Pyotr Lavrovich Lavrov (1823–1900)

Russian philosopher, sociologist and publicist; one of the important representatives of populist thought; an eclectic.

Lavrov was born in 1823, in the Russian province of Pskov, into a landowner’s family. He graduated with honors from the artillery academy. As a young man, Lavrov became interested in the utopian socialist doctrines of Saint-Simon, Owen and Fourier. In the 1850s, Lavrov became a champion of European Enlightenment ideas and became strongly opposed the Russian Tsarist absolutism. In 1862, he took part in revolutionary activities, beginning as a member of the Narodnik organization “Zemlya i Volya” (Land and Liberty) and later become a member of the “Narodnaya Volya” (The People’s Will). In 1866 he was arrested for his involvement in the assassination of Alexander II, and during his exile he published his famous book Historical Letters under the pseudonym of “Mirtov”, which had a major impact in Russia at the time. He fled from exile in February 1870, arriving in Paris, France, where he became a member of the First International and took part in the struggle for the Paris Commune in 1871. Lavrov then met the founders of Marxism, Marx and Engels, edited the newspaper Vpered! (Forward!) and later served as the editor of the central organ of the Narodnaya Volya, the Vestnik Narodnoi Voli (Herald of People’s Will). In 1889, he was elected Vice-President of the International Socialist Workers’ Congress.

Lavrov was chiefly engaged in sociological research and was one of the representatives of the subjective school of sociology. He denied the objective laws of socio-historical development, holding that there were no laws governing socio-historical events, that social history was a collection of isolated and accidental events, and that social history progressed as a result of the activities of “critically minded individuals”. He opposed the social-democratic movement, denied the leadership of the Russian working class, held that the peasants were the dominant force in socialism, and called on intellectuals to “Go to the People,” which led to Lavrov being regarded as the founder and godfather of the populist theory of “heroes” and “the crowd”.