Pyotr Nikitich Tkachev was a Russian writer, critic and revolutionary theorist who formulated many of the revolutionary principles that were later developed and put into action by Vladimir Lenin.
12 Facts About Pyotr Tkachev
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Pyotr Tkachev was born in the village of Sivistov, at the time located in the Pskov Governorate.
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Pyotr Tkachev's sister Alexandra Nikitichna Annenskaya was a writer for young adults.
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Pyotr Tkachev began attending St Petersburg University in 1861 and took part in a series of violent student protests that year.
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Populists like Pyotr Tkachev argued against waiting indefinitely for the social revolution while in the meantime condemned revolt and terrorism by the vanguard as he believed it risked allowing the tsarist government to stabilise itself by the advancement of capitalism.
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Pyotr Tkachev believed that the time was perfect for the seizure of power and that it should be done as soon as possible while there was no social force that was prepared to side with the government, something that would come with the development of the bourgeoisie and capitalism.
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Pyotr Tkachev further wrote that a conspiratorial and elitist party, disciplined and centralised akin to an army, was essential for that to succeed, which was later echoed by Lenin.
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In 1882 Pyotr Tkachev fell seriously ill and spent his last few years in a psychiatric hospital.
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Pyotr Tkachev died on 4 January 1886 in Paris at the age of 41.
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Historian Andrzej Walicki argued that the form of economic determinism espoused by Pyotr Tkachev differed significantly with the historical materialism developed by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, stating: "This specific 'economic materialism' of Pyotr Tkachev did not amount to Marxism; it constituted rather in a peculiar mixture of some elements of Marxism with a rather primitive utilitarianism, grossly exaggerating the role of direct economic motivation in individual behavior".
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Chief among the ideas that Pyotr Tkachev espoused that were influential in the development of Lenin's political philosophy was the idea of a revolutionary vanguard.
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Pyotr Tkachev was a proponent of a closely organised revolutionary party: his vision of the revolutionary process was very close to that of the French Blanquist movement, although perhaps not directly influenced by it.