Nikolai Ivanovich Bukharin

Nikolai Ivanovich Bukharin , 1888-1938, Russian Communist leader and theoretician. A member of the Bolshevik wing of the Social Democratic party, he spent the years 1911-17 abroad and edited (1916) the revolutionary paper Novy Mir [new world] in New York City. He took part in the Bolshevik Revolution in Nov., 1917 (Oct., 1917, O.S.), in Russia and became a leader in the Comintern and editor of the Soviet newspaper Pravda [truth]. In 1924 he was made a full member of the politburo. As Stalin rose to power in the 1920s, Bukharin first allied with him against Kamenev and Zinoviev . An advocate of slow agricultural collectivization and industrialization (the position of the so-called right opposition), Bukharin lost (1929) his major posts after that position was defeated by the Stalinist majority in the party. He edited Izvestia [news] briefly in 1934 but was dismissed. In 1938 he was tried publicly for treason and was executed. He wrote and translated many works on economics and political science, which gained a growing readership in the late 20th cent. In the Gorbachev era, Bukharin was rehabilitated and posthumously reinstated (1988) as a party member.

Bibliography: See his autobiographical novel How It All Began (1937?, pub. 1994); studies by S. F. Cohen (1980) and M. Haynes (1985).

Bukharin, Nikolai Ivanovich (b. 9 Oct. 1888, d. 13 Mar. 1938). Communist ideologue Born in Moscow, he studied economics at Moscow University, 1907–10. A prominent member of the Bolsheviks since 1906, he was arrested in 1909 and 1910, before being exiled to Siberia in 1911. He escaped to Germany and subsequently became an important ally of Lenin, whom he met in 1912, as well as Stalin, whom he helped write his first major article on Communism, 1913. In 1915 he went to Sweden to link up with Bolsheviks still in Russia. Expelled from there, he went to the USA to join Trotsky in editing the Russian daily newspaper, Novyi Mir (New World). He returned to Russia in 1917 and played an active part in the Russian (October) Revolution, in which he led the Bolshevik insurrection in Moscow. He opposed Lenin's conclusion of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, pushing instead for the extension of the Russian Revolution abroad. As editor of the main party newspaper, Pravda (Truth), from 1917, and as the author of the standard texts on communism of the early 1920s, the ABC of Communism (with Preobrazhensky, 1919) and Historical Materialism (1922), he was a major force in the spread of Communist propaganda. He defended vigorously the New Economic Policy, and opposed the collectivization of agriculture. Despite his personal integrity, he supported the terror campaigns to increase the hold of the Communist Party over society, arguing that ‘executions are a method of educating humanity’.

After the advent of Stalin, whom he had at first supported, Bukharin became a victim of this terror himself. He was officially expelled from the Politburo in 1929, but remained influential as a Communist theoretician, and became editor of the newspaper Izvestia (1934–6). Indeed, he may even have participated in the drawing up of the 1936 Soviet constitution. Ultimately, his opposition to Stalin and his policies ensured his indictment in the Great Purge. He was arrested in 1937, sentenced to death for an invented plot to kill Lenin, and executed. He was rehabilitated by the Supreme Court of the USSR in 1988.

Bukharin, Nikolai Ivanovich (1888–1938) Russian communist political theorist. After the 1917 Revolution he became a leading member of the Communist International (Comintern) and editor of Pravda. In 1924, he became a member of the politburo. He opposed agricultural collectivization and was executed for treason by Stalin in 1938.