Disputes on the Marxist Understanding of Russian History: On One of the Theoretical Prerequisites for Creating the Soviet Union

ABSTRACT

Russian Marxism was fairly late to address building its own understandings of the Russian historical process. Moreover, the Bolsheviks did not have their own historiography of “Russian history” despite the fact that, beginning in 1918, they began more and more vehemently claiming not just total ideological control but also intellectual hegemony. A confrontation between “Marxist” and “non-Marxist” understandings arose. At the same time, the real disputes within the camp of Marxist historians came down to a confrontation between the versions of the historical process proposed by Georgi V. Plekhanov and Mikhail N. Pokrovskii back in the 1910s. This article broadly analyzes the disputes in the Marxist camp, from pressing political implications such as attitudes toward the state to the definition of the place of “historical facts” in theory and interpretation. We also demonstrate that it was, in fact, the understandings of Plekhanov, Leon D. Trotsky, and Pokrovskii that continue, both explicitly and implicitly, the legacy of Vasily O. Klyuchevsky’s historical schema and his understanding of the “state school,” a legacy that has remained unstudied until now.

KEYWORDS:

• Marxism
• history
• “state school
• ” Marxist historiography
• Georgi V. Plekhanov
• Mikhail N. Pokrovskii
• Leon D. Trotsky
• Vasily O. Klyuchevsky

Notes

1. See S.Kh. Beron, Plekhanov—osnovopolozhnik russkogo marksizma (St. Petersburg: Izdatel’stvo RNB, 1998), chapters XV–XVI.

2. See A.A. Chernobaev, “Professor s pikoi,” ili Tri zhizni istorika M.N. Pokrovskogo (Moscow: Lit, 1992).

3. M.N. Pokrovskii, Istoricheskaia nauka i bor’ba klassov: Istoriograficheskie ocherki, kriticheskie stat’i i zametki (Moscow; Leningrad: Gosudarstvennoe sotsial’no-ekonomicheskoe izdatel’stvo, 1993), vol. 1, p. 303.

4. Ibid., p. 169.

5. G.V. Plekhanov, Istoriia russkoi obshchestvennoi mysli (St. Petersburg: T-vo Mir), vol. 1, p. 130.

6. Ibid., p. 1.

7. Ibid., p. 14.

8. Reason always ends up being right (French).

9. Plekhanov, Istoriia russkoi obshchestvennoi mysli, vol. 1, p. 118.

10. Plekhanov, Istoriia russkoi obshchestvennoi mysli, vol. 1, pp. 55–86.

11. Pokrovskii, Istoricheskaia nauka i bor’ba klassov, vol. 1, p. 81.

12. In his 1923 lectures on historiography, Pokrovskii made the ironic remark, “Plekhanov evaluated history like a good wine: the older the better” (Pokrovskii, Istoricheskaia nauka i bor’ba klassov, vol. 1, p. 83.).

13. Ibid., pp. 35–37; compare M.N. Pokrovskii, Ocherk istorii russkoi kul’tury (Moscow: T-vo Mir, 1918), vol. 1, pp. ii–iv.

14. See, for example, Pokrovskii, Istoricheskaia nauka i bor’ba klassov, vol. 2, pp. 26–43.

15. This may also speak to the influence of Herzen, particularly his pamphlet “Development of Revolutionary Ideas in Russia,” where the last part focuses on the dialectics of Western European and Russian processes. See A.A. Teslia, “‘O razvitii revoliutsionnykh idei v Rossii’ A.I. Gertsena,” Sotsiologiia vlasti, 2021, vol. 33, no. 2, pp. 59–79.

16. L.D. Trostkii [Trotsky], 1905 (Moscow: Gosizdat, 1922); L.D. Trotskii, Istoriia russkoi revoliutsii. V 2-kh t. vol. 1, Fevral’skaia revoliutsiia (Moscow: Terra-Terra, 1997), pp. 33–44, 439–446.

17. Which would also be reflected in an ironic remark: M.N. Pokrovskii (with the participation of N.M. Nikol’skii), Russkaia istoriia s drevneishikh vremen, v 4-kh t., 3rd edition (Moscow: T-vo Mir), vol. 1, p. 57.

18. Pokrovskii, Russkaia istoriia s drevneishikh vremen, vol. 1, p. 5.

19. Ibid., pp. v–vi.

20. First published in 1928.

21. V.I. Lenin, Polnoe sobranie sochinenii, v 56 t., vol. 52: Pis’ma. Noiabr’ 1920–iiun’ 1921 (Moscow: Izdatel’stvo politicheskoi literatury, 1970), p. 24.

22. Lenin, Polnoe sobranie sochinenii, vol. 52, p. 24.

23. Lenin, Polnoe sobranie sochinenii, vol. 52, p. 24.

24. See Plekhanov, Istoriia russkoi obshchestvennoi mysli, vol. 1, p. 82.

25. V.O. Kliuchevskii, Kurs russkoi istorii, v 5 xh. (Mosocw: Sotsekgiz, 1937), part 1, p. 20.

26. Pokrovskii, Istoricheskaia nauka i bor’ba klassov, vol. 2, pp. 48–53.

27. Kliuchevskii, Kurs russkoi istorii, part 1, p. 32.

28. See V.O. Kliuchevskii, Lektsii po russkoi istorii, chitannye na Vysshikh zhenskikh kursakh v Moskve 1872–1875, eds. R.A. Kireeva, A.F. Kiselev (Moscow: Vlados, 1997). Significantly, the subject matter related to “nationality” and “the Russian tribe” that did not fall under Muscovy or the Russian Empire is missing in Russian History in Its Most Concise Outline.

29. On the developmental logic and features of the “Pokrovskii school” and his views during the late 1920s and early 1930s, see in particular A.L. Iurganov, Kul’turnaia istoriia Rossii. Vek dvadtsatyi. Stat’i i publikatsii raznykh let (Moscow; St. Petersburg: Tsentr gumanitarnykh initsiativ, 2018), pp. 224–288.

30. See V.V. Tikhonov, Moskovskaia istoricheskaia shkola v pervoi polovine XX veka. Nauchnoe tvorchestvo Yu.V. Got’e, S.B. Veselovskogo, A.I. Iakovleva i S.V. Bakhrushina (Moscow; St. Petersburg: Nestor-Istoriia, 2012).