism committed the same error as the Second International, namely, succumbing to a passive fatalism. I find it difficult to agree with this view.

普列汉诺夫所担负的任务是，要在俄国资本主义充分发展和工人阶级真正独立走上历史舞台之前，预先证明历史必然性及其使命。这无疑是一项艰巨的工作。这项工作具备两个特性：第一，必须把重心放在理论方面，因为理论活动本身就是这一时期最大的政治；第二，在理论方面又不得不偏重于哲学，因为时代条件并不充分，不足以从纯经济角度来证明资本主义的必然前提和可能性，而哲学则能从事物的过去、现在和未来的总体把握中，为社会分析提供一种抽象但极其有用的方法。普列汉诺夫有丰富的哲学素养，所以，正是他而不是“劳动解放社”中任何其他人，能够在那个实际经济水平远远不足的年代有力地证明俄国社会发展的未来趋势。许多人对此不以为然，责备普列汉诺夫一开始就偏重于哲学的抽象性，忽略了实践的具体性和特殊性，甚至认为普列汉诺夫对辩证唯物主义的强调犯了和第二国际同样的错误，即都屈从于一种消极的宿命论。这种看法恕难苟同。

In fact, Plekhanov’s understanding of historical materialism is explained very clearly in his text *The Development of the Monist View of History*. He recognized that it was precisely because Marx’s doctrine had discovered the governing role of iron necessity that man could become conscious of the sphere of necessity and, to a certain extent, attain the possibility of transcending it. In this process, human reason does not stagnate at existing reality; on the contrary, human reason acts dynamically on the external environment, making reality more rational and subordinating it to the further development of productive forces. “Only after recognizing the internal laws of necessity itself, only after the power of necessity itself has vanquished necessity, can human reason triumph over blind necessity. Therefore, developing knowledge, developing human consciousness, is the greatest and most noble task of the thinker.” From this it can be seen that Plekhanov’s understanding of historical materialism is not a passive historical fatalism, but rather a very active historical theory, one that exalts human reason and endows man with the supreme subjective position in the creation of history.

事实上，普列汉诺夫对唯物史观的认识在《论一元论历史观之发展》这一文本中阐释得十分清楚。他认识到，正是因为马克思的学说发现了铁的必然律的支配作用，才使人有意识于必然的作用范围，并在一定程度上获致超越必然的可能。在这一过程中，人类的理性不会停滞于已有的现实；相反，人的理性将能动地作用于外部环境，将现实更为合理化，并服从于生产力进一步发展的要求，“只有在认识必然性本身的内部规律之后，只有在必然性本身的力量战胜必然性之后，人类的理性才能对盲目的必然性高奏凯歌，所以发展知识、发展人的意识是思想家最伟大最崇高的任务”。据此可知，普列汉诺夫对唯物史观的理解非但不是消极的历史宿命论，反而是十分积极的历史理论，它高扬人的理性，赋予人在历史创造中至高的主体地位。

So, how did Plekhanov use historical materialism to analyze the path of Russian capitalism?

那么，普列汉诺夫是怎样藉由唯物史观来分析俄国资本主义道路的呢？

First, on the basis of the materialist conception of history, he directly shifted the problem from the subjective sphere to the objective sphere. Must Russia “necessarily” pass through capitalism, or “need not” do so? Faced with this question, which the Narodniks most loved to debate, Plekhanov believed that the very way the question was posed was mistaken: the issue was not what one wished, but what the historical facts were. The correct approach was to study the actual historical situation and understand its developmental process. However, at that time, the Russian economy was a mixture of old and new; viewed only from the surface, it had many possibilities for development. It was precisely on this basis that Narodnik theorists denied the inevitability of Russian capitalism. In response to this phenomenon, Plekhanov, applying the analytical method of historical materialism, pointed out that nothing is static; everything is in eternal motion. This required that research, on the one hand, should begin with “actual, real processes” and conduct the most concrete and rigorous empirical investigation of things, and on the other hand, should understand that “phenomena in social life can only be understood in motion, in their process of emergence, development and decline.” This analytical method of historical materialism endowed Plekhanov with a vision unattainable by ordinary empirical observation, enabling him to see the future of capitalism at its early stage of development. For example, at that time Russian capitalism indeed relied heavily on state support, and the Narodniks therefore believed that capitalism had no future in Russia. But Plekhanov pointed out that any new economic and class relations initially exist within old relations, growing up by relying on the old “nutrient broth”; to assert on this basis that the new relations were hopeless was “equivalent to not understanding history.” On the question of the sales market for capitalism, the developmental direction of the rural commune, and many other issues, Plekhanov relied on the scientific logic of dialectics to defeat the Narodniks.

首先，他依据唯物主义历史观，直接把问题由主观领域转移到客观领域。俄国是“必须”还是“无须”经过资本主义？面对这一民粹派最喜欢争论的问题，普列汉诺夫认为，问题的提问方式本身就错了，即问题不在于愿望如何，而在于历史事实如何。正确的做法应是去研究实际的历史情况并理解其发展进程。然而，当时的俄国经济新旧杂陈，只从现象来看，具有诸多发展的可能。民粹派理论家正是据此否认俄国资本主义的必然性。针对这种现象，普列汉诺夫运用历史唯物主义的分析方法指出，没有静止的东西，一切都在永恒的运动中。这便要求研究一方面应以“现实的实际的进程”开始，对事物做最具体、最严格的经验性考察，另一方面又要懂得“社会生活中的诸现象只有在运动中，在自己的发生、发展和没落过程中方能被理解”。这种历史唯物主义的分析方法赋予了普列汉诺夫以一般经验观察无法企及的眼光，使他在资本主义发展的初期便看到了它的未来。例如，当时俄国资本主义的确很大程度上依靠国家扶持，民粹派由此认为资本主义在俄国是没有前途的。但普列汉诺夫指出，任何新的经济和阶级关系起初都处在旧的关系中，是依靠旧有的“营养液”成长起来的，如果由此断言新的关系是毫无希望的，便“等于不懂得历史”。在资本主义的销售市场问题、农村公社的发展方向问题以及其他诸多问题上，普列汉诺夫都是依靠辩证法的科学逻辑战胜了民粹派。

Second, Plekhanov proved the inevitability of Russian capitalism from the negative side. Here, on the basis of historical materialism, he conducted a comprehensive analysis of the social forces on which the Narodniks believed they could rely (such as the peasantry, officers, the enlightened tsar, etc.), pointing out that, limited by their own economic living conditions, these forces simply did not possess the capacity and will that the Narodniks expected of them. This revealed, at a theoretical level, the reasons for the Narodniks’ repeated setbacks in reality. Could the Narodniks, then, rely on their own conspiratorial actions to skip capitalism and directly achieve socialism? Plekhanov clearly believed that relying solely on the bravery, self-sacrifice and heroism of a few people could never achieve this goal. Even if one assumed that 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 power it had seized to the people, but would instead “transform itself into a permanent government.” It would then have only the following choices: either remain indifferent to the growth of capitalism, or “seek a way out in the various ideals of ‘patriarchal and authoritarian communism,’ making only such a change in these ideals that the management of national production would be in the hands not of Peru’s ‘Sons of the Sun’ and their officials, but of a socialist oligarchy.” [4]4 The “Sons of the Sun” refers to the ruling Inca elite in the pre-Columbian Inca Empire, who were believed to be descendants of the sun god Inti. Plekhanov uses this analogy to criticize the Narodnik vision of a hierarchical, authoritarian socialism. In short, without the corresponding foundations for socialism, the future could only be capitalism.

其次，普列汉诺夫从反面证明了俄国资本主义的必然性。在此，普列汉诺夫依据唯物史观，对民粹派认为可依赖的那些社会力量（如农民、军官、开明沙皇，等等）进行了全面分析，指出他们由于自身经济生活条件限定，根本不具有民粹派期望的那种能力和愿望。这就以理论高度揭示了民粹派在现实中屡屡碰壁的原因。那么，民粹派能否依靠他们自己的阴谋行动达到跳过资本主义直接实现社会主义的目的呢？普列汉诺夫对此明确认为，仅靠少数人的豪迈勇敢和自我牺牲是根本达不到目的的。即便假定他们确实靠阴谋夺得了政权，仍然没有任何实现社会主义的可能。那时，他们的“临时政府”是不可能把夺得的政权交给人民，而是会把自己“变成经常性的政府的”。这时它只能做如下抉择：或者是面对资本主义的增长无动于衷，或者是“在‘家长制的和有威权的共产主义’的种种理想中寻找出路，在这些理想中只是做这样的一种改变，使得管理国民生产不是秘鲁的‘太阳之子们’及他们的官吏们而是社会主义的阀阅”。总之，在没有具备社会主义的相应基础的条件下，未来前途只能是资本主义的。

Third, the dialectics of history made Plekhanov’s evaluation of capitalism completely different from that of the Narodniks. In the eyes of the Narodniks, capitalism was absolute evil; Plekhanov, on the other hand, pointed out the progressive significance of capitalism in history. Capitalism certainly brought disaster to small producers, but every social relation has two aspects of its internal contradiction; it can be examined from its present form, or from the direction of its transition to a future, higher social form. The former examination is static, while the latter is dynamic. “What the historian or the practical revolutionary is concerned with is not statics but dynamics, not the conservative aspect but the revolutionary aspect, not the harmony of social relations but their contradiction.” Thus, the progressive character 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 dictates that the revolutionary of the proletariat, while pointing out the inevitability and progressiveness of capitalism, should not, as the Narodniks mockingly suggested, go and open his own capitalist “tavern,” but rather, through propaganda and guidance among the tavern’s hired workers, “expand their strength to oppose the tavern, to resist the tavern owner, to oppose all drunkenness, to the extent that history has given or will give them.”

再次，历史的辩证法使普列汉诺夫对资本主义的评价与民粹派截然不同。在民粹派眼中，资本主义是绝对的罪恶，普列汉诺夫则指出了资本主义在历史上的进步意义。资本主义固然给小生产者带来灾难，但是，任何社会关系都具有其内部矛盾的两个方面，既可以从它的当下形式去考察，也可以从它向未来更高级的社会形式过渡的方向去考察，前一种考察是静态的，而后一种则是动态的。“历史学家或实际的革命家所关心的，不是静态而是动态，不是保守的方面而是革命的方面，不是社会关系的谐和而是其矛盾。”由此，资本主义发展的进步性在于，正是从它的“坏的一面”，从它的苦难中成长出新的社会力量，从而为更高的社会生活形态准备前提。辩证法规定了无产阶级的革命者在指出资本主义的必然性和进步性的同时，并不是要像民粹派所嘲笑的那样，自己也去开起资本主义的“小酒店”，而是要通过对酒店雇工的宣传和引导，“扩大他们反对酒店，反抗酒店主人，反对任何酗酒的力量，扩大到历史所给予或将给予他们的程度”。

To sum up, Plekhanov made maximum use of the materials available at the time to analyse the present state and future of the Russian economy, thereby demonstrating that the bourgeoisie was growing up under the protection of the tsarist system: the number of factories and production techniques were greatly increasing and improving; the number of workers was surging; domestic handicrafts were transforming into large-scale industry; the rural commune was disintegrating and differentiating, and capitalism was penetrating agriculture more and more deeply day by day. In short, the rule of capitalism in Russia was an irreversible reality. This led Plekhanov, in the early 1880s, to firmly believe that Russia’s prospect was “first of all 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 went on to assert: “Russia is on the eve of a change of system.” Therefore, he vigorously called on revolutionary intellectuals to turn their gaze toward the workers: “The experience of our revolutionary movement clearly shows us that relying solely on the strength of the intelligentsia cannot defeat tsarist autocracy. To overthrow it, a new army must be brought into battle—an army that until now has existed only as a potential reserve—that is, the army of the working class.” He also directly pointed out to the workers their immediate tasks and linked these tasks to future goals. He proposed that the future goal of achieving socialism in Russia would not take as long as it had in Western Europe. “Our capitalist flower, before it has time to fully bloom, will wither—this is guaranteed to us by the powerful influence of international relations.” The Russian proletariat should make full theoretical preparations in advance, so as to greatly shorten the distance between the bourgeois revolution and the proletarian revolution.

综上所述，普列汉诺夫最大限度地运用当时的资料，分析了俄国经济的现状和未来，从而证明，资产阶级正在从沙皇制度的庇护中成长起来：工厂数目、生产技术在大大增长着和改善着；工人数目在激增，家庭手工业在向大工业转变；农村公社在分化瓦解，资本主义在日甚一日地向农业中渗透。总之，资本主义在俄国的统治已是不可改变的现实。这使普列汉诺夫在19世纪80年代前期就坚信，俄国的前景“首先将是资产阶级的胜利和工人阶级政治及经济解放的开始”。19世纪 90年代，他又根据资本主义的更大发展进而断言：“俄国正处在制度变更的前夜。”因此，他大力呼吁革命知识分子把眼光转向工人，“我们的革命运动的经验清楚地向我们指明，仅靠知识分子的力量是不能战胜沙皇专制的。为了要推翻它，就必须把一支新军引入战斗——这支部队直到现在还只是潜在的后备队——这就是工人阶级的部队”。他还直接向工人指出他们的当前任务，并把这种任务同未来目标联系起来。他提出，俄国实现社会主义的未来目标将不会经历西欧那样长的时间。“我们的资本主义的花，还来不及完全盛开，就要衰落，这是国际关系的强有力的影响向我们保证的。”俄国无产阶级应当事先做好充分的理论准备，以便使资产阶级革命同无产阶级革命之间的距离大大缩短。

The significance of Plekhanov’s theoretical activities outlined above has not been fully recognised in the past. Stalin once commented that Plekhanov’s influence on the proletariat was, for a certain period, limited to the “upper strata.” This statement may have some truth to it. But it must be understood that it was precisely this influence on the “upper strata” that had more far-reaching historical significance. Because, as mentioned above, Plekhanov carried out the dissemination of Marxism before the Russian workers’ movement had stepped onto the historical stage. His outstanding works, together with the works of Marx and Engels that he vigorously introduced, greatly redirected the ideological direction of Russia’s advanced intellectuals and pre-cultivated a group of figures well-versed in Western European socialist theory and experience. This produced the following consequences: First, unlike in Western Europe, the Russian Marxist party was not formed at a relatively developed stage of the workers’ movement, but rather at its early stage. Mature theory and party running parallel with an immature working-class mass full of spontaneous rebellious spirit constituted a major characteristic of the Russian revolution. Second, from this characteristic inevitably arose a “subjective force” that demanded the formulation of an advanced revolutionary strategy based on the Marxist critique of capitalism. Thus, when Plekhanov vigorously incorporated the Russian revolution into the general current of the international socialist cause, he also endowed it with a unique individuality. 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 was not clearly aware of this, once the historical movement began, it was bound to complete its course according to its own inner logic.

普列汉诺夫上述理论活动的意义在以往并未得到充分认识，斯大林曾评论说，普列汉诺夫对无产阶级的影响只在一定时期内限于“上层”。此说法或许有些道理。但须知，恰恰是这种对“上层”的影响更具有深远的历史意义。因为如前所述，普列汉诺夫是在俄国工人运动走上历史舞台之前展开马克思主义传播活动的，他的那些出色著作同他大力介绍的马克思恩格斯著作一起，极大地扭转了俄国先进知识分子的思想方向，预先培育了一批熟谙西欧社会主义理论和经验的人物。由此产生如下后果：第一，俄国的马克思主义政党不像西欧那样，形成于工人运动较为发展的阶段，而是形成于其早期，成熟的理论和政党与尚未成熟且充满自发反抗精神的工人大众相并行，构成了俄国革命的一大特点；第二，从这种特点中必然产生出要求依据马克思主义对资本主义的批判去制定提前革命战略的“主观力量”。这样一来，当普列汉诺夫大力将俄国革命纳入国际社会主义事业总潮流时，也就使它具有了独特的个性，换句话说，他所代表、所推动的理论超越阶段为后来的实践超越阶段打下了基础。虽然普列汉诺夫本人并没有清楚地意识到这一点，但历史运动一经开始，必然要按照自己的内在逻辑走完全程。

III

三

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 them was that Lenin advocated relying on the consciousness and rigour of theory. In his view, “to inspire our movement, which is a thousand times broader and deeper than that of the 1870s revolutionaries, with their spirit of self-sacrifice and determination,” would surely enable the Russian revolution to transcend the general historical sequence and become the vanguard of international socialism. Plekhanov, fearing the possible consequences of Lenin’s position, rejected the position itself. However, Lenin’s position was objectively based precisely on the pre-existing tendency of previous socialist movements to leapfrog stages and on the sharp contradictions of early Russian capitalism. Plekhanov’s rejection of Lenin’s position was tantamount to denying the further unfolding of his own earlier theoretical activity. This contradiction led to a series of political defeats for him.

在革命阶段开始之后，普列汉诺夫却成了悲剧人物。这一时期，他在政治上的主要对手是列宁。二者争论的实质在于，列宁主张依靠理论的自觉性和严密性，在他看来，“用我们的先驱者即70年代的革命家那种献身的决心和毅力，来鼓舞我们的比当时更广阔和更深刻千百倍的运动”，就一定能使俄国革命跨越一般历史程序，成为国际社会主义的先锋队。普列汉诺夫则由于担心列宁主张的可能后果，而拒斥这一主张本身。但是，列宁的主张在客观上依据的恰恰是以往社会主义运动的提前定势和俄国早期资本主义的尖锐矛盾。普列汉诺夫拒斥列宁这一主张无异于否定他自己之前的理论活动的进一步展开。这种矛盾性招致了他在政治上的一系列失败。

The first issue concerned the question of party organisation. Plekhanov had struggled for twenty years to build a mature socialist party in Russia, so it is no surprise that at the Second Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party he supported Lenin against Martov. However, shortly afterwards, under pressure from the Mensheviks, he shifted to a conciliatory and compromising position. Thereafter, he consistently advocated that all factions within the party transcend their differences and unite, emphasising that “party unity is absolutely necessary.” Why did Plekhanov, who had always been known for his sharpness in theoretical debates, now develop a fondness for organisational conciliation? The reason was that he considered organisational issues, compared with party unity, to be mere “details.” But what caused him to place unity above organisational rigour? This was because his view of the party’s significance in the Russian revolution differed greatly from Lenin’s. Lenin believed that the conscious mastery of theory made the ability, initiative, and perseverance of Social Democrats far superior to those of the ordinary working-class masses, and therefore it was necessary “to place the mighty force of the millions of workers who are rising ‘spontaneously’ to struggle under their command (if one may put it that way)!” Thus, the party’s own high degree of centralisation and strict division of labour became of paramount importance. Plekhanov, like the vast majority of socialists who thought in the Western European manner, was convinced that socialist revolution was a product of historical development itself, that the party could only play a catalytic role in this process and could not artificially manufacture revolution. This was also the mainstream view of the Second International at the time. From the perspective of general historical theory, this was, of course, correct. But the problem was that the fact that the Russian socialist party was far ahead of the class it was supposed to represent did provide the immense possibility for the party to seize state power by “commanding” the working-class masses. And it was precisely this possibility that Lenin seized. Plekhanov, fearing that Lenin’s organisational plan would “realise the ideal of the Persian king,” that is, lead to the autocratic dictatorship of the Central Committee, was unwilling to consider this possibility. This determined that Plekhanov could not become a true leader in the practical stage of the Russian revolution.

第一个是关于政党组织的问题。普列汉诺夫为在俄国建立一个成熟的社会主义政党奋斗了20年，所以毫不奇怪，他在俄国社会民主工党二大上支持列宁而反对马尔托夫。然而，事后不久他却在孟什维克的压力下转向调和折中的立场。此后，他始终主张党内各派超越分歧、团结起来，强调“党的统一是绝对必要的”。为什么历来在理论争论中以态度尖锐著称的普列汉诺夫这时却爱好起组织调和了呢？原因在于，他认为组织问题同党的统一相比，只是“细节”。但是什么原因使他把统一放在组织的严密性之上呢？这是由于他对政党在俄国革命中的意义的观点与列宁大不相同。列宁认为，理论的自觉掌握使社会民主党人的能力、首创精神和毅力大大高于一般工人群众，因此应当“把‘自发地’起来进行斗争的工人阶级千百万人的强大力量交给（假使可以这样说的话）他们指挥”！这样，党自身的高度集中、严密分工就具有了至关重要的意义。普列汉诺夫则同绝大多数按照西欧方式思维的社会主义者一样，确信社会主义革命是历史发展本身的产物，党只能在这一过程中起到催化作用而不能人为地制造革命，这也是当时第二国际时期的主流观点。从一般历史观来看，这当然是对的。但问题在于，俄国社会主义政党大大领先于它所要代表的阶级这一事实，确实提供了该党通过“指挥”工人大众取得政权的极大可能性。而列宁正是抓住了这一可能。普列汉诺夫由于害怕列宁的组织计划会“实现了波斯国王的理想”，即导致中央委员会的专制独裁，而不愿考虑这种可能，这也就决定了普列汉诺夫无法在俄国革命的实践阶段成为真正的领导人。

The second issue concerns revolution. Plekhanov always held firmly to the conviction that socialism could only be built on the material achievements of capitalism, and from this he deduced that Russia first needed capitalist economic development and a bourgeois democratic revolution to clear the obstacles to economic growth. Theoretically, this was undoubtedly correct. However, he had to confront the following problem: when socialist theory and a socialist party took shape in Russia ahead of schedule, adding an entirely new political factor to the bourgeois democratic revolution, what was to be done? Clearly, different choices were possible here. Lenin believed that this new “subjective force” should be used to boldly exclude the bourgeoisie and let the proletarian party itself push forward the bourgeois revolution, and after victory was won, to rapidly shift it into the stage of socialist revolution. This choice was unacceptable to Plekhanov. Plekhanov had a considerable understanding of the proletariat’s consciousness and initiative in the democratic revolution, as well as of the bourgeoisie’s conservative and compromising nature. For example, during the 1905 revolution, he declared that the proletariat “must play the decisive role”; he attacked the bourgeoisie for “showing not the slightest intention of becoming soldiers of the revolutionary army”; and he stressed that the proletarian party should maintain its independence, and so on. Yet despite all this, he remained convinced that it was harmful to talk of a socialist revolution to seize power before the corresponding material conditions existed. The proletarian party could consciously become aware of the future socialist tasks even during the stage of opposing the autocratic system, but it could never alter the general course of history on the basis of ideals alone. Therefore, Plekhanov’s strategy was to demand that the socialist party consciously push the bourgeoisie (even if it was useless) to oppose autocratic rule, forcing it to create the conditions for a future socialist revolution, and never to “do what others should do” [7]7 “Do what others should do” (越俎代庖) is a classical Chinese idiom from the Zhuangzi, meaning to take over another’s role or duty. itself. This determined that he very naturally regarded Lenin’s strategy as “Blanquism” and condemned it relentlessly; even after the October Revolution of 1917, he still cried out loudly: “No, our working class, for its own sake and for the sake of the country, is far from being able to take all state power into its own hands. To impose such power on it means to push it onto the path of the greatest historical disaster, a disaster that would at the same time be the greatest disaster for all of Russia.” However, the fatal weakness of this great theorist at this point was that he had unconsciously sunk to the level of the very accomplice in the “tavern” [8]8 The “tavern” (小酒店) is a metaphor Plekhanov used in his early writings to criticize the capitalist system; here the author refers back to that metaphor to highlight Plekhanov’s inconsistency. that he had opposed in his early years. We still recall that he had demanded that socialists teach the employees of the capitalist “tavern” to oppose the tavern-owner; now, when these employees hoped to seize the management of the tavern in one stroke, he stopped them on the grounds of the tavern’s scale of development and the employees’ level of management. No matter how good his intentions or how thorough his thinking, such a position was very difficult to succeed with in the actual movement of the Russian revolution.

第二个是关于革命的问题。普列汉诺夫始终抱定信念，认为社会主义只能凭借资本主义的物质成就建立起来，并据此推论，俄国首先需要资本主义的经济发展，需要资产阶级的民主革命来扫清经济发展的障碍。从理论上说，这无疑是正确的。然而，他不得不面对这样一个问题：当社会主义理论和政党在俄国提前形成，给资产阶级民主革命添加了一个全新的政治因素时，应该怎么办？显然，这里出现了不同选择的可能。列宁认为，应当利用这种新的“主观力量”，大胆地排斥资产阶级，由无产阶级政党自己去推动资产阶级革命。在革命取得胜利后迅速使之转向社会主义革命阶段。这种选择是普列汉诺夫无法接受的。普列汉诺夫对无产阶级在民主革命中的自觉性、主动性，以及对资产阶级的保守妥协性，都有相当的认识。例如在1905年革命中，他宣布，无产阶级“一定要起决定性的作用”；抨击资产阶级“丝毫不打算成为革命军队的战士”；强调无产阶级政党应保持自己的独立性，等等。但尽管如此，他始终确信在没有相应的物质条件之前，谈论夺取政权的社会主义革命是有害的。无产阶级政党可以在反对专制制度的阶段就自觉地意识到未来的社会主义任务，但绝不能凭理想改变历史的一般进程。因此，普列汉诺夫的策略是，要求社会主义政党自觉地去推动资产阶级（即便它是不中用的）反对专制统治，逼迫它为未来的社会主义革命创造条件，而决不应自己去“越俎代庖”。这决定了他很自然地把列宁的策略视为“布朗基主义”，并不遗余力地加以谴责；甚至直到1917年十月革命之后，他还大声呼吁：“不，我国工人阶级为了自己和国家的利益还远不能把全部政权夺到自己手中来。把这样的政权强加给它，就意味着把它推上最大的历史灾难的道路，这样的灾难同时也会是整个俄国的最大灾难。”然而，这位伟大理论家此时的致命伤在于，他已不知不觉地沦落到他自己早年反对的“小酒店”同谋者的地步了。我们还记得，他曾要求社会主义者教导资本主义“小酒店”的雇工去反对酒店主，现在当这些雇工希望一举夺过酒店管理权时，他却根据这一酒店的发展规模和雇工们的管理水平来制止他们。不论他的用心如何良苦、思考如何周全，这样的主张在俄国革命的实际运动中是很难成功的。

The third issue concerns war. As is well known, Plekhanov adopted a defensist position during the First World War. Lenin sharply attacked him for this, considering that he had degenerated into a traitor. But what caused this change? Was it merely the result of his early military academy experience? In fact, this was not the case; the reason still lay in his mistaken assessment of the course of the Russian revolution. Since the realization of socialism in Russia had to be premised on the full development of capitalism, “everything that delays our country’s economic development is a supporter of our country’s reactionary forces, because these reactionary forces are the special political consequence of Russia’s economic backwardness.” If Germany defeated Russia in the war, it would retard Russia’s economic development and thereby postpone the realization of the socialist goal. It was this reasoning that prompted Plekhanov, an opponent of the tsarist government, to advocate defending his country against German invasion. But would not Russia’s defeat lead to a revolutionary situation, thereby providing a great opportunity for the proletarian party to seize power? Lenin’s slogan “the defeat of one’s own government” was based precisely on this analysis; Plekhanov, however, rejected it, because in his view such a course would only bring disaster. Yet the history of political movements does not obey the theories of historical development. In 1917, the laboring masses, driven beyond endurance by Russian capitalism and the world war, quickly united around the anti-war position under Lenin’s powerful appeal, and Plekhanov was defeated once again.

第三个是关于战争的问题。众所周知，普列汉诺夫在第一次世界大战中采取的是护国主义立场。列宁对此进行了尖锐抨击，认为他堕落为叛徒。但什么原因造成了这种转变呢？难道仅仅是他早年军校的经历引起的吗？事实并非如此，原因仍在于他对俄国革命进程的错误估计。既然俄国社会主义的实现必须以资本主义的充分发展为前提，所以“凡是延缓我国经济发展的事物，都是我国反动势力的支持者，因为这种反动势力是俄国境内经济落后状态的特殊的政治后果”。德国如果在战争中战胜俄国，便将阻滞俄国经济的发展，从而推迟社会主义目标的实现。正是这种推论促使普列汉诺夫这个沙皇政府的反对者，主张保卫自己的国家不受德国的侵犯。但是，难道俄国的失败不会导致革命形势的到来，从而为无产阶级政党夺取政权提供一个大好机会吗？列宁提出的“使本国政府失败”的口号，正是依据这种分析得来的；而普列汉诺夫则对此表示拒绝，因为在他看来，这种做法只会引来灾难。然而，政治运动的历史并不服从于历史发展的理论。1917年，被俄国资本主义和世界大战摧残得无法忍受的劳动群众，一经列宁强有力的感召，很快在反战的立场上团结起来，普列汉诺夫再次失败。

In summing up the various political errors of Plekhanov described above, many commentators attribute the cause to his “dogmatism,” or to the “mechanism” or “vulgar materialism” in his philosophical thought — for example, that he only spoke of the determining role of the economy and not of the reaction of politics, and so on. These statements may not be fair; Plekhanov’s critics often fall into a vulgar dualism or “factor theory,” even criticizing what is correct. In the view of this article, the cause of Plekhanov’s political errors does not lie in his conception of history. For Plekhanov never, like other Marxists of his time (for example, Paul Lafargue), called the conception of history he believed in “economic materialism.” He was deeply convinced that before using the economy to explain historical phenomena, the economy itself first needed to be explained. “Society is by no means a mechanical sum of various factors; there is only one factor in society, and that is man.” Therefore, “if one wants to seriously understand historical materialism, one must never start from factors, but only from ‘man.’” Plekhanov was fully capable of understanding that historical materialism places “man” in a dual position: man in the course of history acts both as the engine, that is, satisfying man’s most basic needs for survival and life, and at the same time, in the already formed relations among men, “sees an irresistible force that generally belongs to all men but specifically belongs to no one.” The contradiction between productive forces and relations of production is unified in “man,” this eternal “monism” in practice.

在总结普列汉诺夫以上种种政治错误时，许多论者把原因归结为他的“教条主义”，或是他哲学思想中的“机械论”、“庸俗唯物主义”，例如说他只讲经济制约的作用，不讲政治的反作用，等等。这些说法未必公正，普列汉诺夫的批评者们往往陷入一种庸俗的二元论或“因素论”，把正确的东西也拿来批判了。在本文看来，普列汉诺夫在政治上出现错误的原因并不在于他的历史观。因为普列汉诺夫从来不像当时别的马克思主义者那样（例如保尔·拉法格），把自己所信奉的历史观叫作经济唯物主义。他深信，在用经济来解释历史现象之前，经济本身首先需要得到解释。“社会绝非各个因素的机械相加之和，社会中只有唯一一个因素，那就是人”，所以，“如果要认真理解唯物史观，就决不能从因素出发，而只能从‘人’出发”。普列汉诺夫能够充分理解唯物史观乃是将“人”置于二重性的地位：人在历史的长河中既充当发动机，即满足人最起码的生存和生活的需要；同时也在业已形成的人的关系中“看到不可克服的力量，这种力量一般地属于一切人，而具体说来则不属于任何人”，生产力和生产关系这组矛盾统一于“人”这一永恒在实践之中的“一元”。

Then what exactly caused Plekhanov’s political errors? This article argues that it was because he refused to acknowledge the particularity of Russian history itself — that is, the Russian socialist revolution could not wait until the material conditions were highly mature to occur, but had to take a leapfrogging path. This leap could not be realized while it was still under the banner of populism, but once it took the working-class revolution as its main theme, it became irresistible.

那么，究竟是什么原因导致普列汉诺夫在政治上出现错误？本文认为，是因为他拒不承认俄国历史本身的特殊性，即俄国社会主义革命无法等到物质条件高度成熟才发生，而是必须走跳跃道路，这种跳跃在还从属于民粹主义旗帜时是无法实现的，但当它一旦以工人阶级革命为主旨时，就变得不可阻挡了。

IV

四

Why did such a theoretically brilliant and exceptionally talented figure fail to understand, or rather fail to acknowledge, the particularity of the Russian socialist movement that he himself had actively initiated? From a personal perspective, his long-term exile and seclusion in his study, his aloof and arrogant nature, his belief in a gradual and sequential process of historical development, his inheritance of the universal-historical perspective of Marx’s theory, and his deep embeddedness in the organizational network of the Second International — all these real and personal factors played a significant role. But there were also deeper reasons of the times and of history.

为什么这样一个理论上智慧过人、才华出众的人物竟然不理解，或者说不承认自己积极开创的俄国社会主义运动的特殊性呢？从个人原因来看，他长期侨居、蛰伏书斋，生性孤冷、恃才自负，他相信的是循序渐进的历史发展过程，继承了马克思学说普遍历史的眼光，深嵌于第二国际的组织网络，以上这些现实的、个人的因素都起到了很大作用。但是，还有更为深刻的时代和历史缘故。

Plekhanov always held fast to the following view: there is an indispensable historical connection between the economic development of socialist society and that of capitalist society. Based on this fundamental principle, Marxists long believed that the socialist revolution would first occur in the developed capitalist regions of Western Europe, because only there would the material conditions and the subjective force for revolution first be present. However, as “history turned into world history,” a major change occurred. Although Western Europe occupied a central and advantageous position in the world system, due to changes in its own internal structure, it gradually lagged behind on the path of socialist revolution; Russia, where capitalism had only just begun to develop, possessed the conditions for revolution because of its acute social contradictions and mature social revolutionary theory. The trajectory of the international socialist movement underwent an important turning point.

普列汉诺夫始终抱定如下见解：社会主义社会与资本主义社会的经济发展之间有着必不可少的历史联系。根据这一基本原理，马克思主义者曾长期认为，社会主义革命会在西欧资本主义发达地区率先发生，因为只有那里才最先具备革命的物质条件和主体力量。然而，随着“历史转变为世界历史”，情况有了重大变化。西欧地区虽然在世界体系中处于中心优越位置，但由于自身的内在结构变化，逐渐在社会主义革命道路上发展滞后；资本主义刚刚起步不久的俄国却由于尖锐的社会矛盾和成熟的社会革命理论，具备了革命的条件。国际社会主义运动的轨迹发生了重要的转折。

This change, fundamentally, did not depart from the theoretical范畴 of Marxism, for in the final analysis it was the product of the world as a whole entering the era of capitalism and of the economic differences among various regions. But the entire historical process thereby became extremely complex, with issues touching on a series of major fields: the basic principles of historical materialism, the fundamental strategy of socialist revolution, and even the path of socialist construction after the revolution. To resolve these problems theoretically and thoroughly required the accumulation of a great deal of practical historical experience as a precondition, and at that time such conditions were clearly not present. Hegel said: “Philosophy, as the thought of the world, does not appear until reality has completed its formative process and made itself ready; what the concept teaches is necessarily what history shows.” At that time, reality had indeed only just begun its formative process, and necessity could only appear in the form of possibility. Plekhanov, as a theoretician skilled in abstract thought and who pursued the thoroughness and rigor of theoretical logic, could not adapt to such a reality. He opposed abandoning Marxism altogether in the face of new changes, as Bernstein did, but he was also incapable of acting like Lenin, who “first threw himself into the real battle, and then saw the outcome.” Plekhanov needed first to comprehend everything from the heights of the philosophy of history, from the heights of necessity, and only then deduce his political attitude. This often forced him into a dilemma: he could neither understand the new reality, and his theoretical strengths instead degenerated into political weaknesses; indeed, his theoretical writings had already explained a priori the reasons for Lenin’s political success.

这一变化从根本上说并没有脱离马克思主义的理论范畴，因为它归根结底是世界整体进入资本主义时代，各不同地区经济差别的产物。但整个历史进程却因此变得极为复杂，问题涉及唯物史观的基本原理、社会主义革命的基本战略，甚至革命后社会主义建设道路等一系列重大领域。从理论上彻底解决这些问题，需要以大量的历史实践经验积累为前提，而当时显然是不具有这样的条件的。黑格尔说过：“哲学作为有关世界的思想，要直到现实结束其形成过程并完成自身之后，才会出现，概念所教导的也必然就是历史所显示的。”当时，现实确实刚刚开始其形成过程，必然性还只能以可能性的形式出现。普列汉诺夫作为一个擅长抽象思维、追求理论逻辑的彻底性和严谨性的理论家，是无法适应这样的现实的。他既反对像伯恩施坦那样，在新的变化面前干脆放弃马克思主义，又不可能像列宁那样，“首先要投入真正的战斗，然后便见分晓”。普列汉诺夫需要首先从历史哲学的高度、从必然性的高度领悟一切，然后才演绎出自己的政治态度。这便使他经常不得不陷入两难境地，既无法理解新的现实，其理论上的长处反而沦落为政治上的劣势，甚至其理论著述早已先验地解释了列宁取得政治成功的原因。

In the book *On the Question of the Individual’s Role in History*, on the one hand Plekhanov acknowledged that, from the perspective of individual consequences of social development, heroic figures can entirely accelerate or delay the course of major historical events, can determine the manner in which a given event is realized, can give the inherent direction of events this or that character, and can, by virtue of their superior strength, give normative form to the chaotic and fluctuating forces of the masses; on the other hand, he also pointed out two major conditions for the influence of heroic figures on the historical process: first, the emergence of heroic figures is inherent in the trend and necessary need of history — “any talented person who appears in reality… exists only by virtue of this trend; without it, they could never cross the threshold from possibility to reality”; second, the influence of individuals on historical trends is constrained by 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 to the extent, at the time, and within the limits that social relations permit it to be so.” *On the Question of the Individual’s Role in History* is an important supplement to *The Development of the Monist View of History*; these two texts, taken as mutual references, allowed Plekhanov to fully and completely interpret historical materialism, the latter emphasizing necessity, the former contingency. If the necessity of history is compared to laid railway tracks, then heroic figures are like switchmen on the train: they appear at the intersection of many necessary processes, and at the most critical juncture determine why history moves forward in this way rather than that.

在《论个人在历史上的作用问题》一书中，一方面普列汉诺夫承认从社会发展的个别后果来看，英雄人物完全可以加速或延缓重大历史事件发生的进程，可以决定某个事件实现的方式，可以使事件的固有方向具有这样或那样的性质，可以凭借自己占优势的力量使得群众混乱波动的力量具有规范性；另一方面，他也指出英雄人物影响历史进程的两大条件：其一，英雄人物的出现寓于历史的趋势和必然需要之中，“现实中出现的任何人才……他们本身只能凭借这种趋势才存在，没有这种趋势，他们永远跨不过从可能进到现实的门槛”；其二，个人对历史趋势的影响受制于当时的生产力状况和生产关系，“个人的性格只有在社会关系容许他这样做的那个地方、那个时候和那个程度内才是社会发展的因素”。《论个人在历史上的作用问题》是对《论一元论历史观之发展》的重要补充，这两个文本互为参照，使普列汉诺夫得以充分、完整地诠释唯物史观，后者偏重于必然性，而前者则立足于偶然性。如果将历史的必然性比作铺就的铁轨，那么英雄人物就如同火车上的扳道工，他们出现在诸多必然过程的交汇点上，在最紧要的关头决定历史缘何这样而非那样向前发展。

Plekhanov’s above judgment on heroic figures precisely provided the best footnote for Lenin: at the historical juncture of Russia’s defeat in World War I, with internal and external troubles, Lenin keenly perceived the masses’ universal demand for “land, peace, and bread,” and, using a tightly organized and coordinated revolutionary party, decisively made the decision to launch the October Revolution, successfully advancing the course 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 had long since confirmed the reasons for his own failure.

普列汉诺夫对英雄人物的如上论断恰恰为列宁作了最好的注脚：列宁在俄国一战战败、内忧外患的历史关节点上，敏锐地感知到群众对“土地、和平与面包”的普遍诉求，并利用组织严密、步调一致的革命家集团，果断作出了发动十月革命的决定，成功推进了俄国革命的进程。正如恩格斯所言，在理论上不可行的，在历史上可能可行，普列汉诺夫虽无意于为列宁作注，却早早印证了自己失败的原因。

Politically, in his later period Plekhanov committed the error of opportunism by blocking the tide of revolution; historically, he did not base himself on the special circumstances of the Russian revolution, and although through his own efforts he added a new force to history, he refused to use that force to change history; theoretically, he overemphasized the enormous difficulties that backward countries would face after revolution, and thereby denied the rationality of revolution itself. This was, of course, incorrect, but it also seems to prove that his views still belonged to the debate among different currents and factions within the Marxist camp.

从政治上看，普列汉诺夫后期由于阻拦革命的潮流，犯了机会主义错误；从历史上看，他没有立足于俄国革命的特殊情况，虽以自己的努力为历史添加了一种新的力量，却又拒绝以这种力量去改变历史；从理论上看，他过于强调落后国家在革命后将面临的巨大困难，因而否认了革命本身的合理性。这当然是不正确的，但似乎也可证明，他的观点仍属于马克思主义者内部不同思潮派别的意见争论。

Looking back over a century of history and re-examining Plekhanov’s life and thought, we should both fully affirm his merit in bringing the socialist cause of Russia and even the entire East into the mainstream of world socialism, and also recognize that, in the specific field of the Russian revolution, this theoretical perspective constrained his political agency. This constraint is mainly reflected in three aspects: first, compared with Western Europe, the level of development of Russia’s economic base and workers’ movement had not yet reached the historical conditions necessary to give birth to socialist revolution; Plekhanov was the first to come into contact with and introduce the mature socialist theories and struggle experience of Western Europe, which meant that when the Russian Marxist party was founded, it inherited the fruits of cultural-ethical progress rooted in the historical development of Western Europe. In its early development, the fledgling Russian Social Democratic Labour Party could hardly avoid taking the development trajectory of the longer-established and politically more experienced workers’ parties of Western Europe as its model and standard. Second, issues such as the particularity of the Russian revolution only emerged with the development of the Party and the advancement of its struggle work; unless one was on the front line of political struggle and could observe the ebb and flow of the revolutionary situation in real time, it was difficult to advance one’s understanding of the specific conditions of revolutionary work. Plekhanov, who lived in exile for a long time, was highly connected in thought and activities to the Second International and Western European parties, and his grasp of the immediate situation in Russia was relatively distant. Third, as Russia’s first-generation Marxist, Plekhanov’s work was mainly ideological propaganda and theoretical foundation-building. Long confined to his study, Plekhanov excelled in theory; his work bore the characteristics of abstraction and universality. He was concerned with the constraints that general conditions such as the economic base placed on socialist revolution, but he was relatively deficient in the empirical political aspects of judging specific revolutionary situations, forging revolutionary organizations, and precisely formulating revolutionary tasks. Compared with Lenin, Plekhanov was more inclined to focus on the feasibility of the Russian revolution rather than its possibility, and more inclined to emphasize the generality of socialist revolution rather than the particularity of Russia’s specific conditions. This re-examination of Plekhanov’s influence on and limitations regarding the Russian revolution allows us to fully understand that universal theories can only take root in particular experiences, and that only an outstanding political practice that highly grasps the unity of universality and particularity is the source of creating political possibility.

穿透百年历史，回望普列汉诺夫的生平与思想，既应充分肯定他将俄国乃至整个东方社会主义事业纳入世界社会主义潮流的功绩；也须看到，在俄国革命的特定场域，这种理论视野对其政治能动性的制约。这种制约主要体现在三方面：其一，俄国与西欧相比，经济基础与工人运动发展水平尚未足以具有孕生社会主义革命的历史条件，普列汉诺夫率先接触并引进西欧成熟的社会主义学说和斗争经验，这使得俄国的马克思主义政党在成立之时，便继承了根植西欧历史发展的精神文明成果。稚嫩的俄国社会民主工党在其发展最初，很难不以西欧历史更悠久、政治经验更成熟的工人政党的发展轨迹作为其榜样和标准；其二，俄国革命的特殊性等问题是随着党的发展和斗争工作的推进才得以浮现，若非身处政治斗争一线、实时体察革命形势的消长，那么对革命工作具体条件的认知难以推进，长期侨居在外的普列汉诺夫在思想与交往活动上高度接洽于第二国际和西欧政党，对俄国即时情况的掌握是相对隔膜的；其三，作为俄国第一代马克思主义者，普列汉诺夫的工作主要是进行思想宣传和理论奠基，久居书斋的普列汉诺夫以理论见长，他的工作带有抽象性和普遍性的特质，他关切经济基础等一般性条件对社会主义革命的制约，却在研判具体革命形势、缔造革命家组织、精准制定革命任务等政治的经验层面相对欠缺。和列宁相比，普列汉诺夫更倾向于关注俄国革命的可行性而非可能性，更偏重于关切社会主义革命的一般性而非俄国具体情况的特殊性。如上对普列汉诺夫之于俄国革命的影响与局限的重新审视，使我们得以充分认识普遍性的理论需在特殊性的经验中才能落地，只有高度把握普遍性与特殊性相统一的卓越的政治实践，才是创造政治可能性的源泉。

Online editor: Tongxin

网络编辑：同心