Peter Berngardovich Struve

Peter Struve (Russian Пётр Бернгардович Струве, Pyotr Struve Berngardowitsch; born January 26, 1870 in Perm, † February 26, 1944 in Paris) was a German-born Russian politician, economist and philosopher. He is regarded as the chief representative of the so -called " legals Marxism."

Life

Peter Struve was a grandson of the astronomer Friedrich Georg Wilhelm Struve Tartu. His father Bernhard Wilhelm von Struve (1827-1889) was governor of Astrakhan and Perm. Struve graduated from the Law Faculty of the University of Petersburg, was from 1890 chief editor of the magazine Legal Marxism, a new word and the beginning. In 1896 he took part in the 4th Congress of the Second International. After the First Congress of the RSDLP in 1898 Struve was used by the members of the Central Committee for drafting the Manifesto of the RSDLP, which he, however, soon broke away. The late 1890s Struve finally went over to the camp of bourgeois liberalism and became the opponents of revolutionary Marxism, particularly the doctrine of the socialist revolution and the dictatorship of the proletariat. He was from 1902 chief editor of Liberation ( Oswoboshdenie ), from 1903 leader of the Union of Liberation. Struve in 1905 became a member of the Central Committee of the Party of Constitutional- Democratic Party ( Cadets ) and stood at the top of her right wing. He was Member of Parliament in 1907 of the Second State Duma as well as editor of the magazine Russkaya Mysl. The October Revolution of 1917 he faced hostile. In the years of the Civil War 1918-1920 Struve acted as advisor to the counter-revolutionary general Denikin AI and belonged to the white garde government PN Wrangel. After the collapse of the counter-revolution he emigrated; in Prague and Paris, he directed the publications of the cadets government.

Thought and work

Since a youth Struve hung on liberal ideas and took socialism as the means to achieve liberal goals on. In his Petersburg students time he was considered a connoisseur of Western currents in philosophy and sociology.

Struve was a supporter of a " Europeanization " of Russia and believed that especially the working class would drive the process forward. He was the leading figure of a circle, which dealt in the years 1890-91 with social and philosophical studies. During a one-year stay at the University of Graz in 1891, Struve deepened in the neo-Kantian literature that had influenced him from an early age. His literary activity began with a critique of the opinions of the so-called " populist " to the peasant question and the question of the prospects of capitalism in Russia.

In reviews and articles he wrote in the years 1892-93, he pointed out that the particular class stratification of the rural population and the development of an enterprise resource planning are not only inevitable but also beneficial for the country.

In his first works, such as, especially in the critical remarks on the economic development of Russia (1894 ) Struve tried to demonstrate the progressiveness of capitalism and its positive social consequences. Already at that time he rejected the Marxian labor theory of value. He later called on to revise further foundations of Marxist theory - the theory of surplus value, the reproduction theory and the theory of general capitalist accumulation. Over time, Struve developed more and more into a resolute opponent of socialism and spread to Bernstein's arguments. He opposed a revolutionary replacement of capitalism and called instead for reformist measures such as reviewing legal standards and the creation of a factory legislation.

Had Struve still calls his philosophical position until 1902 as a critical positivism, he took after the transition to a religious belief. During the Revolution, 1905-1907 Struve went from liberalism into the camp of reaction over, devoted himself completely to combat socialism and distanced itself from the legacy of political economy.

Publications (selection )

• Marx's theory of social evolution. In: Archives for Social Science and Social Policy, Vol XIV, Tübingen 1899
• Collected Works in 15 volumes, ed Richard Pipes, Ann Arbor, MI, University Microfilms, 1970