Essays in Historical Materialism

The "father of Russian Marxism", Georgy Plekhanov directed most of his writings against the Russian "populist" movement to which he once belonged.  Plekhanov insisted that, in principle, in semi-feudal societies such as the Russian, the first revolution would of necessity have to be a "capitalist" one.   However,  he noted that bourgeoisie was too weak to bring it about and thus it fell upon the proletariat to conduct "both" revolutions.  However, Plekhanov condemned the methods of Lenin and the Bolsheviks soon after 1917.   
In theoretical terms, Plekhanov's 1894 treatise was perhaps one of the first to identify, or at least emphasize, the Hegelian element in Marxian theory -- it is to Plekhanov to whom we owe the term "dialetical materialism" -- which he saw as a way of "unifying" the various aspects of Marxian theory and thus prevent the intrusion of "foreign" philosophy, as Bernstein and the revisionists had attempted.