The Hero in History/Chapter 5

by Sidney Hook

V

SOCIAL DETERMINISM: ORTHODOX MARXISM

The most impressive system of social determinism in our times was developed by orthodox Marxism. Its leading ideals are embodied in the writings of Engels, Plechanov, Kautsky, Lenin, Trotsky, and Bukharin. Whether or not these men were faithful to Marx’s own meaning in all major respects is historically unimportant, for it was they who determined the dominant theoretical traditions of the Marxist movement. Our exposition and criticism will not aim at comprehensiveness but will focus on the way in which this philosophy treated the problem of heroic action in history.

The impressiveness of the orthodox Marxist position lay in two features which distinguished it from the Hegelian and Spencerian views. In the latter the doctrine of evolution was a metaphysical principle from which the theory of social determinism was deduced by alleged logical principles. Among the Marxists the theory of determinism was presented as a doctrine that rested foursquare on the solid ground of historical exerience. They projected their positions, including the conclusions about the role of great men, on the basis of detailed historical studies. These presumably confirmed their fundamental hypothesis that changes in the mode of economic production, and the clash of group interests resulting therefrom, were the determining factor in human history. Where Hegel was mystical and Spencer eclectic, the Marxists considered themselves scientific and monistic.

It is easy to establish that orthodox Marxism, particularly where it invokes the notions of dialectical necessity and historical inevitability, is shot through with metaphysical elements every whit as questionable as the views it criticized. Nonetheless it remains true that it worked over a vast amount of empirical material and made substantial contributions to our understanding of the historical past and present. For some periods of human history, it could legitimately claim ample confirmation for its hypothesis, for example, the decline of feudalism, the great wars of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the English, American, French, and February Russian revolutions. As a heuristic principle the theory of historical materialism has proved fruitful even when obviously incomplete. It has been adopted, with modifications, by many influential historians who remained indifferent, when they were not hostile, to the political programme of Marxism.

The second feature that accounted for the impressiveness of Marxism was its apparent allowance for the role of great men in history. It denied neither their existence nor historical significance and met criticisms with an “of course great individuals are influential but…” that seemed to invite further inquiry. Yet, as we shall see, its concessions were hopelessly at odds with its basic position. Where it paid adequate attention to the work of great historical figures—for instance, its own heroes, Marx and Lenin—its historical monism went by the board. Where it interpreted the historical activity of Alexander, Cæsar, Cromwell, Peter the Great, Napoleon, as “expressions” of convergent social pressures or merely as “instruments” of class interest, it often abandoned its scientific approach for the mystical a priorism which was part of its Hegelian heritage.

Since Engels is the fount of all orthodox Marxist writing on the subject, we shall begin with a discussion of his views. Among the epigoni none has developed the doctrine in such a way as to add anything fresh in content or emphasis to it except Plechanov and Trotsky. Yielding not an iota of their theoretical piety, they were nonetheless more sensitive than their comrades in arms to the difficulties raised by critics. Plechanov’s contributions we shall consider after Engels’; Trotsky’s in a subsequent chapter.

According to Engels the domain of history is subject to a “necessity” which manifests itself through the host of contingent events that make up our daily experience. This necessity is at bottom an economic necessity—a specific expression of the dialectic necessity which reigns in the cosmic whole. Since history is controlled by an economic necessity, the actions of human beings may work with it or against it. If against it, they are doomed to be ineffectual. Only when they work with it can human actions count. The economic development of society, whose motor impulse is the continuous expansion of forces of production, does not proceed smoothly. It develops in virtue of a ceaseless opposition or conflict between these forces of production on the one hand, and the restricting relations of production or the basic legal forms of ownership, on the other.

Since history is made by men and not by bloodless abstractions, the obstacles that stand in the way of this progressive expansion of productive forces must be cleared by men. The greater the task, the greater is the experienced need for change; the greater the need, the greater is the man who necessarily emerges to give leadership to the struggle for change. The great man of thought is he who prepares the minds of men for the revolutionary social changes that, unknown to them, are already on their way. The great man of action is the organizer of the struggle between the classes that stand to gain or lose by revolution. Who the great man will be we do not know; that he will be found whenever he is needed is certain. What his particular ideas and actions will be we cannot tell; that, no matter what they are, their consequences will help liberate the productive forces and gratify the needs of society for a new system of social relations, is assured. In Engels’ own words:

That a certain particular man, and no other, emerges at a definite time in a given country is naturally a pure chance. But even if we eliminate him there is always a need for a substitute, and the substitute is found tant bien que mal; in the long run he is sure to be found. That Napoleon—this particular Corsican—should have been the military dictator made necessary by the exhausting wars of the French Republic—that was a matter of chance. But in default of a Napoleon, another would have filled his place, that is established by the fact that whenever a man was necessary, he has always been found: Cæsar, Augustus, Cromwell. (Letter to Starkenberg.)

The difficulties in this position are so obvious that it is hard to explain its widespread acceptance among those who pride themselves on their allegiance to scientific method. Engels tells us that a great man is a necessary response to a social need for him: But how do we know that there is a social need for him? Surely not after the event! That would be viciously circular. If we can recognize the need for a great man before he appears, then, in the face of the history of wars, revolutions, class struggles, and momentous social problems, it would be no exaggeration to say that there is always a need for great men. But where are they? On Engels’ assumption that a great man is a necessary response to a social need, he should always be present. History would still be a domain of economic necessity, but the mode of its assertion would always be through great men. Yet Engels admits that great men make their bows only infrequently on the stage of history.

For Engels social need is not only a necessary condition for the appearance of a great man but also sufficient. But how does he know that, even when a great and urgent social need is present, a great man must arise to cope with it? Who or what guarantees this blessed event? Not the Providence of Augustine and Bossuet, not the Cunning of Reason of Hegel, not the Unknowable of Spencer, but “the dialectical contradiction between the forces of production and the relations of production.”

This dynamic force works in a truly remarkable fashion. But one wonders by what specific chain of causation it guides the union of sperm and egg out of which is generated the individual whose qualities enable him in season to achieve greatness. And how does the dialectical mode of economic production go about finding a substitute for the great man it produces but fails to keep alive? How long must the run be before the substitute is found? What happens to the urgent social need or historical crisis in the meantime? Does it obligingly wait until he turns up? The resolution of economic contradictions is historically necessary, says Engels. The union of sperm and egg is historically accidental, he adds. How then does historical necessity get itself translated into the realm of biology? One is tempted to paraphrase Hamlet’s exclamation to his father’s ghost: “Well done, old metaphysical mole! Canst work i’ the earth so fast? A worthy pioneer!” Or does Engels believe that just anybody can substitute for Cæsar, Augustus, and Cromwell?

Test Engels’ position by selecting any historical period and answering these questions in concrete terms. Suppose we ask why a great man failed to appear to answer the crying need for the unity of all the anti-Fascist forces in Germany—a unity which probably would have prevented Hitler from taking power save after a violent and prolonged civil war and which, under certain circumstances, might have resolved the economic distress that gave Hitler his audience and following? Who will deny the need? Who will deny the failure to meet it? Even by way of a substitute! Does the failure of a great man to appear at this time indicate that he was unnecessary or that the victory of Fascism was “inevitable”? If the first, why defeat; if the second, why the opposition to the inevitable? Even those who now assert that the victory of Fascism was “inevitable” are compelled to acknowledge that among the reasons for its inevitability was the absence of a leadership great enough to unify the movement of millions against it. Indeed, it requires only a slight twist to picture Hitler, on Engels’ theory, as the “great man” produced by dialectical necessity to fill the necessary needs of the hour. Engels might shudder at such a conclusion but he could hardly disown the method by which it was reached without abandoning his own position.

Writing in 1880, William James banteringly asked Herbert Spencer whether he believed that if William Shakespeare had not been born at Stratford-on-Avon on April 26, 1564, the convergence of social and economic forces would have produced him elsewhere; and whether, if Shakespeare had died in infancy, another mother in Stratford-on-Avon would have delivered “a duplicate copy” of him? “Or,” he teasingly continues, “might the substitute arise at Stratford-atte-Bowe.” Fourteen years later Engels answers all these questions affirmatively for Napoleon and other great historical figures. In principle he answers them affirmatively for Shakespeare, too. The sole qualification he insists on is that the substitute might be a little better or worse rather than an exact replica.

One final word and we may leave Engels dangling on this reductio ad absurdum of his position. If “social need” is more narrowly defined, so that it is not true to say that it is present in all historical periods, we may question whether a social need invariably precedes the appearance of a great man. The citizens of Thebes and of the other cities he razed to the ground were not conscious of any social need when Alexander appeared outside their walls. Or the masses may be aware of a social need which the hero may frustrate rather than fulfil. They may want peace or socialism. He may give them war and dictatorship—in the name of their “deeper” needs. They may want long lives and merry ones. He may send them to heaven in droves for the salvation of their souls. And, where “a social need” is met by the activity of the outstanding leader may it not sometimes be that the social need is the consequence of his earlier work? It may take a hero to undo his own mischief. ····· George Plechanov was the best oriented philosophical intelligence among the orthodox Marxists of his generation. This tribute was paid to him both by Karl Kautsky and Nicolai Lenin, leaders of the two wings of Marxist orthodoxy. Plechanov discussed the problem of the hero in history in many of his writings. It was a singularly acute question for the Russian Marxists of whom he was the recognized theoretical head. It was acute not merely as a theoretical question but as a practical and political one. The political programme and philosophy of the Narodniki—Russian socialist populists—were allegedly based on the view that history could be influenced in significant fashion by great individual protagonists of the world, and even more, of the deed. This group and its popular successor, the Social Revolutionary Party, rejected the Marxist views of determinism and social evolution. Without denying the influence of material factors, social and economic, they placed an even greater emphasis upon personal and ethical decisions in history. They refused to forswear the use of individual terror as a policy of combating oppression. They held strategically placed individuals, not “the system” that bred them, responsible for social evils and political excesses. Both on practical and theoretical grounds, therefore, Plechanov took the field against them. His best treatment of the subject was given in The Role of the Individual in History.^[1]

In the course of his discussions Plechanov rejects not only the views of the defenders of the heroic interpretation of history but also those of the determinists who, in opposing the former, declared the individual to be a “quantité négligeable” in history. Both have dismissed a problem which is of great importance, not merely to Marxism, but to any scientific understanding of history. Plechanov presents his doctrine as a “synthesis” of the truths contained in two simple conflicting views. He implies that this synthesis is “a full and definite solution of the problem of the role of the individual in history” which Guizot, Mignet, Thierry, Monod, and Lamprecht—determinists all—failed to solve. He uses as a foil to his argument some remarks of St. Beuve, who believed that at any given moment a sudden decision of will by a great personality might redetermine the course of history.

We shall use a series of illustrations to test the consistency and adequacy of Plechanov’s position, and in order to sharpen the issues, the same series that Plechanov employs.

1. The influence of Madame Pompadour on Louis XV. was very profound. The fateful alliance with Austria during the Seven Years’ War seems to have been the result of her work. During this war the French generals, particularly Soubise, again and again revealed themselves as hopelessly incompetent. Madame Pompadour protected Soubise with disastrous consequences to the French cause. If she had not waged a needless war on the Continent, France might have preserved her colonies from English encroachments. The failure to throw everything into the defence of her colonial empire was again the work of Madame Pompadour who for personal reasons sought to ingratiate herself with Maria Theresa by allying the French and Austrian fortunes. The loss of the war and of her best colonies had a definite and important effect, Plechanov admits, on France’s subsequent economic development.

2. During the same war, Austrian and Russian troops had surrounded Frederick II., near Striegan. Frederick’s position was desperate, and an attack, which could easily have been made, would have annihilated him. But Buturlin, the Russian general, dallied and then withdrew his forces. Frederick was saved and upon Empress Elizabeth’s death, a few months later, recouped his fortunes. Of this incident Plechanov says: “It is not improbable that Buturlin’s irresolution saved Frederick from a desperate situation. Had Suvorov been in Buturlin’s place, the history of Prussia might have taken a different course.” That Buturlin should have been the commanding general instead of a man like Suvorov, he admits, is historically accidental. He also concedes that the accidents of the Seven Years’ War had a decisive influence on the subsequent history of Prussia, although he asserts that their effects would have been entirely different at a different stage of Prussia’s development.

3. During the French Revolution, what would have happened if Mirabeau had not been removed by premature death, and if Robespierre and Napoleon had? As for Mirabeau, the constitutional monarchist party would probably have held power a little longer. But even with Mirabeau it would have been unable to withstand the surge against republicanism. If Robespierre had been killed in 1793, his place would have been taken by another. Whether that person would have been superior or inferior we cannot tell. But we can tell, Plechanov assures us, that “events would have taken the same course as they did when Robespierre was alive.” And so with Napoleon. Had he been struck by a bullet, as he almost was, at the siege of Toulon, or died of the scurvy he contracted there, or committed suicide in Paris in 1795 as he planned, nonetheless, “the French Republic would have emerged victorious from the wars it waged at that time, because its soldiers were incomparably the best in Europe.” The consequences of the 18th Brumaire would have unrolled even without Napoleon. If Napoleon had not nominated himself to bear “the good sword” which the Abbé Siéyès needed to behead the French Revolution, any number of generals could have wielded it.

The details of Plechanov’s historical illustrations as well as the validity of his historical judgments are of subsidiary interest. His method and argument, however, are of the first importance in appreciating the approach of social determinism. Let us examine a little more closely what he does with the historical incidents in question.

1. The defeat of French armies in the reign of Louis XV., Plechanov assures us, should really not be laid at the door of the glamorous Madame Pompadour. Defeat was already prefigured by the military deterioration of the army, its lack of discipline, and its unreliable officer staff, drawn from the decaying remnants of the aristocracy more intent upon pleasure than upon glory. These “general causes,” even without Madame Pompadour, would have been “quite sufficient” to ensure a lost war. By playing favourites and keeping the incompetent Soubise in a position of command, this famous lady only made a bad situation worse. Neither she nor anyone else could have saved it.

All this is straightforward enough. Plechanov, however, insists that Madame Pompadour ruled not in her own right and name but through the king, who was docile to her will. But the character of this king obviously did not follow necessarily from the general course of French economic development. Given the very same economic, social, and historical circumstances, a king of a very different character might have appeared, say a home body and family man, or a misogynist. In either case Madame Pompadour would have been out of the historical picture even if she had remained at court. But if we grant the possibility of there arising a king of a different character, concludes Plechanov, then it follows that “these obscure physiological causes,” which produced a lascivious ruler instead of one who was pure of heart or powered with only a mild sex drive, “by affecting the process and results off the Seven Years’ War, also in consequence affected the subsequent development of France; which would have proceeded differently if the Seven Years’ War had not deprived her of a great part of her colonies.”^[2]

This is straightforward, too, but in an opposite direction from the position taken previously. Suddenly the military causes previously listed are no longer sufficient to ensure defeat. They could have all been present, and yet by grace of another pair of gametes victory might have been snatched from the English, the colonies saved, and the development of France profoundly altered. This smacks more of Wood than of Marx and Engels. Plechanov is well aware that he has something to explain. “Does not this conclusion,” he continues, “contradict the conception of a social development conforming to laws? No, not in the least. The effect of personal peculiarities in the instances we have discussed is undeniable; but no less undeniable is the fact that it could occur only in the given social conditions.”^[3]

What a come-down from the pretentious thesis that Plechanov in common with other orthodox Marxists had set out to prove! Of course, the influence of any set of personal traits or personal peculiarities is what it is only in given social conditions. The same would he true if an entirely different set of individual traits were present. Their influence, too, would be limited by the given social conditions. But the question is whether their influence would have the same or different effects from those of Louis XV.’s personal traits. In one paragraph, Plechanov says the effects would be the same. In another paragraph, he says the effects would be different. He squares the contradiction in a third paragraph by saying that, same or different, the effects of personal influence would be influenced by social conditions.

Plechanov could have made even a stronger case for the position that the influence of Madame de Pompadour was natural in the French society of her time. She was not the first or the last mistress of Louis XV. Nor was Louis XV. the first or the last French king to make a mistress a power at the Court. Indeed, one might say that maîtresse-en-titre du Roi de France was a permanent institution at the French court from the time of Charles IX. Nor did the French bourgeoisie resent an institution which was not unknown to their own circles. They objected only to the expense involved in keeping the favourite and all her relatives, which added to the burdens of taxation, and even more to any favourite who interfered with the administration o£ state. How natural seemed the relationship between the king and his favourite is evidenced by the fact that Madame de Pompadour was encouraged by her own mother, Madame Poisson, who was definitely of bourgeois origin, to consider herself at quite an early age as the future mistress of the king. Because of her comeliness she was openly spoken of in the family circle as un morceau du roi—literally, “a royal morsel” or “a piece for the king.”^[4] But all this only shows that Louis XV. could have been influenced by the ruling mistress but not necessarily by Madame de Pompadour, and not necessarily in the direction in which her tastes ran—tastes that were rather unusually intellectual for her station.^[5]

Plechanov’s methodological error here is far-reaching and pervades other philosophies of history as well. Neither Plechanov nor any other historian can plausibly argue that the complex of social conditions necessitated in any way the emergence of the personal traits admitted to have “affected the subsequent development of France.” All that can be claimed is that some personal traits could not have influenced conditions, that the latter exercised a check or veto upon some of the personal traits of leading historical figures. For example, an idiot boy would not be permitted to become a ruler, a violently insane general would not be entrusted with a command, a militant atheist could never become the prime minister of a Catholic country, an incurably honest man would never be allowed to fill a diplomatic post that requires a Talleyrand. But despite this, there remains a whole range of widely different traits that rulers, statesmen, generals, diplomats, and revolutionary leaders may possess; and different combinations of these traits might very easily have different historical effects on the given conditions.

What Plechanov is asserting is comparable to the statement that wheat and a deadly variety of mushroom, as distinct from stones, owe their effects on the human organism to given physiological conditions. True, for not everything can influence the body. But among the things that can, some may nourish it and others may kill it. Similarly, not all types of individuals can influence given social conditions, and whoever does so, must meet these conditions. But once we admit that individuals can influence historical developments, then it is not precluded that at certain periods different individuals, through their activities and ideas, may give rise to different developments. A modern Ajax would occupy a booth in a side show of a circus; a Joan of Arc, in a scientifically enlightened age, wandering into General Headquarters with a tale about “hearing voices,” would be sent to a psychopathological ward for observation. They would not influence events. But, to use Plechanov’s own illustrations and admissions, a Suvorov in place of a Buturlin, a Louis XVIII. instead of a Louis XV., a concubine more intelligent and less fearful than Madame de Pompadour in respect to foreign policy, might have affected the course of empire.^[6]

2. What Plechanov has done is to substitute at this point, before his final relapse into orthodoxy, a quite different theory of history from that held by Engels and other orthodox Marxists. He is not affirming that heroes are made by their times. He is not predicting that a social need for a great man will produce him. He is not denying that great, or even weak, individuals can redetermine the course of history. He is maintaining that the time, place, and extent of the changes wrought by these individuals depend upon the economic conditions of their day, and the interplay of class interests which grow out of these conditions. To this no one but a mystical extremist like Carlyle would object, but many historians would add supplementary sets of limiting conditions to the freedom of the great man. This independence of thought on Plechanov’s part would be admirable were he aware of it and were he not trying to prove that it was perfectly compatible with doctrinaire economic determinism which denied that there are any genuine alternatives in phases of social development and that, a fortiori, individuals cannot at any time be instrumental in deciding between them.

In discussing the fate of Frederick II., Plechanov repeats the general pattern of analysis. Buturlin saved Frederick’s neck. Suvorov would have wrung it. But the effects in either case would have depended on the social-economic conditions of Europe. Nonetheless, the admission is clearly made that the history of Prussia would read quite differently if it had been Suvorov instead of Buturlin. That it was Buturlin and not Suvorov is an accident. Therefore, and this is really courageous coming from an orthodox Marxist, “It follows that sometimes the fate of nations depends on accidents, which may be called accidents of the second degree.”^[7] A historical accident, as Plechanov had the merit of seeing, is not an uncaused event. As Cournot had long before pointed out, it is the point of intersection between two or more series of events which are themselves determined. The point of intersection cannot be predicted from the laws determining any or all of the series. It is clear that whoever takes the role of accident in history seriously cannot be a monist. But orthodox Marxists are monists. Hence we await Plechanov’s attempt to wriggle out from the contradiction between his theoretical dogma and his empirical reading of history.

It takes the form of a shift from one question to another. Accidents count—superficially and ultimately. But despite all this, historical determinism as understood by Engels is valid. Why? Because accidents “do not in the least hinder the scientific investigation of history.” Granted, although one might wonder whether inability to predict these “accidents” does not hinder in some respect their scientific investigation. Granted, but what has this to do with the issue as between a great variety of historical theories, all of which assume that accidents are no bar to the scientific investigation of history? That issue is: which of the hypotheses associated with the theory of heroic determinism, historical materialism, climatic variation (Huntington), psychological determinism (McDougall, Tarde, Freud), etc., enable us to systematize our existing knowledge of society and history most coherently and to predict most reliably what the course of future historical events will be? Or, to state it differently, granted that the field of history is “subject” to laws, what kind of laws, or combination of laws, will enable us to predict historical developments with the degree of accuracy relevant to the subject matter? Plechanov here believes that he has vindicated orthodox Marxism by offering as evidence in its behalf the possibility of scientific investigation. But the possibility of scientific explanation, which is a programme for the quest of causes and laws, is neutral as between conflicting scientific explanations that submit themselves to the control of evidence.

3. If the merit of the system of orthodox Marxism is that in the hands of a gifted individual like Plechanov it leads to the turning over of historical material from a new point of view, its defect is that it blocks the proper assessment of what is uncovered. Just as we are getting ready to credit Plechanov with a refreshing willingness to follow the lead of evidence, he relapses into the economic monism which his own discussion of the case studies he submits completely refutes. The reason for this relapse is the mistaking of a hoary methodological fallacy for a valid logical principle, an error that will be found in the writings of every dogmatic monist of any school.

Plechanov points out that considerable opposition existed to Madame Pompadour’s maleficent influence but that public opinion could not prevail against her. French society of her day could not enforce its judgment of condemnation. Why? Because of its form of organization which made the monarch immune from the controls that existed in a country like England where the purse strings could be effectively tied even against the royal fingers. But why did this form of organization exist in France? Because it was determined by the relations of social forces. Hence, he concludes, “it is the relation of social forces which, in the last analysis, explains the fact that Louis XV.’s character, and the caprices of his favourite, could have such a deplorable influence on the fate of France.”

This may seem plausible enough until one inquires: why was the relation of social forces in France what it was? What determines it? And what determines the cause that determines it? And since we are in quest of “a last analysis,” why stop there? It is obvious that this procedure sets up a chain of infinite and irrelevant questions which Plechanov brings to an arbitrary halt when he reaches the relation of social forces. But the relation of social forces has no ascertainable bearing on the specific question of the specific causes and consequences of Madame Pompadour’s influence. One might ask whether in fact French society had no means of getting rid of Madame Pompadour, either by the not unknown method of assassination or by the introduction of a rival siren who concerned herself exclusively with the boudoir rather than with politics.^[8]

But these are minor matters compared to the main assumption behind Plechanov’s argument.

This assumption is that the cause of a cause of a cause of a cause of an event is the cause of that event. To put it concretely: because the mode of economic production is the cause of the existing form of social organization, which is the cause of the failure to compel court favourites to refrain from interfering with affairs of state, which is the cause of Madame Pompadour’s refusal to yield to public opinion, which is the cause of deplorable effects on the history of France, it follows, according to Plechanov, that the mode of economic production is the cause of Madame Pompadour’s deplorable effects on French history.

This assumption is fallacious because it converts what is at best a necessary condition of the event to be explained into a sufficient cause of the event. Of course, French society had to exist before anyone could influence it. Of course, the state of French society at a given moment had to be what it was before any individual could have the specific effect he had on it at the next moment. But it by no means follows that because of the existence and state of French society any particular person had to influence it; or that because France had a certain form of organization, the individual who did influence it had to be good or bad, capable or foolish. Plechanov focuses his error in two key sentences. “Why was the fate of France in the hands of a man who totally lacked the ability and desire to serve society? Because such was the form of organization of that society.”^[9] The “because” is a complete non sequitur.

Plechanov’s assumption is fallacious because it overlooks what he had previously recognized, namely, that the final event of the series of causes he has built under it may be more relevantly explained by an event from an entirely different series of causes. The biological cause of John Smith’s existence is his parents, of his parents, his grandparents, of his grandparents, his great-grandparents. John Smith’s election to office is the result of another series of causes, social causes. His elopement with the town secretary stems from still another. Now, unless his great-grandparents had existed, John Smith would not have been born, but it would be taxing them with too much to hold them responsible for his birth although they may explain some of his biological characteristics. Unless he were born, he could not have been elected to office, but his election is more relevantly explained by the political issues of the campaign. Unless he had been elected to office, he might never have encountered the town secretary, but his elopement probably can be satisfactorily explained in terms of what happened after he met her. Plechanov insists upon bringing in the great-grandfather, not only as the cause of John Smith’s existence but of his election and elopement, too.

Finally, Plechanov’s assumption is fallacious because it implies that there is “a last analysis” or an “ultimate cause” which is always relevant and therefore is independent of a specific question and context. Since Plechanov believes that “the development of productive forces [is] the final and most general cause” of historical events, the duty devolves upon him to show concretely that it is relevant to the event he has set himself to explain. His conscientiousness as an empirical historian often leads him to acknowledge that the proximate, determining causes of an event have nothing to do with the state of productive forces and social relations. His allegiance to a metaphysical dogma then seduces him into changing the subject under investigation in order that these forces and relations may be introduced with some show of plausibility. Thereupon they are declared “in the last analysis” to be the “ultimate causes” of the original subject of investigation.

It is unnecessary to follow Plechanov’s divagations in detail in his treatment of Napoleon, which follows the same pattern as the examples already considered. Plechanov assures us that what Napoleon achieved on the field of battle would have been won by other generals. Perhaps so; but it is a little hard to swallow in face of the evidence showing that French armies were almost always defeated or immobilized whenever Napoleon entrusted their command to other officers. Even the retreat from Moscow would not have been nearly so disastrous if it had not been for the errors of Murat and Berthier to whom Napoleon left his army when it was a two days’ march from Vilna. In order not to embroil himself in these matters, Plechanov professes a certain disinterest in the purely military outcome of Napoleon’s campaigns. Even without Napoleon, he tells us, the history of Europe would have been substantially the same because of the inexorable development of productive forces which were bursting through their feudal integuments. This implies that the military victory or defeat of French arms must be regarded as comparatively unimportant in its effect on the social and economic life of France.

The implication, however, cannot be sustained. Plechanov himself admits that the political changes which would have followed upon a successful invasion of France might have influenced its subsequent development to a considerable degree. Surely, the Bourbons and the Church, if restored soon after the 18th Brumaire, would not have reconciled themselves easily to the expropriations and social changes that had acquired the sanction of a generation’s use and wont by the time Louis XVIII. returned to the throne. To take only one phase of Napoleon’s effect on the social and economic life of France, even Engels acknowledged that the Napoleonic laws of inheritance were of tremendous consequence. The abolition of primogeniture and the limitation of the freedom of testamentary disposition resulted in a multiplication of small farm holdings throughout France and to the preponderant influence of the peasantry on French life. This is cited as an illustration of the reciprocal influence of law and politics on economic development. There is no reason to assume that the early restoration of Bourbon rule would have led to the adoption of a legal code similar in essentials to the Napoleonic code. The code, together with other achievements of the French Revolution, influenced Europe only after the victory of French arms.

We may assume, therefore, that, for the historic period in question, a military victory was required to permit the free expansion of productive forces in Europe. Was this military victory, then, inevitable? In virtue of what? Of the antecedent state of development of France’s productive forces? Or by virtue of Napoleon’s military genius? Plechanov does not venture to affirm the former. Were he consistent in his economic monism, he would be compelled to do so. His position reduces itself to the belief that, although France’s military victory was necessary for her economic development, Napoleon’s military genius was unnecessary for France’s military victory.

What, then, accounts for the glorious record of success that blessed French arms? According to Plechanov, “The French Republic would have emerged victorious from the wars it waged at that time because its soldiers were incomparably the best in Europe.”^[10] Note two things. Plechanov’s explanation is military. He does not claim that the superiority of the French soldier was the inescapable consequence of the state of French productive forces. Second, the same incomparable French soldiers lost battles when they were commanded by other generals and won them when they were commanded by Napoleon. Something more than legend must account for the almost unanimous judgment of military authorities of all countries that Napoleon was the greatest military genius in modern history.

Despite anything that may be said about Napoleon, Plechanov clings firmly to the belief that like all men of talent he is “the product of social relations.” Talented people can influence only individual features of particular events but not their general trend, for “they are themselves the product of this trend.” This is true not only in politics, war, and social relations but in art, science, and literature. “Here too,” he concludes, “in the last analysis, everything [!] depends upon the course of social development and on the relation of social forces.”^[11]

Plechanov has come the full circle—despite the heterodox epicycles—from dogma to dogma. ····· Its inadequacies notwithstanding, social determinism has left a permanent deposit on the thought patterns of our time. We must assess the value of this deposit before we can carry our theme forward. It is clear that, as long as scholarship remains free and is not gleichgeschaltet, the naïve glorification of the hero as the creator of an age will no longer have any intellectual standing. The hero will always be taken with his time and his problems. But is this all that has been won by social determinism? Or is the heritage of social determinism, purified of its extreme versions, richer and more usable than this?

1. Originally published in 1898, English translation, New York, 1940.
2. Op. cit., p. 39. My italics.
3. Op. cit. Italics in original.
4. See Mémoires of Madame de Hausset, Waiting Woman of Madame de Pompadour, translated with an Introduction by F. S. Flint, p. 8, London, 1928.
5. Plechanov does not altogether do her justice. She was unusual in her line—if she had been less of an intellectual she would have interfered less in matters of state. Besides determining foreign policy, making and unmaking ministers and generals, she broke up the Jesuit order and expelled its members from France—her only popular act—founded the porcelain factory at Sèvres as well as the École Militaire which later trained Napoleon, befriended and protected Voltaire, Montesquieu, Crébillon, Quesnay, her private physician, Diderot, and others of similar talent.
6. It should be remembered that we are not discussing the historic truth of Plechanov’s illustrations but only his method. Madame de Pompadour had perhaps less influence on French history than Plechanov believes. At this phase of his thought, he must believe that she was, so to speak, a heroine in reverse, instead of just another beautiful, brainy, and ambitious woman.
7. Plechanov, op. cit., p. 42.
8. Either method would not have been difficult. Madame du Hausset in her Mémoires tells of many threats of assassination against Madame de Pompadour. And she relates a curious confession of her mistress to Madame de Brancas, a confidante, who remonstrated with her over her diet. “I am tormented by the fear of losing the King’s heart and ceasing to please him. Men, as you know, set store on certain things; and I have the misfortune to be of a very cold temperament. My idea was to adopt a somewhat heating diet to remedy this defect, and for the last two days this elixir had done me some good, or at least I think it has.” Op. cit., p. 52. The heating diet in question consisted of “chocolate flavoured with triple essence of vanilla and scented with ambergris, truffles and celery soup.”
9. Op. cit., p. 41.
10. Op. cit., p. 47.
11. Ibid., pp. 52–54.