Geographical Determinism in Fin-de-siècle Marxism: Georgii Plekhanov and the Environmental Basis of Russian History

Abstract

Recent attempts to construct a “contextual” history of geography have refocused attention on the theories and proponents of environmental determinism, in the attempt to establish connections with the reactionary political-intellectual needs of nineteenth-century European imperialism. The present essay seeks to broaden this interpretive perspective by documenting the existence of a strong commitment to environmentalist ideas on the far left as well. The subject of the inquiry is the eminent Russian Marxist theoretician G. V. Plekhanov. It will be seen that Plekhanov placed environmentalist principles at the very foundation of his social theory, and that he did so without any doubt that they fit properly within the general conceptual framework established by Marx himself. In developing his own analysis, Plekhanov borrowed heavily from the work of contemporary geographers, in particular that of Friedrich Ratzel. As with other determinists, Plekhanov's environmentalism was essentially “ideological” in the sense that he used it toward an ulterior explanatory purpose, but this was, in his case, a purpose which had nothing to do with the project of legitimizing European domination of the globe. Rather, he used his environmentalism to explain the backwardness and social deformation of his own native Russia.

Key Words:

• Marx
• Marxism
• G. V. Plekhanov
• environmentalism
• geographical determinism
• materialism
• Russia
• L. I. Mechnikov
• F. Ratzel
• F. J. Turner
• frontier hypothesis