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113-485: Lavrov was born into a military family of hereditary nobles. His father was a retired artillery officer of the Imperial Russian Army and his mother was from a Russified Swedish merchant family. He entered a military academy and graduated in 1842 as an army officer. He became well-versed in natural science , history, logic , philosophy , and psychology . He also taught mathematics for two decades, being

226-506: A Marxist . In 1883, he helped found the first Russian Marxist group, Emancipation of Labour , and from 1900 co-edited the journal Iskra with Lenin. Though he supported Lenin's Bolshevik faction at the 2nd Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party in 1903, Plekhanov soon rejected his idea of democratic centralism , and became one of Lenin and Leon Trotsky 's principal antagonists in

339-661: A lieutenant-general in 1780, and general of infantry in 1783, on the conclusion of his work there. From 1787 to 1791 he again fought the Turks during the Russo-Turkish War of 1787–1792 and won many victories. Suvorov's leadership also played a key role in a Russian victory over the Poles during the Kościuszko Uprising . As a major European power, Russia could not escape the wars involving Revolutionary France and

452-586: A Mosin-Nagant rifle, while new recruits and younger reservists did not begin arriving until after the Battle of Mukden in February 1905. The mobilization for the Russo-Japanese War also brought large numbers of reservists into the ranks who were more politicized, and began spreading revolutionary ideas among the troops. There were over 400 mutinies from autumn 1905 to summer 1906. At the outbreak of

565-732: A Russian defeat by the German Empire in the Battle of Tannenberg (1914). In the west, a Russian Expeditionary Force was dispatched to France in 1915. Amid the Russian Revolution of 1917 the Imperial Russian Army collapsed and dissolved . The rebellious remnants of the Imperial army evolved to become part of the new Red Army . The Imperial Russian Army entered the Napoleonic Wars organized administratively and in

678-633: A Swiss officer in Russian service, to prepare General Staff officers, though it did not have a significant role in the army until the post-Crimean War reforms. Guards units were tasked with protecting the Russian Emperor (the tsar) and the Imperial family. Throughout the Napoleonic Wars the Imperial Russian Guard was commanded by Grand Duke Konstantin . The guard grew from a few regiments to two infantry divisions combined into

791-498: A common effort to attain a consciously selected and rationally justified goal. The latter represented the highest and the most significant type of human solidarity. It developed later than the first two types and proclaimed the conversion of the static “culture” into the dynamic “civilization.” To sum it up, social solidarity in Lavrov's view is “the consciousness that personal interest coincides with social interest, that personal dignity

904-479: A convinced Marxist and in the late 1880s he established personal contact with Friedrich Engels . Plekhanov also became a committed centralist in this period, coming to believe in the efficacy of political struggle. He decided that the struggle for a socialist future first required the development of capitalism in agrarian Russia. In September 1883 Plekhanov joined with his old friend Pavel Axelrod, Lev Deutsch , Vasily Ignatov, and Vera Zasulich in establishing

1017-725: A doctor. They lived variously in Geneva, Paris and for a time on the Italian Riviera on the advice of Plekhanov's doctors. She accompanied her husband back to Petrograd following the February Revolution and was with him when he died of tuberculosis in Finland in 1918. She returned to Paris where she died in 1949. Plekhanov left Russia again after the October Revolution due to his hostility to

1130-671: A dragoon regiment were formed. Initially, they recruited children of the landless boyars and streltsy , volunteers, Cossacks and others. Commanding officers comprised mostly foreigners. After the war with Poland, all of the regiments were disbanded. During another Russo-Polish War , they were created again and became a principal force of the Russian Army. Often, regular and dragoon regiments were manned with datochniye lyudi for lifelong military service . Reiters were manned with small or landless gentry and boyars' children and were paid with money (or lands) for their service. More than

1243-603: A great contribution to Marxist philosophy and literature by V.I. Lenin. "The services he rendered in the past," Lenin wrote of Plekhanov, "were immense. During the twenty years between 1883 and 1903 he wrote a large number of splendid essays, especially those against the opportunists , Machists , and Narodniks ." Even after the October Revolution Lenin insisted on republishing Plekhanov's philosophical works and including these works as compulsory texts for prospective communists. It seems that Plekhanov, although

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1356-407: A half of the commanding officers were representatives from the gentry. In times of peace, some of the regiments were usually disbanded. In 1681, there were 33 regular regiments (61,000 men) and 25 dragoon and reiter regiments (29,000 men). In the late 17th century, regiments of the new type represented more than a half of the Russian Army and at the beginning of the 18th century were used for creating

1469-420: A limitation...The revolutionary proletariat might limit the political rights of the higher classes ...If in a burst of revolutionary enthusiasm the people chose a very fine parliament ...then we would make of it a long parliament; and if the elections turned out unsuccessfully then we would have to try to disperse it." During the Russian Revolution of 1905 , Plekhanov was unrelenting in his criticism of Lenin and

1582-475: A noble title at the attainment of an officer's rank (such promotions were later abolished during the reign of Catherine the Great ). Conscription of peasants and townspeople was based on quota system, per settlement. Initially, it was based on the number of households, later it was based on the population numbers. The term of service in the 18th century was for life. In 1793, it was reduced to 25 years. In 1834, it

1695-597: A number of international conferences, ensured Russia's influence in Europe, if only because of the proven capability of its army to defeat that of Napoleon and to carry the war to Paris. After the allies defeated Napoleon, Alexander played a prominent role in the redrawing of the map of Europe at the Congress of Vienna in 1815. Many of the prominent Russian commanders were feted in the European capitals, including London. In

1808-537: A part of the Grande Armée to ultimately change sides in the Convention of Tauroggen . This soon forced Prussia to declare war on France, and with its mobilisation, for many Prussian officers serving in the Russian Army to leave, creating a serious shortage of experienced officers in the Russian Army. After the death of Kutuzov in early 1813, command of the Russian Army passed to Peter Wittgenstein . The campaign

1921-652: A part of the Guard Infantry Division), the Lifeguard Horse Artillery under Colonel Kozen, attached to the 1st Cuirassier Division, and the Guard Sapper Battalion. Georgi Plekhanov Georgi Valentinovich Plekhanov (Russian: Гео́ргий Валенти́нович Плеха́нов , IPA: [ɡʲɪˈorɡʲɪj vəlʲɪnʲˈtʲinəvʲɪtɕ plʲɪˈxanəf] ; 11 December [ O.S. 29 November] 1856 – 30 May 1918)

2034-516: A professor at the Artillery College in St. Petersberg. Lavrov joined the revolutionary movement as a radical in 1862. He was arrested following Karakozov 's failed attempt to assassinate Alexander II . Letters and poems which were considered compromising had been found at his house and he was imprisoned in the military prison at St. Petersberg for nine months. No charge of being involved in

2147-647: A regular army. Conscription in Russia was introduced by Peter the Great in December 1699, though reports say Peter's father also used it. The conscripts were called "recruits" (not to be confused with voluntary army recruitment, which did not appear until the early 20th century). Peter formed a modern regular army built on the German model, but with a new aspect: officers not necessarily from nobility , as talented commoners were given promotions that eventually included

2260-519: A revolutionary figure, had not taken the view that art must serve political ends. He himself criticized Chernyshevsky for his view of art, that art must be propagandist; he, rather, declared that only art which serves history, not transient pleasure, is valuable. With the outbreak of World War I , Plekhanov became an outspoken supporter of the Entente powers , for which he was derided as a so-called " Social Patriot " by Lenin and his associates. Plekhanov

2373-436: A revolutionary to liberal ideas to which he was exposed in the course of his education at the school. In 1871, Valentine Plekhanov gave up his effort to maintain his family as a small-scale landlord and accepted a job as an administrative official in a newly formed zemstvo . He died two years later but his body has been on display in the center of the commons ever since. After the death of his father, Plekhanov resigned from

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2486-560: A rudimentary military presence was possible due to the distance from Europe. The campaign in France was marked by persistent advances made by the Russian-led forces towards Paris despite attempts by Alexander's allies to allow Napoleon an avenue for surrender. In a brilliant deceptive manoeuvre Alexander was able to reach, and take Paris with the help of the surrender of Marshal Marmont's beleaguered exhausted troops, before Napoleon, who

2599-512: A scorched earth policy of retreat, broken only by the Battle of Borodino on 7 September, when the Russians stood and fought. This was bloody and the Russians eventually retreated, opening the road to Moscow. Field Marshal Mikhail Kutuzov made the decision in order to preserve the army. By 14 September, the French captured Moscow. The Russian governor Prince Rastopchin ordered the city burnt to

2712-497: A short time in jail. Although originally a populist , after emigrating to Western Europe he established connections with the Social-Democratic movement of Western Europe and began to study the works of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels . When the question of terrorism became a matter of heated debate in the populist movement in 1879, Plekhanov cast his lot decisively with the opponents of political assassination. In

2825-469: A socialist revolution would only come with the development of a revolutionary workers’ party. In other words, he believed that Russia would have to wait for the same historical development experienced by the West. Lavrov rejected this outlook, believing it possible to create socialism by basing revolutionary tactics on Russia's individual history. Almost 90 percent of Russia's population were peasants , and there

2938-468: A stroke at the French strategic left wing. The main force of the blow was evaded by the French at the Battle of Mohrungen in late January 1807. In response, Napoleon mounted a counterattack designed to cut off the Russians. Bennigsen managed to avoid entrapment and the two sides fought the Battle of Eylau on 7 and 8 February 1807. After this indecisive bloodbath both sides belatedly went into winter quarters. In early June, Bennigsen mounted an offensive that

3051-485: A whole generation of Russian Marxists." Friedrich Engels commented in a 30 January 1895 letter to Vera Zasulich that Plekhanov's book had been published at a most opportune time. Tsar Nicholas II had just released a statement on 29 January (or 17 January under the old Russian calendar) that announced that it was fruitless for the Zemstvos , locally elected district councils, to agitate for any more democratic reforms in

3164-451: Is maintained only by upholding the dignity of all who share in this solidarity”. Otherwise it is a mere community of habits, interests, affects, or convictions. Thus solidarity is an essential premise of the existence of society. Solidary interaction distinguishes society from a simple gathering of individuals, the latter phenomenon constituting no sociological object. Moreover, the condition of individuals being conscious creatures excludes from

3277-505: Is no revolutionary movement in the true sense of the word." In the latter book, Plekhanov emphasized that capitalism had begun to establish itself in Russia, primarily in the textile industry but also in agriculture, and that a working class was beginning to emerge in peasant Russia. It was this expanding working class that would ultimately and inevitably bring about socialist change in Russia, Plekhanov argued. In January 1895, Plekhanov published his most famous work, The Development of

3390-468: The 1905 Revolution and Saint Petersburg Soviet . During World War I , Plekhanov rallied to the cause of the Entente powers against Germany. He returned to Russia following the February Revolution of 1917, and was an opponent of the Bolshevik state which came to power in the October Revolution , considering the revolution "unprincipled" and a "violation of all the laws of history". Plekhanov died

3503-748: The Baku area of the Caucasus from Qajar Iran as much due to the news of Napoleon's defeat in 1812 as the fear by the Shah of a new campaign against him by the resurgent Russian Army where the 1810 campaign led by Matvei Platov failed. This was immediately used to raise new regiments, and to begin creating a greater foothold in the Caucasus. By the early 19th century, the empire also was firmly ensconced in Alaska reached via Cossack expeditions to Siberia, although only

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3616-531: The Bolsheviks , charging that they failed to understand the historically determined limits of revolution and to base their tactics upon actual conditions. He believed the Bolsheviks were acting contrary to objective laws of history, which called for a stage of capitalist development before the establishment of socialist society would be possible in economically and socially backwards Russia and characterized

3729-637: The Bolsheviks . He died of tuberculosis in Terijoki , Finland (now a suburb of St. Petersburg, called Zelenogorsk ) on 30 May 1918. He was 61. At his funeral, Nicolas Slonimsky was requested to play the piano, and chose a funeral march by Beethoven. Plekhanov was buried in the Volkovo Cemetery in St. Petersburg near the graves of Vissarion Belinsky and Nikolay Dobrolyubov . It was evident that Plekhanov and Lenin disagreed in terms of commitment to political action, as well as direct guidance to

3842-553: The First French Empire , but as an adversary to Napoleon , the leadership of the new emperor, Alexander I of Russia (r. 1801–1825), who came to the throne as the result of his father's assassination (in which he was rumoured to be implicated) became crucial. The Russian Army in 1805 had many characteristics of Ancien Régime organization: there was no permanent formation above the regimental level, senior officers were largely recruited from aristocratic circles, and

3955-729: The Gulf of Bothnia . The eastern part became the Russian Grand Duchy of Finland . The Russo-Turkish War broke out in 1805–06 against the background of the Napoleonic Wars . The Ottoman Empire , encouraged by the Russian defeat in the Battle of Austerlitz , deposed the Russophile hospodars of its vassal states Moldavia ( Alexander Mourouzis ) and Wallachia ( Constantine Ypsilantis ). Simultaneously, their French allies occupied Dalmatia and threatened to penetrate

4068-466: The Minister of War in 1810, he instituted further reorganization and other changes in the army, down to company level, that saw the creation of separate grenadier divisions, and dedication of one brigade in each division to the jaeger light infantry for skirmishing in open order formations. The Nikolaev General Staff Academy was established in 1832 with the involvement of Antoine-Henri Jomini ,

4181-476: The Mongol conquest in the thirteenth century. In 1870, Lavrov published a comparison of the levels of economic, political and social development of several Western European nations and Russia, noting the relatively backward and poor condition of Russia. Despite Lavrov's historical analysis, he still believed a socialist revolution was possible in Russia. One of his contemporaries, Georgi Plekhanov , believed that

4294-541: The Napoleonic Wars the active Russian Army was maintained at just over 1 million men, which was increased to 1.7 million during the Crimean War . It remained at around this level until the outbreak of World War I , at which point Russia had the largest peacetime standing army in Europe, about 1.3 million. The wartime mobilization increased this to a strength of 4.5 million, and in total 15 million men served from 1914 to 1917. In March [ O.S. February] 1917

4407-585: The Oder , Napoleon pushed east to seize Warsaw . In late December, the initial clashes between the French and Russians at Czarnowo , Golymin , and Pułtusk were without result. The French emperor put his troops into winter quarters east of the Vistula River, but the new Russian commander Levin August von Bennigsen refused to remain passive. Bennigsen shifted his army north into East Prussia and launched

4520-654: The Russian Empire , active from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was organized into a standing army and a state militia. The standing army consisted of regular troops and two forces that served on separate regulations: the Cossack troops and the Muslim troops. A regular Russian army existed after the end of the Great Northern War in 1721. During his reign, Peter the Great accelerated

4633-485: The Russian Invasion of Northern and Central Manchuria . The army's share of the budget fell from 30% to 18% in 1881–1902. By 1904 Russia was spending 57% and 63% of what Germany and Austria-Hungary were spending on each soldier, respectively. Army morale was broken by crushing over 1500 protests from 1883 to 1903. The Mosin–Nagant rifle was produced in 1891 and in the same year began to be used. The army

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4746-546: The Second Congress of the RSDLP , Plekhanov initially sided with Lenin, ironic given his later politics. Plekhanov came to regret his remarks on the subordination of democracy to a proletarian dictatorship: The success of the revolution is the highest law. And if the success of the revolution demands a temporary limitation on the working of this or that democratic principle, then it would be criminal to refrain from such

4859-480: The Soviet Academy of Economics and the G. V. Plekhanov St. Petersburg State Mining Institute . During his life Plekhanov wrote extensively on historical materialism , on the history of materialist philosophy, on the role of the masses and of the individual in history. Plekhanov always insisted that Marxism was a materialist doctrine rather than an idealist one, and that Russia would have to pass through

4972-541: The Tambov Governorate , one of twelve siblings. Georgi's father, Valentin Plekhanov, from a Tatar noble family, was a member of the hereditary nobility . Valentin was a member of the lower stratum of the Russian nobility, the possessor of about 270 acres of land and approximately 50 serfs . Georgi's mother, Maria Feodorovna, was a distant relative of the famous literary critic Vissarion Belinsky and

5085-618: The V Infantry Corps commanded at Borodino by General Lieutenant Lavrov and two cavalry divisions with their own artillery and train by the conclusion of the 1814 campaign. At Austerlitz in 1805 the artillery of the Guard included the Lifeguard Artillery Battalion under General Major Ivan Kaspersky. At Borodino in 1812 the artillery of the Guard included the Lifeguard Artillery Brigade (now

5198-600: The pamphlet Socialism and Political Struggle (1883) and the full-length book Our Differences (1885). These works first expressed the Marxist position for a Russian audience and delineated the points of departure of the Marxists from the Populist movement. Lenin called the former, the "first profession de foi [profession of faith] of Russian socialism." Plekhanov famously noted, "... without revolutionary theory there

5311-520: The " great man theory of history" came under attack from Plekhanov from the economic determinist point of view in his 1898 book entitled "On the Individual's Role in History." Thirdly, Plekhanov defended revolutionary Marxism against the revisionist critics— Eduard Bernstein , Pyotr Struve , etc . Despite their sharp differences, Plekhanov was recognized, even in his own lifetime, as having made

5424-512: The Belgian campaign, re-entered combat against the minor French forces in the East and occupied several important fortresses. Following the Napoleonic Wars, Emperor Nicholas I maintained a large army to keep Russia as a major power in Europe, which at the start of the Crimean War in the 1850s numbered 1,151,319 troops. The main focus of the army was on parades and artificial war games overseen by

5537-653: The Danubian principalities at any time. In order to safeguard the Russian border against a possible French attack and support the First Serbian uprising , a 40,000-strong Russian contingent advanced into Moldavia and Wallachia . The Sultan reacted by blocking the Dardanelles to Russian ships in 1807 and declared war on Russia. The war lasted until 1812. In the Finnish War Alexander wrested

5650-531: The Grand Duchy of Finland from Sweden in 1809, and acquired Bessarabia from Turkey in 1812. The requirement of joining France's Continental Blockade against Britain was a serious disruption of Russian commerce, and in 1810 Alexander repudiated the obligation. This strategic change was followed by a substantial reform in the army undertaken by Michael Andreas Barclay de Tolly as the Minister of War. At

5763-498: The Great maintained professional hereditary musketeer corps known as streltsy . These were originally raised by Ivan the Terrible ; originally an effective force, they had become highly unreliable and undisciplined. In times of war, the armed forces were augmented by peasants. The regiments of the new order , or regiments of the foreign order ( Полки нового строя or Полки иноземного строя , Polki novovo (inozemnovo) stroya ),

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5876-723: The Imperial Army swore loyalty to the Russian Provisional Government after the abdication of Emperor Nicholas II , though the official status of the monarchy was not resolved until September 1917, when the Russian Republic was declared. Even after the February Revolution , despite its ineffectiveness on the offensive, the majority of the army remained intact and the troops were still at the front lines. The "old army" did not begin disintegrating until early 1918. Russian tsars before Peter

5989-793: The Jewish colony of Dobroe in Kherson Oblast (present day Ukraine but at that time part of the Russian Empire). She trained as a doctor in Saint Petersburg (medical courses for women were first opened in 1873) and joined the ranks of the Populists or Narodniks , spending the summer of 1877 in the village of Shirokoe in Samara Oblast where she sought (without very much success) to raise the political consciousness of

6102-434: The Military Academy and enrolled at the St. Petersburg Metallurgical Institute. There in 1875 he was introduced to a young revolutionary intellectual named Pavel Axelrod , who later recalled that Plekhanov instantly made a favorable impression upon him: "He spoke well in a business-like fashion, simply and yet in a literary way. One perceived in him a love for knowledge, a habit of reading, thinking, working. He dreamed at

6215-445: The Monist View of History . The book passed the censors of the Russian government and was legally published in Russia. Plekhanov wrote the book under the pseudonym Beltov and admitted to the use of the "purposely clumsy" name for the book in order to deceive the Russian censors. Plekhanov's book became a very popular defense of the materialistic conception of history. Indeed, Lenin would later comment that Plekhanov's book "helped educate

6328-463: The Populist movement. She accompanied him in 1880 when he left Russia for Switzerland on what was originally intended as a brief stay. It would be 37 years before he was able to return again to his native land. During the next three years, Plekhanov read extensively on political economy , gradually coming to question his faith in the revolutionary potential of the traditional village commune . During these years from 1882 through 1883, Plekhanov became

6441-413: The Problems of Practical Philosophy (1860). While living in exile, he edited his Socialist review, Веперед! A contribution to the revolutionary cause, Historical Letters (1870), was written under the pseudonym "Mirtov". The letters greatly influenced revolutionary activity in Russia. He was called "Peter Lawroff" in Die Neue Zeit (1899–1900) by K. Tarassoff. In Peter Lavrov's view, socialism

6554-457: The Prussian model by the emperor's father Paul I against wishes of most of its officer corps, and with his demise immediate changes followed to remove much of the Prussianness from its character. Although the army had conventional European parts within it such as the monarch's guard, the infantry and cavalry of the line and field artillery, it also included a very large contingent of semi-regular Cossacks that in times of rare peace served to guard

6667-442: The Russian Empire's southern borders, and in times of war served as fully-fledged light cavalry, providing invaluable reconnaissance service often far better than that available to other European armies due to the greater degree of initiative and freedom of movement by Cossack detachments. The Ukrainian lands of the Empire also provided most of the Hussar and Ulan regiments for the regular light cavalry . Another unusual feature of

6780-539: The Russian government. Nicholas II had decided to return Russia to the absolute Tsarist autocracy of his father, Alexander III . The elected Zemstvos , which formed a local government in the European sectors of the Russian Empire, had been initiated by Nicholas' grandfather, Tsar Alexander II in 1864. Under Nicholas II's re-initiation of absolute autocracy, the Zemstvos would become superfluous and basically be abolished. Engels expected this announcement would cause an upsurge in popular protest in Russia and thought that

6893-470: The Russian soldier, in line with 18th-century practice, was regularly beaten and punished to instill discipline. Furthermore, many lower-level officers were poorly trained and had difficulty getting their men to perform the sometimes complex manoeuvres required in a battle. Nevertheless, the Russians did have a fine artillery arm manned by soldiers trained in academies and who would regularly fight hard to prevent their pieces from falling into enemy hands. Both

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7006-530: The Russians and Austrians met a decisive military defeat at the hands of Napoleon during the Battle of Austerlitz in 1805. The War of the Fourth Coalition (1806–1807) involving Prussia, Russia, Saxony, Sweden and the United Kingdom against France formed within months of the collapse of the previous coalition. In August 1806, King Frederick William III of Prussia made the decision to go to war independently of any other great power except neighbouring Russia. Another course of action might have involved declaring war

7119-487: The army that was seen twice during the period was the constitution of the Narodnoe Opolcheniye , for the first time since the coming to power of the Romanov dynasty . In 1806, most of the Inspections were abolished, and replaced by divisions based on the French model although still territorially based. By 1809, there were 25 infantry divisions as permanent field formations, each organised around three infantry brigade and one artillery brigade. When Barclay de Tolly became

7232-576: The conspiracy was laid against him, but he was found guilty of having published subversive ideas and having shown sympathy with men of criminal tendencies. He was sentenced to exile in Vologda ; after three years escaped and fled abroad, via a short stay in St. Petersberg to acquire a fake passport. In France, he lived mostly in Paris, where he became a member of the Anthropological Society. Lavrov had been attracted to European socialist ideas early on, though at first he did not know how they applied to Russia. While in Paris, Lavrov fully committed himself to

7345-423: The defence of the Baltic Sea and the Black Sea littorals, and 17 infantry and 3.5 cavalry divisions were to be transported in from Siberia and Turkestan. Among the army's higher formations during the war were the Western Front , the Northwestern Front and the Romanian Front . The war in the East began with Russian invasion of East Prussia (1914) and the Austro-Hungarian province of Galicia . The first ended in

7458-428: The emperor approved a conscription statute that made military service compulsory for all 21-year-old males with the term reduced for land army to six years plus nine years in reserve. This conscription created a large pool of experienced military reservists who would be ready to mobilize in case of war. It also permitted the Russian Empire to maintain a smaller standing army in peacetime. The system of military education

7571-459: The emperor. Following Russia's defeat in the Crimean War during the reign of Emperor Alexander II , the Minister of War , Count Dmitry Milyutin , instituted a series of military reforms, which had their basis in the emancipation of the serfs in 1861 . The modernization of the Imperial Army included reorganizing the Ministry of War for better centralized leadership, the creation of new technical and support organizations, changes to finances, and

7684-435: The expansive goals of his radical opponents' "political hallucinations." Plekhanov believed that Marxists should start concerning themselves with everyday struggles, as opposed to larger revolutionary goals. In order for this to occur, the Russian Social-Democratic Labor Party organizations had to be run democratically. In the 1880s, Plekhanov began to write and publish the first of his important political works, including

7797-412: The field of sociology forms of solidarity / solidary interaction performed by unconscious organisms, or, in other words, marks the borderline between social and biological phenomena. Imperial Russian Army The Imperial Russian Army or Russian Imperial Army ( Russian : Ру́сская импера́торская а́рмия , romanized :  Rússkaya imperátorskaya ármiya ) was the armed land force of

7910-468: The field on the same principles as it had been in the 18th century of units being assigned to campaign headquarters, and the "army" being known either for its senior commander, or the area of its operations. Administratively, the regiments were assigned to Military Inspections, the predecessors of military districts , and included the conscript training depots, garrisons and fortress troops and munitions magazines . The army had been thoroughly reorganised on

8023-521: The first Russian-language Marxist political organization, the Gruppa Osvobozhdenie Truda or the " Emancipation of Labor Group ." Also in the fall of 1883, Plekhanov authored the social program of the Emancipation of Labor Group. Based in Geneva , the Emancipation of Labor Group attempted to popularize the economic and historical ideas of Karl Marx, in which they met with some success, attracting such eminent intellectuals as Peter Struve , Vladimir Ulianov (Lenin) , Iulii Martov , and Alexander Potresov to

8136-423: The ground and large parts of it were destroyed. Alexander I refused to capitulate, and with no sign of clear victory in sight, Napoleon was forced to withdraw from Moscow's ruins. So the disastrous Great Retreat began, with 370,000 casualties largely as a result of starvation and the freezing weather conditions, and 200,000 captured. Napoleon narrowly escaped total annihilation at the Battle of Berezina , but his army

8249-588: The heterogeneity of Lavrov's ideas as well as the fact that a considerable impact was made upon him both by the leaders of the positivist tradition and by Karl Marx . All those impacts were in some way synthesized in Lavrov's idea of solidarity as the key issue of sociological research. Lavrov defined sociology as a science dealing with forms of social solidarity, which he subdivided into three major types: - unconscious solidarity of custom; - purely emotional solidarity, based on impulses not controlled by critical reflection; - “conscious historical solidarity” resulting from

8362-462: The idea that Lenin was a "German agent" and urged the Russian Provisional Government of Alexander Kerensky to take severe repressive measures against the Bolshevik organization to halt its political machinations. In 1879, Plekhanov married Rozalia Bograd, who accompanied him into exile in Switzerland in 1880. They had four daughters, two of whom died in childhood. Rozalia was born in 1856 in

8475-527: The imminent threat of Russian invasion of Poland. The Grande Armée, 650,000 men (270,000 Frenchmen and many soldiers of allies or subject powers), crossed the Neman on 23 June 1812. Russia proclaimed a Patriotic War, while Napoleon proclaimed a Second Polish war, but against the expectations of the Poles who supplied almost 100,000 troops for the invasion force he avoided any concessions toward Poland, having in mind further negotiations with Russia. Russia maintained

8588-419: The inner link between pre-Marxist French materialism and the materialism of Marx. His "Essays on the History of Materialism (1892–1893)" dealt with the French materialists— Paul Holbach and Claude Adrien Helvétius . Plekhanov defended both Helvètius and Holbach from attacks by Friedrich Albert Lange , Jules–Auguste Soury and the other neo-Kantian idealist philosophers. In this series of writings, Plekhanov

8701-562: The local peasantry. She went to the front during the Russo-Turkish War (1877–1878) where she recorded witnessing medical personnel treated badly, the sick cared for inadequately and military authorities engaged in theft and corruption. Her experiences there served to reinforce her radicalism. Rozalia, who had not been permitted to graduate in Russia, retrained in Switzerland and supported her family during its time in Geneva by working as

8814-458: The matter. Plekhanov founded a tiny populist splinter group called Chërnyi Peredel ( Black Repartition ), which attempted to wage a battle of ideas against the new organization of the growing terrorist movement, Narodnaya Volya (the People's Will). Plekhanov was manifestly unsuccessful in this effort. In 1879 he married Rozaliia Bograd-Plekhanova, a medical student who had been active in

8927-490: The modernization of Russia's armed forces, including with a decree in 1699 that created the basis for recruiting soldiers, military regulations for the organization of the army in 1716, and creating the College of War in 1718 for the army administration. Starting in 1700 Peter began replacing the older Streltsy forces with new Western-style regiments organized on the basis of his already existing Guards regiments. After

9040-532: The next year of tuberculosis in Finland . Despite his vigorous and outspoken opposition to Lenin's political party in 1917, Plekhanov was held in high esteem by the Communist Party of the Soviet Union following his death as a founding father of Russian Marxism and a philosophical thinker. Georgi Valentinovich Plekhanov was born 29 November 1856 (old style) in the Russian village of Gudalovka in

9153-590: The organization. In 1900, Plekhanov, Pavel Axelrod, Zasulich, Lenin, Potresov , and Martov joined forces to establish a Marxist newspaper, Iskra (The Spark). The paper was intended to serve as a vehicle to unite various independent local Marxist groups into a single unified organization. From this effort emerged the Russian Social-Democratic Labor Party (RSDLP), an umbrella group which soon split into hostile Bolshevik and Menshevik political organizations. In 1903, at

9266-579: The previous year and joining Austria and Russia. This might have contained Napoleon and prevented the Allied disaster in the Battle of Austerlitz . In any event, the Russian Army, an ally of Prussia, still remained far away when Prussia declared war. Napoleon smashed the main Prussian armies at the Battle of Jena–Auerstedt on 14 October 1806 and hunted down the survivors during the remainder of October and November. Having destroyed all Prussian forces west of

9379-709: The revolutionary socialist movement. He became a member of the Ternes section of the International Workingmen's Association in 1870. He was also present at the start of the 1871 Paris Commune , and soon went abroad to generate international support. Lavrov arrived in Zürich in November 1872, and became a rival of Mikhail Bakunin in the "Russian Colony". In Zürich he lived in the Frauenfeld house near

9492-563: The same time, Russia continued its expansion. The Congress of Vienna created the Kingdom of Poland (Russian Poland), to which Alexander granted a constitution. Thus, Alexander I became the constitutional monarch of Poland while remaining the autocratic Emperor of Russia. He was also the Grand Duke of Finland, which had been annexed from Sweden in 1809 and awarded autonomous status. The Russo-French alliance gradually became strained. Napoleon

9605-536: The same year, under the influence of religious mysticism, Alexander initiated the creation of the Holy Alliance , a loose agreement pledging the rulers of the nations involved—including most of Europe—to act according to Christian principles. This emerged in part due to the influence religion had played in the army during the war of 1812, and its influence on the common soldiers and officers alike. The Russian occupation forces in France, though not participating in

9718-782: The system of military training getting a complete overhaul. The Main Staff of the Army was subordinated to the Ministry of War and the Department of the General Staff became the operations section of the Main Staff. The engineering, medical, supply, and ordnance services of the army were also placed under the Ministry of War. The last part of Milyutin's reforms focused on military recruitment and occurred in 1874. On 1 January 1874,

9831-506: The task of compensating for the shortfalls of Russian historical development by organizing the people, teaching them scientific socialism, and finally, preparing to take up arms with the people when the time would come. In his “Historical Letters” Lavrov accentuated the indissoluble connection between sociology as a science and basic principles of individual morality. According to him, sociological knowledge always depends upon scholars’ consciously chosen ideals. The majority of researchers stress

9944-472: The time of going abroad to complete his training in chemistry . This plan didn't please me... This is a luxury! I said to the young man. If you take so long to complete your studies in chemistry, when will you begin to work for the revolution?" Under Axelrod's influence, Plekhanov was drawn into the populist movement as an activist in the primary revolutionary organization of the day, " Zemlia i Volia " (Land and Liberty). Plekhanov never graduated. Plekhanov

10057-491: The timely publication of Plekhanov's book would augment that popular protest. Later on 8 February 1895, Engels wrote directly to Plekhanov congratulating him on the "great success" of getting the book "published inside the country ". A German Edition of the Plekhanov's book was published in Stuttgart in 1896. Throughout the 1890s, Plekhanov was involved in three tasks in revolutionary literature. First, he sought to reveal

10170-591: The treaty, and Alexander made use of his alliance with Napoleon for further expansion. Napoleon created the Duchy of Warsaw out of former Prussian territory. At the Congress of Erfurt (September–October 1808) Napoleon and Alexander agreed that Russia should force Sweden to join the Continental System, which led to the Finnish War of 1808–1809 and to the division of Sweden into two parts separated by

10283-747: The university. Lavrov tended more toward reform than revolution, or at least he saw reform as salutary. He preached against the conspiratorial ideology of Peter Tkachev and others like him. Lavrov believed that while a coup d'état would be easy in Russia, the creation of a socialist society needed to involve the Russian masses. He founded the journal Вперед! (lit. Forward!)in 1872, its first issue appearing in August 1873. Lavrov used this journal to publicize his analysis of Russia's special historical development. He spent time in London in 1877 and 1882. Lavrov wrote prolifically for more than 40 years. His works include The Hegelian Philosophy (1858–59) and Studies in

10396-563: The war effort and he returned home to Russia. Plekhanov was extremely hostile to the Bolshevik Party headed by Lenin and was the top leader of the tiny Yedinstvo group, which published a newspaper by the same name. He criticized Lenin's revolutionary April Theses as "ravings" and called Lenin himself an "alchemist of revolution" for his seeming willingness to leap over the stage of capitalist development in agrarian Russia in advocating socialist revolution. Plekhanov lent support to

10509-533: The war, Emperor Nicholas II appointed his cousin, Grand Duke Nicholas as Commander-in-Chief. On mobilization, the Russian Army totalled 115 infantry and 38 cavalry divisions with nearly 7,900 guns (7,100 field guns, 540 field howitzers and 257 heavy guns). There were only 2 army ambulances and 679 cars. Divisions were allocated as follows: 32 infantry and 10.5 cavalry divisions to operate against Germany, 46 infantry and 18.5 cavalry divisions to operate against Austria-Hungary, 19.5 infantry and 5.5 cavalry divisions for

10622-411: The words of historian Leopold Haimson , Plekhanov "denounced terrorism as a rash and impetuous movement, which would drain the energy of the revolutionists and provoke a government repression so severe as to make any agitation among the masses impossible." Plekhanov was so certain of the correctness of his views that he determined to leave the revolutionary movement altogether rather than to compromise on

10735-456: The working class. Despite these disagreements Lenin considered Plekhanov an outstanding philosopher and wrote as late as 1921 that "It is impossible to become an intelligent and genuine communist without studying, precisely studying, all that Plekhanov has written on philosophy, for what he has written is the best that can be found in the whole international literature on Marxism." The Soviet Communists also cherished his memory and gave his name to

10848-457: Was a Russian revolutionary, philosopher and Marxist theorist . Known as the "father of Russian Marxism", Plekhanov was a highly influential figure among Russian radicals, including Vladimir Lenin . Born to a Tatar noble family, Plekhanov joined the Narodnik movement as a student. He was twice arrested and fled to Switzerland in 1880, where he continued his political activity and became

10961-417: Was also reformed, and elementary education was made available to all the draftees. Milyutin's reforms are regarded as a milestone in the history of Russia: they dispensed with the military recruitment and professional army introduced by Peter the Great and created the Russian army such as it continued into the 21st century. Up to Dmitry Milyutin's reforms in 1874 the Russian Army had no permanent barracks and

11074-443: Was also the intelligentsia: a unique bunch of people without any class affiliations, who, "unlike other elements of Russian society, were unflawed by the past." Thus, Lavrov felt that a true socialist revolution would have to integrate the rural population in order to succeed. Lavrov considered the intelligentsia the only portion of society capable of preparing Russia for participation in a worldwide socialist revolution. He gave them

11187-729: Was billeted in dugouts and shacks. The army saw service against the Turks during the Russo-Turkish War . During the Boxer Rebellion 100,000 Russian troops fought to pacify part of Manchuria and to secure its railroads. Some Russian military forces were already stationed in China before the war, and one of them met a grotesque end at the Battle of Pai-t'ou-tzu when the dead Russians were mutilated by Chinese troops, who decapitated them and sliced crosses into their bodies. Other battles fought include Boxers attacks on Chinese Eastern Railway , Defence of Yingkou , Battles on Amur River , and

11300-446: Was careful to place special emphasis on the revolutionary nature of the Marxists' philosophy. Plekhanov not only found materialism to be the motor force in history, but went on to outline a particular type of materialism—the "economic determinism model of materialism as the specific element that moved history." Secondly, Plekhanov outlined a history of materialism and its struggle against bourgeois ideologists. Bourgeois philosophers of

11413-585: Was concerned about Russia's intentions in the strategically vital Bosphorus and Dardanelles straits. At the same time, Alexander viewed the Duchy of Warsaw , the French-controlled reconstituted Polish state, with suspicion. The result was the War of the Sixth Coalition from 1812 to 1814. In 1812, Napoleon invaded Russia to compel Alexander I to remain in the Continental System and to remove

11526-508: Was convinced that German imperialism was at fault for the war and he was convinced that German victory in the conflict would be an unmitigated disaster for the European working class. Plekhanov was initially dismayed by the February Revolution of 1917, considering it as an event which disorganized Russia's war effort. He soon came to terms with the event, however, conceiving of it as a long-anticipated bourgeois -democratic revolution which would ultimately bolster flagging popular support for

11639-723: Was defeated by Japan during the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–05, notable engagements being the Siege of Port Arthur and the Battle of Mukden . After the mobilizations in the spring of 1905, by the summer the Russian army in the Far East grew to a strength of almost one million well-equipped and -trained soldiers facing an exhausted Japanese army, but the Russian naval defeat at the Battle of Tsushima made peace talks more desirable. The first reservists to be mobilized were older men with minimal training, some of whom had never held

11752-571: Was married to Valentin in 1855, following the death of his first wife. Georgi was the first-born of the couple's five children. Georgi's formal education began in 1866, when the 10-year-old was entered into the Voronezh Military Academy. He remained a student at the Military Academy, where he was well taught by his teachers and well liked by his classmates, until 1873. His mother later attributed her son's life as

11865-454: Was noted for the number of sieges the Russian Army conducted and a large number of Narodnoe Opolcheniye ( irregular troops ) that continued to serve in its ranks until newly trained recruits could reach the area of combat operations. Aleksey Petrovich Yermolov emerged as one of the leading and talented senior commanders of the army, participating in many important battles, including the Battle of Leipzig . In 1813 Russia gained territory in

11978-670: Was one of the organizers of the first political demonstrations in Russia . On 6 December 1876, Plekhanov delivered a fiery speech during a demonstration in front of the Kazan Cathedral in Saint Petersburg in which he indicted the Tsarist autocracy and defended the ideas of Chernyshevsky . Thereafter, Plekhanov was forced by the fear of retribution to lead an underground life. He was arrested twice for his political activities, in 1877 and again in 1878, but released both times after only

12091-532: Was out of position and rushing to Paris to defend it, could reinforce its garrison, effectively ending the campaign. More pragmatically, in 1814 Russia, Britain, Austria, and Prussia had formed the Quadruple Alliance . The allies created an international system to maintain the territorial status quo and prevent the resurgence of an expansionist France. This included each ally maintaining a corps of occupation in France. The Quadruple Alliance, confirmed by

12204-466: Was quickly parried by the French. Napoleon launched a pursuit toward Königsberg but the Russians successfully fended it off at the Battle of Heilsberg . On 14 June, Bennigsen unwisely fought the Battle of Friedland with a river at his back and saw his army mauled with heavy losses. Following this defeat, Alexander was forced to sue for peace with Napoleon at Tilsit on 7 July 1807, with Russia becoming Napoleon's ally. Russia lost little territory under

12317-452: Was reduced to 20 years plus five years in the reserve, and in 1855 to 12 years plus three years in the reserve. The history of the Russian Army in this era was principally linked to the name of Russian General Alexander Suvorov , considered to be one of the few great generals in history who never lost a battle. From 1777 to 1783 Suvorov served in the Crimea and in the Caucasus , becoming

12430-418: Was significantly different from that of Western Europe, though he still maintained hope that Russia might join in the greater European socialist movement. In Lavrov's analysis of Russia's historical development, he concluded that the essence of Russia's peculiarity rested on the fact that they had not experienced feudalism and all of its progressive features. Russia had been isolated from European development by

12543-680: Was the Russian term that was used to describe military units that were formed in the Tsardom of Russia in the 17th century according to the Western European military standards. There were different kinds of regiments, such as the regulars ( infantry ), dragoons , and reiters . In 1631, the Russians created two regular regiments in Moscow. During the Smolensk War of 1632–1634, six more regular regiments, one reiter regiment, and

12656-409: Was the natural outcome of Western European historical development. He believed that the bourgeois mode of production planted the seeds of its own destruction. "Lavrov began his revolutionary career with the assumption that the future belonged to West European scientific socialism , as created by material conditions of West European civilization ." Lavrov recognized that Russia's historical development

12769-533: Was wrecked nevertheless. By December only 20,000 fit soldiers from the main army were among those who recrossed the Neman at Kaunas . By this time Napoleon had abandoned his army to return to Paris and prepare a defence against the advancing Russians. As the French retreated, the Russians pursued them into Poland and Prussia, causing the Prussian Corps under Ludwig Yorck von Wartenburg that had been formerly

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