This tribute was paid to him both by Karl Kautsky and Nicolai Lenin, leaders of the two wings of Marxist orthodoxy. Plechanov discussed the problem of the hero in history in many of his writings. It was a singularly acute question for the Russian Marxists of whom he was the recognized theoretical head. It was acute not merely as a theoretical question but as a practical and political one. The political programme and philosophy of the Narodniki—Russian socialist populists—were allegedly based on the view that history could be influenced in significant fashion by great individual protagonists of the world, and even more, of the deed. This group and its popular successor, the Social Revolutionary Party, rejected the Marxist views of determinism and social evolution. Without denying the influence of material factors, social and economic, they placed an even greater emphasis upon personal and ethical decisions in history. They refused to forswear the use of individual terror as a policy of combating oppression. They held strategically placed individuals, not “the system” that bred them, responsible for social evils and political excesses. Both on practical and theoretical grounds, therefore, Plechanov took the field against them. His best treatment of the subject was given in The Role of the Individual in History.[1]
In the course of his discussions Plechanov rejects not only the views of the defenders of the heroic interpretation of history but also those of the determinists who, in opposing the former, declared the individual to be a “quantité négligeable” in history. Both have dismissed a problem which is of great importance, not merely to Marxism, but to any scientific understanding of history. Plechanov presents his doctrine as a “synthesis” of the truths contained in two simple conflicting views. He implies that this synthesis is “a full and definite solution of the problem of the role of the individual in history” which Guizot, Mignet, Thierry, Monod, and Lamprecht—determinists all—failed to solve. He uses as a foil to his argument some remarks of St. Beuve, who believed that at any given moment a sudden decision of will by a great personality might redetermine the course of history.
We shall use a series of illustrations to test the consistency and adequacy of Plechanov’s position, and in order to sharpen the issues, the same series that Plechanov employs.
1. The influence of Madame Pompadour on Louis XV. was
- ↑ Originally published in 1898, English translation, New York, 1940.
