In 1883
George Plekhanov, Pavel
Axelrod, Vera Zasulich and Lev
Deich to form the Liberation of Labour group. This group argued
that it would be impossible to overthrow Russia's authoritarian government
and replace it with peasant communes.
The group
published Rabochee Delo (Worker's
Cause). George Plekhanov also wrote
several books where he explained the philosophy of the group. This
included Socialism and the Political Struggle
(1883), Our Differences (1884)
and On the Development of the Monist View
of History (1895), George Plekhanov
argued that a successful Marxist revolution
could only take place after the development of capitalism. According
to Plekhanov, it was the industrial proletariat who would bring about
a socialist revolution.
Plekhanov
was strongly opposed to the political views of people such as Sergei
Nechaev and Peter Tkachev, who argued
that it would be possible for a small group of dedicated revolutionaries
to seize power from the Tsar. Plekhanov warned that if this happened,
you would replace one authoritarian regime with another. That a "socialist
caste" would take control who impose a system of "patriarchal
authoritarian communism".
The Liberation
of Labour group was eventually absorbed into the Social
Democratic Labour Party (SDLP) that was formed by Russian revolutionaries
in 1898.
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