Genesis and Development of Plekhanov’s Theory of Knowledge: A Marxist Between Anthropological Materialism and Physiology

257 Pages·1991·6.61 MB·English

by  Daniela Steila (auth.)

GENESIS AND DEVELOPMENT OF PLEKHANOV'S THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE
SOVIETICA
VOLUME 55
PUBLICATIONS AND MONOGRAPHS
OF THE INSTITUTE OF EAST-EUROPEAN STUDIES
AT THE UNIVERSITY OF FRIBOURG / SWITZERLAND AND
THE CENTER FOR EAST EUROPE, RUSSIA AND ASIA AT BOSTON COLLEGE AND
THE SEMINAR FOR POLITICAL THEORY AND PHILOSOPHY
AT THE UNIVERSITY OF MUNICH
Founded by J. M. Bochenski (Fribourg)
Edited by T. J. Blakeley (Boston), Guido KUng (Fribourg) and
Nikolaus Lobkowicz (Munich)
Editorial Board
Karl G. Ballestrem (Eichstlitt) / Bernard Jeu (Lille)
Helmut Dahm (Cologne) / George L. Kline (Bryn Mawr)
Richard T. DeGeorge (Univ. of Kansas) / James J. O. 'Rourke (St. Anselm's)
Peter Ehlen (Munich) / Friedrich Rapp (Dortmund)
Michael Gagern (Munich) / Tom Rockmore (Duquesne)
Philip Grier (Dickinson College) / Andries Sarlemijn (Eindhoven)
Felix P. Ingold (ETH St. Gall) / James Scanlan (Ohio State)
Edward M. Swiderski (Fribourg)
The titles published in this series are listed at the end of this volume.
DANIELA STEILA
University ot Turin
GENESIS AND DEVELOPMENT
OF PLEKHANOV'S THEORY
OF KNOWLEDGE
A Marxist Between
Anthropological Materialism and Physiology
SPRINGER SCIENCE+BUSINESS MEDIA, B.V.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Steila. Daniela. 1959-
Genesis and development of Plekhanov's theory of knowledge : a
Marxist between anthropological materialism and physlology / by
Daniela Steila,
p. cm. -- (Sovietica; v. 55)
1ncludes bibliographical references and index,
ISBN 978-94-010-5456-0 ISBN 978-94-011-3298-5 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-94-011-3298-5
1. Plekhanov. Georgil Valentinovich. 1856-1918--Contributions in
theory of knowledge. 2. Knowledge. Theory of--History. 1. Title.
II. Ser ies: Sovietica (Universite de Fribourg. Dst-Europa Institut)
; v. 55.
84249.P554S73 1991
121' .092--dc20 90-23622
ISBN 978-94-010-5456-0
Printed on acid-free paper
All Rights Reserved
© 1991 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
OriginalLy published by Kluwer Academic Publishers in 1991
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1s t edition 1991
No part of the material protected by this copyright notice may be reproduced or
utilized in any form Of by any means, electronic Of mechanical,
including photocopying, recording Of by any information storage and
retrieval system, without written permission from the copyright owner.
To my father, Giuseppe Renato Steila.
T ABLE OF CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ix
INTRODUCTION 1
CHAPTER ONE George Plekhanov's Theory of
Knowledge
I. THE FORMATIVE YEARS 6
A. A Biographical Account 6
B. The Theory of Hieroglyphics 8
C. 'Human Nature' 13
II. AGAINST REVISIONISM 17
A. A Biographical Account 17
B. Against Eduard Bernstein and Jacob Stern 24
C. Against Konrad Schmidt 27
D. Russian Opponents in the German Debate:
Aleksej Voden and Chajm Schitlowsky 34
E. Against Russian Revisionism: Peter Struve 40
III. DEBATES AND OTHER DEVELOPMENTS 47
A. Russian Marxism at the Beginning of the Century 47
B. Giving Up Hieroglyphics 53
C. The Theoretical Debate After 1905 58
D. A Decade of Scholarship 65
CHAPTER TWO Philosophical Influences on Plekhanov's
Theory of Knowledge
I. THEHISTORYOFMATERIALISM 75
II. SPINOZA 77
III. THE EIGHTEENTH - CENTURY MATERIALISTS 82
IV. THE NON-MATERIALISTS' CONTRIBUTION: KANT AND
THE GERMAN IDEALISTS 86
viii TABLE OF CONTENTS
V. LUDWIG FEUERBACH 93
VI. FEUERBACH IN RUSSIA: NIKOLAJ CHERNYSHEVSKY 99
CHAPTER THREE The Scientific Referents of Plekhanov's
Theory of Knowledge
I. PHYSIOLOGY IN RUSSIAN CULTURE AT THE END OF
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 105
II. IV AN M. SECENOV 109
A. Secenov and Nikolaj Chernyshevsky
B. Secenov and Hennann von Helmholtz
C. Secenov and Herbert Spencer
III. PLEKHANOV AND THE NATURAL SCIENCES 118
A. Plekhanov and Physiology
B. Plekhanov and the Biological Theory of Evolution
CONCLUSION 128
NOTES 134
APPENDIX: Plekhanov's Theory of Knowledge in Soviet 1~ 3
Studies
BIBLIOGRAPHY 203
INDEX 239
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
First of all, I wish to express the deep gratefulness I feel to Professor
Thomas J. Blakeley, who supported the publication of this work,
handled its revision, suggested important modifications, and edited a
great part of the manuscript, till an untimely death precluded him from
seeing the book printed. Without his contribution, this book would have
not been possible.
Among the many others to whom I am indebted, I wish particularly
to thank: Professor James G. Colbert, who continued Professor
Blakeley's work with the same competence and concern, and handled
the final publication of my work; Professor Giuliano Gliozzi, for taking
up the burden of this work's supervision in its dissertation form;
Professors Pietro Rossi, Massimo L. Salvadori, Vittorio Strada, Franco
Venturi, Carlo A. Viano, who gave me advice, support and assistance at
different stages in my work, who read and criticized my dissertation;
Professor Samuel H. Baron, for his most welcome encouragement;
Professors Joseph M. Bochenski and Diego Marconi, for suggesting
that I submit this manuscript to the Sovietica series; Dr. Irina N.
Kurbatova, the staff of Dom Plekhanova, and the librarians of the
Biblioteka Akademii Nauk in Leningrad for their help and
co-operation. I am grateful to the F ondazione Einaudi for the support
of my research.
I am very thankful to numerous friends who helped me during the
preparation of the present text. Particularly I would like to thank Laurie
Bernstein and Bob Weinberg, for encouragement in the early stage of
this work; Gary Marker, for generous help and criticism as my work
took on a fuller shape and I was struggling with its translation into
English; and Enrico Pasini, for support that was essential in both
professional and personal respects. Finally, I would like to mention the
profound personal debt which lowe to my parents.
Needless to say, none of the above share any responsibility either
for the contents of this work, or for its translation into English.
Daniela Steila
ix
INTRODUCTION
1. One of the most outstanding leaders within Second International
Marxism, George Plekhanov has interested Western scholars primarily
as a historical and political figure, specifically as the first full-fledged
Marxist among the Russian intelligentsia. At the end of the nineteenth
century he was the leader in putting Russian progressive culture in touch
with Western Marxism, breaking away from Populism and, at the same
time, resuming materialistic tradition within Russian progressive
thought. Among Russian revolutionaries, a few others to be sure had
been interested in Marx before Plekhanov. The translations of some of
Marx' works into Russian show this clearly. In 1869 Mikhail Bakunin
translated The Communist Manifesto. Three years later Nikolaj
Daniel'son, a populist, completed the first foreign-language version of
the first book of Marx' Capital and within six months about a thousand
copies had been sold. In the middle of the 1870's, an 'academic'
economist, N.!. Ziber, helped to spread Marx' economic ideas by
teaching them in Kiev and writing articles in the journal Slovo, which to
some extent influenced Plekhanov's later choices. But it was Plekhanov
who first analyzed the Russian situation as a whole in Marxist terms,
thereby earning renown as the "Father of Russian Marxism".1 His
writings became the school for a whole generation of revolutionaries. At
the beginning respected and venerated, then rejected and criticized,
Plekhanov for long held the leadership of Russian Marxism, as its
best-known 'Master'. For years his thought was regarded as true
orthodoxy, so that any Russian Marxist had to side with or against it at
least until 1905, when harsh political and theoretical criticisms led to
Plekhanov's decline.
Studied so far as a revolutionary and political figure, Plekhanov has
generally aroused little interest as a philosophical thinker. Although
Western commentators have paid attention to his theory of art,
regarding it as a 'model' of Marxist sociological esthetics, his dated
determinism and his often naive philosophical reflections caused
Western scholars to disregard his thought.2
Yet, the very reasons that led to a wide historical interest in
Plekhanov are sufficient to suggest that a more careful examination of
his theoretical activity is in order, since his work as a thinker was
always closely connected with contemporary political events and
ideological debates. Indeed, the interplay of politics and philosophy may
be considered the chief characteristics of his thought. Persuaded that
2 IN1RODUCTION
only 'correct' theory could be translated into successful practice,
Plekhanov was one of the few Marxists of his generation who seriously
applied himself to the study of the Classics of philosophy. During the
debate that raged among Second International Marxists about German
revisionism, he was the only one who immediately tackled the
'philosophical' problem of the relationship between materialism and
Kantianism. At a time when Marxism was at once extending its
influence and simplifying its theory, Plekhanov's forays into
speculative philosophy, although often superficial and indefinite, make
him an interesting subject of philosophical inquiry.
Although it is generally overlooked in the West, Plekhanov's
thought has been studied at length in the Soviet Union. Western readers,
though, often find the 'ideologica1' nature of Soviet studies to be
disconcerting since Plekhanov's intellectual reputation has typically
depended on waves of condemnation and subsequent rehabilitation
rather than serious historical reconstruction. In 1922, a few years after
the revolution and after Plekhanov's death, Trotsky declared it was
high time to "write a good book" on Plekhanov.3 A few years later S.
Vol'fson and V. Vaganian followed Trotsky'S suggestion and published
the first, and for a long time the only, monographs about him. These
studies are still interesting, but they suffer from their ignorance of
numerous documents and materials that became available only later.4
When the debate between 'Mechanists' and 'Deborinites' broke out in
1925, Plekhanov's 'philosophical inheritance' turned into one of the
favourite topics of discussion and polemic, since both parties referred to
him as to their own inspirer and main authority.
The new Party Orthodoxy broke off all discussion at the beginning
of the Thirties, and in 1931 Stalin himself censured Plekhanov's
so-called philosophical errors.5 In the same year both 'Mechanists' and
'Deborinites' were condemned for having among other things "repeated
and extended" Plekhanov's "errors". Once Plekhanov had been
disregarded as Lenin's 'teacher' and as the leading Marxist propagandist
in Russia, and once his thought had been censured as "heretical",
dispassionate study of his ideas became impossible. On the contrary,
many former 'Mechanists' or 'Deborinites' tried to redeem themselves
and recover their own political credibility by attacking Plekhanov's
opinions. Only after Stalin's death was it possible for serious studies
on Plekhanov to appear in the Soviet Union again. Thus, on October
16, 1956, the Central Committee of the Communist Party "rehabilitated"
Plekhanov, on the occasion of the centenary of his birth. The Committee
recalled Lenin's good opinion of Plekhanov as a philosopher and his
early revolutionary activity.6
A spate of pamphlets, articles and contributions celebrated the
Plekhanov centenary all over the Soviet Union. Between 1956 and 1958