Marxist theoretician Peter Struve is probably the best known member of the Russian branch of the
Struve family. Son of Bernhard Struve (
Astrakhan and later
Perm governor) and grandson of astronomer
Friedrich Georg Wilhelm von Struve, he entered the
Natural Sciences Department of the
University of Saint Petersburg in 1889 and transferred to its
law school in 1890. While there, he became interested in
Marxism, attended Marxist and
narodniki (populist) meetings (where he met his future opponent
Vladimir Lenin) and wrote articles for legally published magazines—hence the term
Legal Marxism, whose chief proponent he became. In September 1893 Struve was hired by the Finance Ministry and worked in its library, but was fired on 1 June 1894 after an arrest and a brief detention in April–May of that year. In 1894, he also published his first major book,
Kriticheskie zametki k voprosu ob ekonomicheskom razvitii Rossii (
Critical Notes on the Economic Development of Russia) in which he defended the applicability of Marxism to Russian conditions against populist critics. In 1895, Struve finished his degree and wrote an
Open letter to Nicholas II on behalf of the
Zemstvo. He then went abroad for further studies, where he attended the
1896 International Socialist Congress in London and befriended famous Russian revolutionary exile
Vera Zasulich. After returning to Russia Struve became one of the editors of the successive Legal Marxist magazines
Novoye Slovo (
The New Word, 1897),
Nachalo (
The Beginning, 1899) and
Zhizn (1899–1901). Struve was also the most popular speaker at the Legal Marxist debates at the
Free Economic Society in the late 1890s—early 1900s in spite of his often impenetrable-to-laymen arguments and unkempt appearance. In 1898 Struve wrote the
Manifesto of the newly formed
Russian Social Democratic Labour Party. However, as he later explained: :Socialism, to tell the truth, never aroused the slightest emotion in me, still less attraction... Socialism interested me mainly as an ideological force – which... could be directed either to the conquest of civil and political freedoms or against them
Leaving socialism By 1900, Struve had become a leader of the
revisionist, i.e. compromising, wing of Russian Marxists. Struve and
Mikhail Tugan-Baranovsky represented the moderates during the negotiations with
Julius Martov,
Alexander Potresov and
Vladimir Lenin, the leaders of the party's radical wing, in
Pskov in March 1900. In late 1900, Struve went to
Munich and again held lengthy talks with the radicals between December 1900 and February 1901. The two sides eventually reached a compromise which included making Struve the editor of
Sovremennoe Obozrenie (
Contemporary Review), a proposed supplement to the radicals' magazine
Zaria (
Dawn), in exchange for his help in securing financial support from Russian liberals. The plan was frustrated by Struve's arrest at the famous Kazan Square demonstration on 4 March 1901 immediately upon his return to
Russia. Struve was banished from the capital and, like other demonstrators, was offered to choose his own place of exile. He chose
Tver, a center of
Zemstvo radicalism. In 1902 Struve secretly left Tver and went abroad, but by then the radicals had abandoned the idea of a joint magazine and Struve's further evolution from socialism to liberalism would have made collaboration difficult anyway. Instead he founded an independent liberal semi-monthly magazine
Osvobozhdenie (
Liberation) with the help of liberal
intelligentsia and the radical part of Zemstvo. The magazine was financed by D. E. Zhukovsky and was at first published in
Stuttgart,
Germany (1 July 1902 – 15 October 1904). In mid-1903, after the founding of the liberal
Soyuz Osvobozhdeniya (
Union of Liberation), the magazine became the Union's official organ and was smuggled into Russia, where it enjoyed considerable success. When German police, under pressure from
Okhrana, raided the premises in October 1904, Struve moved his operations to
Paris and continued publishing the magazine for another year (15 October 1904 – 18 October 1905) until the
October Manifesto proclaimed freedom of the press in Russia.
Liberal politician In October 1905 Struve returned to Russia and became a co-founder of the liberal
Constitutional Democratic party and a member of its Central Committee. In 1907 he represented the party in the Second
State Duma. After the Duma's dissolution on 3 June 1907, Struve concentrated on his work at
Russkaya Mysl (
Russian Thought), a leading liberal newspaper, of which he had been publisher and de facto editor-in-chief since 1906. Struve was the driving force behind
Vekhi (
Milestones, 1909), a groundbreaking and controversial anthology of essays critical of the intelligentsia and its rationalistic and radical traditions. As
Russkaya Mysl editor, Struve rejected
Andrey Bely's seminal novel
Petersburg, which he apparently saw as a parody of revolutionary intellectuals. With the outbreak of
World War I in 1914 Struve adopted a position of support for the government, and in 1916 he resigned from the Constitutional Democratic party's Central Committee over what he saw as the party's excessive opposition to the government in a time of war.
Opponent of Bolshevism In May 1917, after the
February Revolution of 1917 overthrew
monarchy in Russia, Struve was elected as member of the
Russian Academy of Sciences, until he was excluded by the
Bolshevik-engineered expulsion of 1918. Immediately after the
October Revolution of 1917, Struve went to the South of Russia where he joined the
Volunteer Army's Council. In early 1918 he returned to Moscow, where he lived under an assumed name for most of the year, contributed to
Iz Glubiny (variously translated as
De Profundis,
From the Deep or
From the Depths, 1918), a follow-up to
Vekhi, and published several other notable articles on the causes of the revolution. With the
Russian Civil War raging and his life in danger Struve had to flee; and after a three-month journey arrived in
Finland, where he negotiated with general
Nikolai Yudenich and the
Finnish leader
Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim before leaving for Western Europe. Struve represented general
Anton Denikin's anti-
Bolshevik government in Paris and London in 1919, before returning to Denikin-controlled territories in the South of Russia, where he edited a leading newspaper of the
White Movement. With Denikin's resignation after the
Novorossiysk debacle and general
Pyotr Wrangel's rise to the top in early 1920, Struve became foreign minister in Wrangel's
government. With the defeat of Wrangel's army in November 1920 Struve left for
Bulgaria, where he relaunched
Russkaya Mysl under the aegis of the emigre "Russko-Bolgarskoe knigoizdatel'stvo" publishing house. Then Struve left for
Paris, where he remained until his death in 1944. In Bulgaria, Struve left many followers in the field of economics, especially his students, who emigrated and took academic positions at Bulgarian universities (the most famous of which are
Simeon Demostenov and Naum Dolinski). His children were prominent in the
Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia. ==Personal life==