page_title: Nikolai Bukharin
section_title: Political stature and achievements
hierarchical_section_title: Nikolai Bukharin / Political stature and achievements
caption_attribution_description: English: Nikolai Bukharin, the editor of Pravda and Projector, was top Soviet ideologist the best-known communist theoretician after Lenin. Starting with ideas of War Communism, together with Lenin, Bukharin softened the position and became the supporter of New Economic Policy (NEP). The macro-economic set up was that the large industries (transportation, electricity, steel, foreign trade) were national or joint ventures with foreign private capital (concessions), while small trade and agriculture were private. At the time, agriculture, small trade and services employed &gt;90% of population. The ideological clash was to continue this policy and industrialize evolutionary (Bukharin, Rykov and Tomsky) or to eliminate the private property in trade and services and forcefully collectivize the agriculture (Stalin, Molotov). The former prevailed and the Stalin’s economic policy led to internal war with peasants and catastrophic hunger in 1932-33 known as Holodomor in Ukraine. The classes of “kulaks (farmers)” and “nepmans (entrepreneurs/traders)” were eliminated (NKVD Order No. 00447). In Kafkaesque twist Nikolay Bukharin, “Lenin’s son”, the author of the “Communist Bible” (ABC of Communism), the living example of the core ideology, eventually became “the enemy of the people.” In exchange for the bargain to save his family, he confessed to the absurdist allegations (Trial of Twenty One) and was executed in 1938. His confession was amended personally by Stalin, who did not honor his part of the bargain: Bukharin’s wife was sent to GULAG, his son was raised in the orphanage. The Soviet Supreme Court repealed the convictions in 1988. Українська: Микола Бухарин, редактор Правди та Прожектора, радянський ідеолог та найвідоміший комуніст-теоретик після Леніна. Почавши з воєнного комунізму, разом з Леніним Бухарін пом'якшив свою позицію ставши прихильником Нової Економічної Політики (НЕП). Макроекономічна політика була така: певні галузі промисловості (транспорт, електрика, сталь, зовнішня торгівля) були національними либо спільними підприємствами з іноземними частками (концесії), мала торгівля та сільське господарство були приватними. В сільському господарстві та торгівлі було зайнято 90 відсотків населення. Права опозиція Риков, Бухарін та Томский хотіла зберегти цій курс. Це призвело до ідеологічного зіткнення з ортодоксальним підходом Сталіна (т.з. генеральна лінія): ліквідувати приватну власність та колективізувати сільське господарство. Концесії були націоналізовані. Куркулі та непмани заслані в табори або розстріляні по наказу НКВС № 00447. Сталінська економічна політика призвела до катастрофічного голоду 1932-33 років, відомого в Україні як Голодомор. Микола Бухарин, “син Леніна” , автор комуністичної “Біблії” (Азбука комунізму), людина, яка була носієм ідеології нової країни, стала "ворогом народу". Він був страчений у 1938 році, після судової справи, відомої під назвою "Процес 21-го (Правотроцькістський Антирадянський Блок)". Бухарін визнав абсурдні зізнання, по тексту особисто виправленому Сталіним, який не виконав свою обіцянку не чіпати родину: дружину Бухаріна відправили в ГУЛАГ, його син був вихований у дитячому будинку. Верховний суд СРСР скасував вирок у 1988 році.
context_page_description: Nikolai Ivanovich Bukharin was a Bolshevik revolutionary, Soviet politician, Marxist philosopher and prolific author on revolutionary theory.
  As a young man, he spent six years in exile working closely with fellow exiles Vladimir Lenin and Leon Trotsky. After the revolution of February 1917, he returned to Moscow, where his Bolshevik credentials earned him a high rank in the Bolshevik party and after the October Revolution became editor of the party newspaper Pravda.
  Within the Bolshevik Party, Bukharin was initially a left communist, but gradually moved from the left to the right from 1921. His strong support for and defence of the New Economic Policy eventually saw him lead the Right Opposition. By late 1924, this stance had positioned Bukharin favourably as Joseph Stalin's chief ally, with Bukharin soon elaborating Stalin's new theory and policy of Socialism in One Country. Together, Bukharin and Stalin ousted Trotsky, Grigory Zinoviev and Lev Kamenev from the party at the XVth Communist Party Congress in December 1927. From 1926 to 1929, Bukharin enjoyed great power as General Secretary of the Comintern's executive committee.
context_section_description: Bukharin was immensely popular within the party throughout the twenties and thirties, even after his fall from power. In his testament, Lenin portrayed him as the Golden Boy of the party, writing:
  Speaking of the young C.C. members, I wish to say a few words about Bukharin and Pyatakov. They are, in my opinion, the most outstanding figures (among the youngest ones), and the following must be borne in mind about them: Bukharin is not only a most valuable and major theorist of the Party; he is also rightly considered the favourite of the whole Party, but his theoretical views can be classified as fully Marxist only with great reserve, for there is something scholastic about him (he has never made a study of the dialectics, and, I think, never fully understood it) ... Both of these remarks, of course, are made only for the present, on the assumption that both these outstanding and devoted Party workers fail to find an occasion to enhance their knowledge and amend their one-sidedness.
  Bukharin made several notable contributions to Marxist–Leninist thought, most notably The Economics of the Transition Period (1920) and his prison writings, Philosophical Arabesques, as well as being a founding member of the Soviet Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a keen botanist. His primary contributions to economics were his critique of marginal utility theory, his analysis of imperialism, and his writings on the transition to communism in the Soviet Union.
  His ideas, especially in economics and the question of market-socialism, later became highly influential in Chinese market-socialism and Deng Xiaoping's reforms.
  British author Martin Amis argues that Bukharin was perhaps the only major Bolshevik to acknowledge "moral hesitation" by questioning, even in passing, the violence and sweeping reforms of the early Soviet Union. Amis writes that Bukharin said "during the Civil War he had seen 'things that I would not want even my enemies to see'."
caption: Bukharin delivers the welcome speech on the meeting of Young Communist International, 1925
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