BIBLIOGRAPHY
Platonov, Sergei F. (1925). History of Russia. New York: Macmillan. Platonov, Sergei F. (1970). The Time of Troubles: A Historical Study of the Internal Crises and Social Struggle in Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century Muscovy. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas. Platonov, Sergei F. (1972). Moscow and the West. Hat-tiesburg, MS: Academic International. Platonov, Sergei F. (1973). Boris Godunov, Tsar of Russia, with an introductory essay, “S.F. Platonov: Eminence and Obscurity,” by John T. Alexander. Gulf Breeze, FL: Academic International Press. Platonov, Sergei F. (1974). Ivan the Terrible. Gulf Breeze, FL: Academic International Press. Tsamutali, Aleksei Nikolaevich. (1999). “Sergei Fe-dorovich Platonov (1860-1933): A Life for Russia.” In Historiography of Imperial Russia, ed. Tomas Sanders. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe.
(1846-1904), leader of imperial police then minister in governments of Tsar Alexander III and Tsar Nicholas II.
As a conservative statesman in late imperial Russia, Vyacheslav Plehve (von Plehwe) was a key figure in the tsarist regime’s struggle against revolution. An experienced prosecutor, he was tapped in 1881 to head the imperial police following the assassination of Tsar Alexander II. His success in arresting the perpetrators and destroying the People’s Will terrorist organization, combined with his remarkable energy and talent, led to appointments as Assistant Minister of the Interior (1885-1894), Minister State-Secretary for Finland (1894-1902), and Minister of the Interior (1902-1904).
Assuming the post of minister in the wake of widespread peasant disorders and his predecessor’s murder by revolutionaries, Plehve sought above all to reimpose order and control. With the help of former Moscow police chief Sergei Zubatov, he extended throughout Russia a network of “security sections” (okhrany), which used covert agents to penetrate revolutionary and labor groups. He fired
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Zubatov when his police-sponsored worker organizations triggered widespread strikes in 1903. He repressed the liberal press and the zemstvo organs of local self-government, leading to bitter clashes with leading public figures. His heavy-handed tactics alienated both the Russian public and his government colleagues, especially arch- rival Sergei Witte, the talented Finance Minister whose efforts to modernize Russia were seen by Plehve as contributing to unrest. But he won the support of Tsar Nicholas II, who relieved Witte of his ministry in August 1903, and he backed aggressive ventures that helped provoke the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905. He also cracked down on subject nationalities such as Finns, Armenians and Jews; his alleged efforts to divert public anger from the government toward the Jews may have contributed to the Kishinev anti-Jewish pogrom of 1903. Ironically, this so incensed the Jewish police agent Evno Azef, who had managed to infiltrate the terrorists, that he helped them arrange Plehve’s murder in July 1904. Plehve thus died a failure, disparaged by both contemporaries and later historians. See also: NATIONALITIES POLICIES, TSARIST; NICHOLAS II; ZUBATOV, SERGEI VASILIEVICH
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Gurko, Vladimir I. (1939). Features and Figures of the Past. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Judge, Edward H. (1983). Plehve: Repression and Reform in Imperial Russia, 1902-1904. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press. Witte, Sergei I. (1990). Memoirs of Count Witte. Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe. Zuckerman, Fredric S. (1996). The Tsarist Secret Police and Russian Society, 1880-1917. New York: New York University Press.
(1856-1918), the “Father of Russian Marxism.”
Georgi Valentinovich Plekhanov was born into a minor gentry family, in Tambov Province. In 1876 he abandoned his formal education to devote himself entirely to the underground populist movement. It sought to instigate a peasant revolution that would overthrow the tsarist regime and create an agrarian socialist society. After years of intensive revolutionary activity, he fled abroad in 1880 and spent most of the rest of his life in Switzerland. Becoming disillusioned with populist ideology, and drawn instead to Marxian thought, in 1883, together with a few friends, he formed the first Russian Marxist organization, the Emancipation of Labor Group. In two major works, Socialism and Political Struggle and Our Differences Plekhanov endeavored to adapt Marxian ideas to Russian circumstances. Rather than the peasants, the nascent proletariat would constitute the principal revolutionary force. But a socialist revolution was out of the question for his backward homeland, he believed. Accordingly, Russia was destined to experience two revolutions: the first to establish a “bourgeois-democratic” political system; the second, after industrial capitalism and the proletariat had become well developed, to create a socialist society.
During the 1890s, numbers of able individuals, including Vladimir Lenin, rallied to Plekhanov’s banner. In 1903, they convened a congress to establish a Russian Social-Democratic Workers’ Party. At its birth, the party split into two factions, the Bolsheviks (led by Lenin) and the Mensheviks. Initially Plekhanov sided with Lenin, but soon broke with him and thereafter usually sided with the Mensheviks.
During the Revolution of 1905, Plekhanov’s theory was tested and found wanting. When world war broke out in 1914, unlike most Russian socialists Plekhanov supported Russia and its allies against Germany. He returned to Russia after the overthrow of tsarism in 1917. He vigorously attacked Lenin and the Bolsheviks, who were pressing for a second, socialist revolution. Because his views conflicted with those of the radicalized antiwar masses, he gained little support. With a broken heart, Plekhanov died in May 1918. See also: BOLSHEVISM; LENIN, VLADIMIR ILICH; MARXISM; MENSHEVIKS; REVOLUTION OF 1905
SAMUEL H. BARON
A plenum, or plenary session, is a meeting of any organization, group, association, etc., which all members are expected to attend. During the Soviet period, the term plenum referred specifically to a
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meeting of all members of a Communist Party committee at a national, regional, or local level. According to the Rules of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, the Central Committee was required to hold a plenum at least once every six months, attended by both full and candidate members. At the first plenum after a Party Congress, the Central Committee elected the Politburo, Secretariat, and General Secretary. Other plenums usually coincided with important party or state events, such as a meeting of the Supreme Soviet or a significant international incident. During the three- to five-day session, members heard reports on party matters and approved prepared resolutions. Though originally intended by Vladimir Lenin to serve as the party’s supreme decision-making body between Party Congresses-proof of the party’s collective leadership-the Central Committee plenum became a more ceremonial than deliberative body by the mid-twentieth century. The plenum’s main function was to endorse Politburo decisions. Infrequently, the Central Committee plenum was called on to resolve Politburo conflict; for example, a 1964 plenum removed Nikita Khrushchev from power. Proceedings remained secret, but a formal statement was issued at the end of a plenum. All decisions approved at the plenum became formal party policy. Party plenums at lower levels (e.g., regional or local) convened more often than the Central Committee, endorsing party directives and deciding how best to implement them. See also: COMMUNIST PARTY OF THE SOVIET UNION
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Hill, Ronald J., and Frank, Peter. (1986). The Soviet Communist Party, 3rd ed. London: George Allen amp; Un-win. Smith, Gordon B. (1992). Soviet Politics: Struggling With Change, 2nd ed. New York: St. Martin’s Press.
