Nikolai Ivanovich Bukharin, Russian, Soviet, And CIS History, Biographies

Related Category: Russian, Soviet, And CIS History, Biographies

Nikolai Ivanovich Bukharin[nyikulI´ EvA´nuvich bOOkhA´rEn] Pronunciation Key, 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.

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