Bukharin and the Bolshevik Revolution: A Political Biography, 1888-1938

by Stephen F. Cohen

This classic biography carefully traces Bukharin's rise to and fall from power, focusing particularly on the development of his theories and programmatic ideas during the critical period between Lenin's death in 1924 and the ascendancy of Stalin in 1929.

Genres: History, Russia, Biography, Politics, Nonfiction, Russian History, Soviet History

495 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1973

About the author

Stephen F. Cohen was Professor Emeritus of Politics at Princeton University, where for many years he served as director of the Russian Studies Program, and Professor Emeritus of Russian Studies and History at New York University. He grew up in Owensboro, Kentucky, received his undergraduate and master’s degrees at Indiana University, and his Ph.D. at Columbia University.

Cohen’s other books include Bukharin and the Bolshevik Revolution: A Political Biography; Rethinking the Soviet Experience: Politics and History Since 1917; Sovieticus: American Perceptions and Soviet Realities; (with Katrina vanden Heuvel) Voices of Glasnost: Interviews With Gorbachev’s Reformers; Failed Crusade: America and the Tragedy of Post-Communist Russia; Soviet Fates and Lost Alternatives: From Stalinism to the New Cold War; and The Victims Return: Survivors of the Gulag After Stalin.

For his scholarly work, Cohen received several honors, including two Guggenheim fellowships and a National Book Award nomination.

Over the years, he was also a frequent contributor to newspapers, magazines, television, and radio. His “Sovieticus” column for The Nation won a 1985 Newspaper Guild Page One Award and for another Nation article a 1989 Olive Branch Award. For many years, Cohen was a consultant and on-air commentator on Russian affairs for CBS News. With the producer Rosemary Reed, he was also project adviser and correspondent for three PBS documentary films about Russia: Conversations With Gorbachev; Russia Betrayed?; and Widow of the Revolution.

Cohen visited and lived in Soviet and Post-Soviet Russia regularly for more than forty years.

(source: Amazon)

Reviews

[Neal · Rating 5 out of 5]

The bulk of this book is a history of the USSR's New Economic Policy from its initiation in 1921 until its abrupt termination at the end of 1929. The NEP was a policy formulated largely by Lenin and Bukharin which tried to lead the USSR through a market-based transition to socialism. With this history, told from Bukharin's perspective, Stephen Cohen makes two very important arguments.

First, he shows how Lenin, Bukharin, and the vast majority of the Bolsheviks planned out a peaceful transition to socialism AFTER the construction of a "workers state" in 1918-1921 (of course, this was not a real workers state because the civil war destroyed the Russian working class and its democratic institutions, the Soviets). Lenin and Bukharin's perspective was the strategy of the New Economic Policy, a period of rising living standards for workers and peasants, the slow growth of the "socialist sector" (socialized industry, worker cooperatives, and peasant marketing cooperatives), and a relatively pluralistic and free Russian society - with the major exception of the state, which was obviously ruled by one party.

Second, Cohen shows how the New Economic Policy of Lenin and Bukharin contrasted sharply with the hyper-industrialization/collectivization model that Stalin suddenly embraced in 1930 (prior to this point, Stalin had also been a supporter of the NEP). Cohen argues that Stalin's sole original contribution to Bolshevik thought was his "intensification thesis," that claimed that as the USSR approached socialism, class tensions would build and require force to defeat all of socialism's "enemies" - which included millions of poor peasants and "party traitors". This theory, combined with the insane industrialization plan that Stalin adopted, was a recipe for civil war, which is what actually broke out in the countryside in 1930-34, when Stalin's apparatus killed approximately 10 million peasants in the process of forcing all farmers onto collective farms. Stalin's social revolution "from above" between 1930 and 1934 was followed by a political revolution between 1936 and 1939, when the mass purges of the Communist Party killed another 3 million and essentially destroyed the party as a real factor in political life until after Stalin's death.

The significance of Cohen's work is that it shows that there was a real alternative to Stalin's rule: the New Economic Policy of Lenin and Bukharin. Furthermore, although Stalin slowly accumulated power throughout the 20s, the new civil war and terror that began in December 1929 was qualitatively different from the relatively pluralistic society that came before. Trotsky and the left opposition, usually thought to be the true alternative to Stalin, occupy a position somewhere between the course championed by Bukharin and the course Stalin took.

This is not a hagiography of Bukharin however. Cohen recognizes that the role Bukharin played in the intra-party debates in the 20s was destructive, and that he, like Trotsky and others, repeatedly missed warning signs about, and opportunities to defeat, Stalin. Still, an excellent book worth reading if you're interested in the development of the USSR.

[John · Rating 5 out of 5]

Of course, this books deserves the praise that critics have heaped upon it since its publication in 1971. I can think of no other history of Soviet politics up to Bukharin's execution in 1938 that even approaches it in completeness and clarity. The outlines of that history are immediately evident, and one can consult other works for all the details.

I do have one criticism of the book, however. In his introduction Cohen writes: "The real question is whether either of these party leaders [Trotsky and Bukharin] represented a viable programmatic alternative to Stalinism in the 1920s."

First of all, the words "the real question" raises a red flag for me whenever I encounter them. Historians consider questions in their hundreds and thousands - all of them "real" in the sense that they exist in the minds of practicing historians. I suspect that Cohen meant: "the only question of interest to me," and like the arrogant academic that he is, he considers all other questions trivial - of no interest to "real" historians.

Secondly, I don't understand why he formulated the "real" question as he did. Bukharin and Trotsky covered hundreds and thousands of pages with words, words, words. In the sense that those words constituted "programs," which Cohen does not define, they did formulate alternative programs. Moreover, Bukharin's ideas WERE public policy and the foundation of funded government programs until about 1927 or so, when Stalin decided differently, when he began to liquidate the old Bolshevik party and to complete his highly successful project (of ten years) to gain personal control of the party apparatus and internal security/police organization. I assume Cohen means that the Central Committee COULD have CONTINUED to adopt Bukharin's ideas after 1927-9 as party/governmental policy and subsequently implemented in approved and funded "programs." Perhaps. [So could a Romanov restoration, I suppose - however remote the possibility.] But not on any planet he shared with Stalin, once Stalin decided differently. Throughout it all Bukharin remained intent on preserving his independence, which meant he remained largely uninvolved in the nasty struggles for power, the tedium of creating and establishing himself in a position to exercise "real" control [rather than to rely on persuasion] within the communist party and in the Soviet state so that he might actually implement his "program.". He remained a "maverick," a "loner." This is not to say that he didn't have his followers and admirers. He did - by the millions. But neither he nor Trotsky seemed to recognize that other persons pursued other goals, quite indifferent and entirely unmoved by their brilliance. They seemed not to understand, if their behavior indicates understanding, that the force of their ideas alone would be insufficiently powerful to compel anyone to act as their ideas suggested. Fools - the both of them. So whatever can Cohen mean when he writes of "programmatic alternatives?" Between 1927 and 1938 in seminar rooms or at a podium perhaps, but certainly not in the Kremlin - once Stalin had firm control of the party apparatus and internal security/police organizations. And Bukharin never seemed to recognize that he might have acted otherwise. But perhaps he couldn't. Now that suggests really interesting questions - How could and why did Bukharin ignore the politics of power in the 1920s?

Lastly, Cohen states the "real question" in his introduction and then seems to forget that he ever posed it until he raises it again in his epilogue - in a "thus we see" manner. I had been anticipating that he would discuss the "Bukharin alternative" every chapter or so when he offered his analyses of milestone events, but he didn't - just straight, brilliantly insightful commentary on political issues and the temporary alignment of political factions, wonderfully fluid. Perhaps Cohen had spent so much time in Bukharin's company - which would have been entirely delightful - that he also came to believe that he need not explain himself, that the answer to his question is so patently obvious to the attentive reader that he needn't formulate it.

But these are small points, I suppose. It remains an entirely indispensable book for the interested. And when I read it again, I'll just skip over the introduction and the epilogue not that I've vented.

[Julio The Fox · Rating 5 out of 5]

I once visited the home of a Trotskyist friend in Southern California and noticed this brilliant volume on his bookshelf. When I told him I had read and admired the book he replied, "Yes, but it's a bit too soft on Bukharin." Ah, left sectarian politics! Could the Russian Revolution have taken a different route than either Stalinist terror or Permanent Revolution? The late Princeton historian Stephan Cohen thought so, in that Bukharin's formula for Soviet agriculture---the key to the survival of the Revolution--- promoting "enrichez-vous" to the peasantry, avoided the pitfalls and horrors of both forced collectivization and foreign adventurism. Prophetically, Cohen saw in Bukharin a Soviet version of China's Deng Tsiao Peng. This book proved instrumental in allowing Bukharin's widow to win him a posthumous pardon from Gorbachev. Curiously, in his writings on twenty-first century Russia Cohen, who is sadly missed, tended to be anti-Yeltsin and more favorable towards Putin.

[Manray9 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cohen's acclaimed biography of the man Lenin named "the favorite of the Party" and Stalin shot as a traitor is a must for all interested in Soviet history and the triumph of Stalinism. An excellent example of academic writing.

[Alireza · Rating 3 out of 5]

برام جای تعجب داره که تا حالا ریویوی فارسی برای این کتاب نوشته نشده
همونطور که از اسم کتاب مشخص هست کتاب در مورد بوخارین هست که یکی از بزرگان مکتب بالشویکی و از نظریه پردازان اصلی حزب بوده
بخش کمی از کتاب شامل زندگینامه بوخارین میشه و بیشتر اون صرف ذکر و تحلیل تئوری‌ها و نظریه‌های بوخارین و به نوعی بحث‌های فلسفی، اقتصادی و اخلاقی هستش که با دیگر افراد حزب داره
بنابراین از نقطه نظر زندگینامه کتاب ضعیفی هست و خیلی اطلاعات جدیدی به شما نمیده
ولی از نظر نقد و بحث‌های تئوری بسیار غنی و تخصصی هست و یه جاهایی واقعا شاید حوصله خواننده معمولی رو سر ببره و نیاز به مطالعه بیشتر داشته باشه
به نظرم نویسنده عینک خوشبینی رو برای بوخارین به چشم‌هاش زده و معتقده که اگر حزب با تئوری‌های بوخارین جلو میرفت شرایط خیلی تغییر میکرد و شاهد ظهور مکتب استالینیستی به اون شکل نبودیم و شرایط شوروی بهتر میشد و حتی در جایی ادعا میشه جلوی ظهور و قدرت گرفتن هیتلر هم میتونست باشه
نویسنده به همون میزان هم نسبت به تروتسکی گارد داره و از هر فرصتی برای نشون دادن برتری بوخارین به تروتسکی استفاده می‌کنه و خیلی از موفقیت‌ها و اقدامات حزب رو از اندیشه‌های بوخارین میدونه
نویسنده یه جاهایی ذهن بوخارین رو هم میخونه که از انجام این کار ناراحت بوده و تو دلش نمیخواسته یه کارهایی رو انجام بده ولی خب بنا به مصلحت انجام داده. البته در خیلی جاهای متن به ناپختگی بوخارین در مقاطع مختلف برمی‌خوریم که بعضی از اشتباهاتش به شدت مهم و تاثیرگذار بود و در نهایت دامن خودش رو هم گرفت
در کل باید بگم این کتاب، کتاب کند و ثقیلی هست و ممکنه خسته‌تون کنه ولی درعین حال برای کامل کردن پازل آگاهی هر فرد در خصوص تاریخ شوروی و اندیشه بالشویکی خوندنش خالی از لطف نیست

[Nathan Fisher · Rating 4 out of 5]

The final chapter (on Bukharin in the thirties and the advent of Stalinism) is quite marred — it condenses too much and is where his political leanings are most explicit and uncharitable (at some points, unreliable). The rest of the book, as an exegesis of Bukharin’s trajectory, is very profitable, IMO.

[Greg · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the many unhappy legacies of the Cold War is how Americans came to view the intent and possibilities of the Russian Revolution of 1917 through a lens distorted by our experience with Josef Stalin’s Soviet Union, an unfortunate development as Stalin’s single-person dictatorship was a severe deviation from the original vision of most within the early Bolshevik Party.

Stalin’s rise to power and the increasing paranoia responsible for his murderous elimination of all he deemed untrustworthy were neither inevitable nor in any way the fulfilment of Lenin’s hopes. Even as late as the early 30s, when Stalin was stealthily nearing absolute authority, there remained a remarkable range of opinion within the Bolshevik party.

Stephen Cohen’s masterful account of these early years, in which he focuses on Nicolai Bukharin from his earliest years in the Bolshevik party through the late 1930s — when he, too, became yet another victim of Stalin’s plotting — helps us see how the Soviet Union might have turned out very differently had, for instance, Lenin had not died so soon or, alternatively, had his colleagues entrusted someone other than Stalin to the critical position of General Secretary through which he was able to promote his favorites within the party apparatus.

Especially while Lenin lived there was an ongoing, wide-ranging, and vigorously conducted debate about how to achieve the primary goal of vastly enhancing industrial production while, at the same time, moving to create a more efficient and productive agriculture in a country that was overwhelmingly rural and where most farm plots were quite small and lacked modern machinery.

Cohen shows how, in the early, formative period from the Revolution through the 1920s, Bukharin, Lenin, and others navigated through difficult times once they had achieved sole power in the autumn of 1917. Their challenge was to extricate Russia from the bloody First World War and, after they had successfully managed this, they immediately found themselves in a civil war in which outside powers (including the United States) sided with their opponents. It took them five long years (until the autumn of 1922) to finally cement their control and then they were immediately faced with the severe economic and agricultural consequences of eight years of warfare. Little wonder, then, that during this period their methods varied widely as they desperately moved to address quickly one kind of problem after another.

Throughout, there was no “road map” in Marxian theory by which to help them navigate these serious challenges, in good part because Marx — like most of the communist and socialist leaders — believed that the anticipated proletarian revolution would occur first in a highly industrialized country like Germany.

Instead, in one of those ironies so frequent in history, it was in Russia – an overwhelmingly rural country with relatively primitive industrial capacity – that the revolution unexpectedly occurred when the Bolsheviks seized power from the faltering Provisional Government in October of 1917. While periods of terror and brutality did occur, much of this was the inevitable consequence of the civil war that soon followed in which horrific violence was employed on all sides.

While Trotsky soon came to believe that the ongoing application of terror and force were an inevitable component of bringing about the needed transformation of Russia — much like the views of the anarchists in Russia in the late 19th century before him — Bukharin and Lenin were averse to believing these were necessary in a post-war environment. In marked contrast, they struggled instead to find the kind of economic policy that would allow both increased industrialization and a more productive agriculture to be accomplished without class warfare.

During this period, not only did Bukharin travel widely, lecturing frequently along the way, he also was editor of the influential newspaper Izvestia (meaning to inform or notify) that communicated the official views of the government. Even Stalin acknowledged that Bukharin was one of the most able speakers and writers and unequalled as a Marxist theoretician.

Cohen, in noting Bukharin’s pleasing, even magnetic, personality as central to his prominence in the Party, writes, “Those who encountered him over the years testify that the gentle, open, good-humored Bukharin, who in his traditional Russian blouse, leather jacket, and high boots conveyed the aura of Bohemia-come-to-power, was the most likable of the Bolshevik oligarchs…. There was about him none of Trotsky’s intimidating hauteur, Zinoviev’s labored pomposity, or the intrigue and mistrust surrounding Stalin. He was ‘lovingly soft in his relations with comrades,’ and ‘beloved.’ Exuding an ‘impervious geniality,’ he brought infectious gaiety to informal gatherings and, in his best moments, an ameliorating charm to politics.”

While Cohen cites extensively from Bukharin’s writings that trace both how his economic theory and policy evolved and adapted to changing circumstances, he also quotes passages that testify to how closely his thoughts paralleled the liberal humanistic tradition of his Social Democratic predecessors in Russia as well as of contemporary socialists in both Russia and Europe. s While his purpose – the eventual triumph of communism in Russia without resorting to violence as a tool of the state – remained fixed, his thoughts and proposed policies were always evolving.

While some of his colleagues saw Hitler’s form of totalitarianism as a “logical” development of industrial and political concentration in modern states, Bukharin did not. Rather, Cohen observes, he recognized not only the danger it posed to all civilization but also recognized similar developments of method and ideology growing under Stalin’s guidance. He expressed his concerns in language that his readers could also understand as applying to Russia.

Under Hitler, he wrote, “‘the idea of violence, of coercion as a permanent method of exercising power over society, over individuals, over man’s personality,’ in ‘terroristic dictatorships’ based on ‘permanent coercion’ and ‘a real gulf between…a small group of ruling exploiters and the exploited masses.’ Such a regime, ‘with all its organizational efforts, blind discipline, cult of Jesuitical obedience, and suppression of intellectual functions, creates a dehumanized populace.’”

“Fascism…has established an omnipotent ‘total state, which dehumanizes everything except the leaders and ‘supreme leaders.’ The dehumanization of the masses here is in direct proportion to the glorification of the ‘Leader.’ …The great majority of people are thereby transformed into simple functionaries bound by a discipline imposed in all areas of life…. Three ethical norms dominate everything: devotion to the ‘nation’ or to the ‘state,’ ‘loyalty to the Leader,’ and the ‘spirit of the barracks.’”

One of the reasons Stalin was able to succeed in his steady accretion of power was the determination, shared by Bolsheviks of all persuasions, to keep intra-party differences secret from the general public. While there were vigorous internal debates over the “rightness” of Stalin’s increasingly obvious methods throughout the 1930s, none of these appeared in newspapers or magazines that were available to the general public. Because the disputing leaders only showed unity and pretended affection towards each other in public, the regular citizen — who, in any case, was struggling to survive the continuing harsh existence consequent to the pursuit of rapid industrialization — had no real indication of the internal struggles.

This fact also meant that Stalin’s opponents never had the ability to rally their popular supporters who, especially before the middle 1930s, were quite numerous and in possession of many local and regional positions of power. By the time they might have gone public, the reins of power – including the control of vital mass media – were in Stalin’s hands.

Perhaps Bukharin had enough public status that, had he attempted to take his concerns public at the end of the 1920s or, at the latest, in the early 1930s, this might have resulted in Stalin being thwarted. If that had happened, how different might have been the subsequent development of the Soviet Union? A tantalizing question, but one to which we will never know the answer.

I recommend this fine work both to all who are interested in those crucial early years of the Soviet Union as well as to those who are convinced that the “outcome of any communist state” is predictable, narrow and ugly.

All imagined futures are far richer than we are likely to suppose. And nothing is inevitable in human events except, perhaps, that we will repeatedly learn little from them that will help us avoid the errors of the past.

[Marks54 · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have been reading this on and off for a while. It is the biography of Bukharin, who was one of the last of the “Old Bolsheviks” purged by Stalin between 1929 and 1939. Nikolai Bukharin case was the basis for the case of Rubashov in Arthur Koestler’s 1940 novel “Darkness at Noon”. While Koestler’s novel is justifiably famous, the real case here is even more noteworthy. Before 1990, the history of the USSR was much more widely studied than it is today and the Great Purges of the 1930s were well known and notorious. Had the USSR survived and reformed, Bukharin might have regained some of his stature as offering a more developmental alternative to forced industrialization. History did not turn out that way unfortunately. Cohen’s book is a magnificent biography but also long and at times difficult to work through. It is an important story and Cohen’s book is the standard.

[Tom · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well worth a read if you want to understand the NEP period in the Soviet Union. The only criticism I can give was that it was too light on war communism and I came away with more questions than answers.

[Jay · Rating 5 out of 5]

Although a few of the historical points that Cohen makes are outdated or at least not currently backed with the hardest evidence...Cohen does a phenomenal job at not only bringing Bukharin's story to life, but his ideas to life as well. Cohen also does a great job at shaking up the long held belief of there only being two paths that the Soviet Union could have gone down in its early period: the Trotskyist or Stalinist paths. Unfortunately, many scholars have left out Bukharin's ideas, writings, and alternatives to both the Trotskyist and Stalinist paths of the early Soviet Period, as well as forgetting Bukharin's early influence on the party with writings such as: ABC's of Communism, Historical Materialism, and Imperialism and World Economy. Cohen does a great job at not only showing that Bukharin's ideas for the Soviet economy and society were a real alternative, but they were almost an actuality! Unlike Trotsky who historians, scholars, and followers have overemphasized his popularity, role, and influence within high levels of the government, the party, and his path as the only alternative to Stalin's, Cohen creates an interesting narrative showing just how impactful Bukharin's writings and ideas were during his life and beyond. Bukharin and the Bolshevik Revolution tells of the exciting rise and tragic fall of the life of the golden boy of the Bolsheviks, it explores the possibility of an alternative Soviet system we never saw, and gives insight to a revolutionary's ideas which are still being studied to this day.

[Peter Ellwood · Rating 4 out of 5]

All history books ought to be like this. Fifty years old by now, written long before the end of the Soviet Union was even thought of, Stephen Cohen’s biography of Nikolai Bukharin is a mighty piece of work. His writing is clear, incisive, and balanced (or, if he isn’t balanced, he manages to convey that impression very well indeed). His subject matter – the life and rise (and fall) of Bukharin – is remarkably complex, partly because of the muddled and messy nature of the Russian revolution, and partly because of the muddled and messy evolution of economic thinking on the part of the original Bolsheviks. He unpicks it all with clarity, offering instant critiques of Bukharin’s writings and analysis of his thinking as the story unfolds. Most impressive. If I have any criticism on that score, it is that the content is really quite “dense”: don’t expect to curl up with a glass of wine as you read, you need to keep your wits about you.

SC analyses the detail of Bukharin’s thinking like a biologist dissecting a frog, or a watchmaker disassembling a complex timepiece: it’s often dizzying how much detail he throws at you – but you can scarcely criticise him for being so very erudite and well-informed. It slowly accretes into an astonishingly rich and detailed account. In some ways I would almost have preferred him to have been more ambitious still: at the end of 400 densely-packed pages I knew relatively little of Bukharin’s views on foreign policy or the Soviet Union’s place in the world, so devotedly does SC concentrate on the socio-economic side. It’s true that he glances more widely here and there, but you can’t help wanting more.

Still, for this ill-informed reader at least, what he does say is an eye-opener, a cold shower for a westerner who tended to assume the Russian revolution was all baddies and no goodies.

The essential point there is that Stalin’s 'coup' of 1929, when he stepped out of the shadows and began to reveal himself in all his wily, malevolent glory, imposing fear and (literally) starvation on his own people: has not surprisingly tended to define our subsequent interpretation of the Soviet Union too. Stalin was a monster, and Stalinism as a programme was unbelievably cruel in its execution: end of story. And leading directly on from that, western perceptions of the Soviet Union have tended to be that there was no other alternative to Stalinism as the ‘natural heir’ to Leninism and the revolution.

But a quiet, central theme of the book is that this was not necessarily so. SC never argues that Bukharin was such a charismatic leader that he could have pulled it all off himself; but his ideas were on a different, more humanist scale. Russia would be a much better place if he had remained influential.

I wish SC had written more, even if it had made it less readable as a result! As a judgement on his book, that is quite unfair of course – he set out to write a narrow account of Nikolai Bukharin, and my goodness, he delivered. But suffice it to say he left me hungry for more.

[C. Varn · Rating 5 out of 5]

A vastly important book contextualizing Bukharin in his relationship with Lenin and his move from the left wing of Bolshevikism to a defender of the NEP. Cohen's points on Stalin's sole original contribution to Bolshevik Marxism is not "dialectical materialism" or even his economic writings just before his death, but Stalin's embrace of the intensification thesis and using purges and rapid industrialization to get rid of the "enemies of socialism." Interestingly, both Dengism and non-Dengist Maoism, despite Mao's embrace of anti-revisionism, actually mostly agrees with Bukharin's concern for incorporating the peasants without causing massive rural resistance. Cohen does not forgive all of Bukharin's mistakes, including the sectarianism within the Bolsheviks in the 1920s and the fact that the right-opposition and the left-opposition both misunderstood the threats of Stalin. Still, it is a comprehensive book and still one of the best on the topic.

[Liz Estrada · Rating 4 out of 5]

Realmente no sabía mucho de Bujarin, sólo lo poco que aprendí en la universidad cuando tuve clases de historia sobre la revolución Bolchevique. Un hombre fascinante y que tentó cambiar el futuro, para mejor pienso yo, de la Unión Soviética. Infelizmente, Stalin acabó con él también. Muy triste. Pero muy recomendable.

[Malihe63 · Rating 5 out of 5]

من که طبق معمول که این مجموعه کتابها رو دوست دارم واقعا لذت بردم از خوندنش مخصوصا که هیچی در مورد بوخارین نمی دونستم و الان خیلی میدونم

[Will E Hazell · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think that potential readers will be better served by a summary rather than a review. The book is insightful, but it has limitations - it was published in 1975. The Archives were not yet open, and Glasnost was yet in effect. High-ranking autobiographies came in piecemeal across the 20th century (often second-hand recollections from the children of leading Bolsheviks). The first of these memoirs have outsized significance (e.g., Trotsky). But in the way of insider information, this is all we really had. As such, this book includes some incorrect extrapolations based on limited information. That said, it is still an interesting biography, with real insight into the Soviet 20s and New Economic Policy (NEP); even if it grows increasingly off-key during the 30s. In 1975 Bukharin's silent protests were not well understood, but they are understood a little better now thanks to the Archives. The major mistakes are easy to spot, but there may be more subtle errors (especially in the characterisation of Bukharin and his cadres) that I won’t pick up on.

MISTAKES (AND THE KIROV ASSASSINATION)

Cohen's mistakes are common ones, the greatest being the Kirov assassination - which is rife with conspiracy theories. In 1934, Kirov, the leading cadre in the Leningrad Soviet was assassinated by a gunman: Leonid Nikolayev. The theory once went that Stalin organised the assassination to halt a rising star, and clamp down on Leningrad. This theory grew wings, and when the new Soviet school took to flight in the 70s, it was dependent on the work of disgruntled émigré writers - who were all too willing to add another moment of hypocrisy to Stalin’s reign. In reality, the young Kirov was a favourite of Stalin, and immensely popular within his inner circle. His death was a shock, and Stalin took a personal role in the investigation. This was a gargantuan political event, and in terms of its legacy, it is sometimes compared to the Kennedy assassination. But it shares more in common with the Garfield murder, which involved a mentally ill staffer with delusions of grandeur. This was not an ideological assassination, and Nikolayev was a lone gunman. This is the most major mistake.

A LITTLE ABOUT BUKHARIN

Bukharin is a fascinating profile in the CPSU, and a largely forgotten one. The modern Bolshevik tale has only room for the Lenin-Trotsky-Stalin trinity – the founder, dissident, and corruptor. Why is it that Bukharin has been outshone by Trotsky? It's an unfair diminishment and it's a wonder there's so many Trotskyites running around. Have they even bothered to explore Trotsky's contemporaries? They could be doing justice to a more heroic figure with less baggage.

“Those who encountered him over the years testify that the gentle, open, good-humoured Bukharin, who in the traditional Russian blouse, leather jacket, and high boots conveyed the aura of Bohemia-come-to-power, was the most likeable of the Bolshevik oligarchs. Bukharin, observed Lenin, was among those “people with such happy natures… who even in the fiercest battles are least able to envenom their attacks.”

Bukharin was a real intellectual who was in his own lifetime considered a 'classic' of Marxist theology. In the 1920s he was responsible for defining theoretical Bolshevism at home and abroad as Editor in Chief of Pravda (1918 - 1929) and General Secretary of the Communist International (1926 - 1929). It seems that the source of his genius was his ideological pluralism, and his openness to new approaches. A trait which would draw the criticism of both Lenin and Trotsky.

ON BUKHARIN’S TEAM

Bukharin and his team would emerge as a mighty political force following Lenin's death; and official Bolshevism from 1925 to 1927 was largely Bukharinist. Rykov and Tomskii - also full members of Politburo - formed with him a Triumvirate, that unstably cajoled an ever rotating fourth ally to keep majority control over the 7-man Politburo.

Rykov was an economist and well-known party moderate. Of peasant origin, he earned a reputation for his attentive attitude towards the peasantry. He would become a "perennial foe of grandiose economic projects and teleological planning schemes" which he believed would “mortally compromise socialism". No other Bolshevik "personified so unambiguously the political and economic philosophy of NEP…”

Tomskii came from a different wing of the party. He had been a radical trade unionist since 1905 and "the only Politburo member with an authentic proletarian background". He was a strong opponent of “statizising” the unions and making them subservient to the Party. Partly motivated by the memory of Trotsky’s 1920 attempt to militarize labour and “shake up” and stack the union leadership, Tomskii wished to enhance the independence of trade unions.

THE END OF WAR COMMUNISM

Bukharin, Rykov, and Tomskii had the hard task of organising a state which had imploded following the excesses of the Civil War and War Communism. By 1921, the economy was in shambles and strict Marxism has to be abandoned. The Bolshevik regime had run up against the force of reality and stumbled into problems identified by economists they had long since vilified. However, a New Economic Policy would require extensive theoretical justification to square the circle on Marxist ideology. Before they could make policy, they would have to justify it. Lenin and Bukharin worked to make ‘state capitalism’ a revolutionary Marxist position. Terms had to be redefined (e.g., ‘capitalist accumulation’ became ‘socialist accumulation’) and 'petty capitalism' would have to become an ally. In all this, Bukharin was one of the few who learnt to understand the limits of central planning, and so-called ‘Genghis Khan plans’. Utopian economies of scale cannot be willed into existence. The USSR needed to be reformed, and so he 1. recognised markets as an essential tool to that end, 2. and sort to address the bloating size of the bureaucracy.

“Bukharin was not just warning about economic malaise but also ‘a new ruling class’ “based not on private property but on ‘monopolistic’ authority and privilege’. ‘A new state of chinovniki’. The widening gap between the emergent soviet bureacracy and the peasantry was obvious.

Bukharin recognised the importance of the “hundreds and thousands of small and large rapidly expanding voluntary societies, circles, and associations” - which Stalin could only see as a threat to his power base.” This was essential for the growth of worker culture throughout the country. Voluntary initiatives at the ground level are essential democratic mechanisms to relate the state to society. And essential for culture to blossom and grow, among "the many writers who produced much of their major work in the twenties were Pasternak, Babel, Olesha, Kataev, Leonov, Pilniak, Bulgakov, Mandelstam, Zoshchenko, and Mayakovsky.” This proved to be a winning strategy.

BUKHARIN: “We will say frankly: we tried to take on ourselves the organisation of everything - even the organisation of the peasants and the millions of small producers… from the viewpoint of economic rationality this was madness”

BUKHARIN: “Taking too much on itself, it has to create a colossal administrative apparatus. To fulfil the economic functions of the small producers, small peasants, etc., it requires too many employees and administrators. The attempt to replace all these small figures with state chinovniki - gives birth to such a colossal apparatus that the expenditure for it’s maintenance proves to be incomparably more significant than the unproductive costs which derive from the anarchistic condition of small production.”

Despite being the dominant figure in the party, he did not control it. His policies found pushback in waves of dissent from Trotsky, Zinoviev, and Kamanev (among others). So he had to reach out for allies in the Politburo - namely one comrade Stalin.

“Rykov and Tomskii were in general agreement with those policies, of which Bukharin was the main spokesman. By joining Bukharin, Stalin reconstructed a Politburo majority of four against his former allies, Zinoviev and Kamanev. In turn, Bukharin secured an official majority for those policies in which he fervently believed.”

THE NEW ECONOMIC POLICY

Steering party leadership, Bukharin fought back against attempts by the party to squeeze the country side to enable rapid industrialisation. Bukharin built an ethic of socialist industrialisation that embraced technocratic evolution, employed non-party experts, and rejected class warfare.

BUKHARIN: “Our economy exists for the consumer, not the consumer for the economy”

BUKHARIN: “the prosperous upper stratum of the peasantry and the middle peasant who also aspires to become prosperous are at present afraid to accumulate. There is a situation where the peasant is afraid to install an iron roof for fear of being declared a kulak; if he buys a machine, then he does it in such a way that the Communists will not notice. Higher technique becomes conspiratorial.”

BUKHARIN: ”unprecedented concentration of the means of production, transportation, finance,etc. in state hands… any miscalculation and error makes itself felt in a corresponding social dimension.”

This was still a socialist vision, but it would "overcome the market through the market". The surplus of this industrial strategy would grow the state sector until it outranked the private economy.

“Collectivized agriculture was at best a distant prospect, whose eventuality depended on the ability of voluntary, mechanized, self-sustaining collective farms to prove their economic superiority in competition with private farming on the open market. It would be a mistake, he [Bukharin] warned, to create collective farms artificially; they would become ‘parasitic Communist institutions’ living off state funds and serving only to reinforce the peasant’s conviction ‘that private economy is a very good thing’."

You get the feeling from Bukharin that this is someone who understands how markets work, and the limitations of pure ideology. The Left however was singularly focused on increasing industrial output. The ‘super industrialisation’ of the party's Left failed to see that the urban and rural sectors were a ‘single organism’, and that you couldn't simply 'pump over' the peasantry to finance the state. Bukharin insisted that the true indicator of growth was not industrial investment alone, but ‘the sum of national incomes, on the basis of which everything grows, beginning with production and ending with the army and schools’. “The party’s goal, he maintained, was not ‘equality in poverty’, not ‘reducing the more prosperous upper stratum, but… pulling up the lower strata up to this higher level”.

The NEP years were an economic miracle, what came after was a disaster. Elements in the party, and growingly Stalin, were constant critics of this evolutionary approach which they called a 'Rightist deviation'. Stalin destroyed all of it, and the end of the NEP would be a humanitarian catastrophe. But that's all well known.

THE END

I've sort of run out of steam, but he's an interesting character. My interest is primarily economics, hence the NEP obsession – but the book explores much more. Bukharin was executed in 1938, along with Rykov. Tomskii committed suicide 2 years earlier. Bukharin's wife and his infant son spent the next 20 years in prison camps and exile, while his son was shuffled between foster parents and orphanages. Though it is dated, there isn't much else on Bukharin – so it could be worth the read if you made it here. I've glossed over many of his political mistakes and moral failures, but it's important that his political mission is made known. There is a lost path in Soviet history which is genuinely humanistic and inspiring. We missed out on that, but we shouldn't ignore the fact that it exists - and that it doesn't belong to Trotsky. If you're interested in the theoretical debates within the party, Bukharin is the man to follow. His mark lingered long after in places you wouldn't expect... Bukharin actually wrote the Stalin Constitution. Stalin had a bad habit of killing people, and then plagiarising their ideas, but it was Bukharin who wrote its new provisions for universal suffrage, secret balloting, the possibility of multi-candidate elections, and explicit civil rights of citizens. None of this would ever become practice - but there he is.

[RYD · Rating 5 out of 5]

Not realizing it, I read this book twice (in 2011 and 2012), and even wrote two reviews. The five stars was my first review. I would have given it four the second time around.

Review 1)

Every era inevitably reexamines and rewrites history. That is especially true with accounts of the Soviet Union, where there are huge differences depending on whether a book was written before or after the Iron Curtain's collapse.

Today, most histories stress the continuity between Lenin and Stalin, and the bloodiness and authoritarianism of the Russian Revolution from its inception.

This biography -- of the Bolshevik theorist and "rightist" Nikolai Bukharin -- is a good example of how Soviet history was viewed before hindsight and access to Russian archives. Published in 1971, it casts Stalinism as a twisted and horrible aberration to the hopeful aspirations of the revolution.

As such, the book makes for interesting reading, though I have trouble accepting Bukharin as a tragic figure, given his many alliances with Stalin before he suffered the same fate as those he'd helped persecute.

An emblematic passage of author Stephen Cohen's views, about the purges of the late-1930s:

"Stalin's blood purge constituted a revolution 'as complete as, though more disguised than, any previous changes in Russia.' The Bolshevik Party was destroyed and a new party with a different membership and ethos created. Only 3 percent of the delegates to its last pre-purge congress in 1934 reappeared at the next congress in 1939. Seventy percent of the party's full membership in 1939 had joined since 1929, that is, during the Stalin years; only 3 percent had been members since before 1917. By the late thirties, the Soviet system had ceased to be a party dictatorship or government in any meaningful sense. Behind a facade of institutional continuity and official fictions, Stalin had become an autocrat, reducing the party to one of his several instruments of personal dictatorship."

Review 2)

Nikolai Bukharin was one of the figures of hope for those who looked at the Soviet Union and wondered if it could have been something better, if not for the monstrosities of Stalin. This book offers a persuasive account of 1920s NEP Russia, which comes across as sort of another Weimer Republic -- a brief respite of cultural promise, sandwiched between times of horror. Author Stephen Cohen makes the case for Bukharin's legacy, though I've always been more convinced by accounts that put greater stress on his role as an intriguer who helped Stalin eliminate mutual rivals until he shared the same fate.

Here's part of Cohen's analysis on why Bukharin, though he was popular and powerful, failed to resist Stalin's efforts to purge him:

"By 1929, Bukharin had come to share most of Trotsky's criticisms of the party's internal regime. Unlike Trotsky, however, having sanctioned its development, he was its prisoner. His dissent and accompanying pleas for the toleration of critical opinion in 1928-9 were regularly rebuffed with quotations from his own, earlier sermons against the Left's 'factionalism,' and his attacks on Stalin's 'secretarial regime' with derisive jeers: 'Where did you copy that from? ... From Trotsky!' Still, despite his complicity in imposing the proscriptive norms, Bukharin was tempted to appeal to the whole party. He agonized over his dilemma: 'Sometimes at night I think, have we the right to remain silent? Is this not a lack of courage? ... Is our 'fuss' anything by masturbation?' Finally, believing that the party hierarchy he would to win over would 'slaughter' any leader who carried the struggle beyond its councils, he conformed to 'party unity and party discipline,' to the narrow, intolerant politics he had helped create. He shunned overt 'factionalism,' and so was reduced to ineffectual 'backstairs intrigues' (like his Kamenev visit) easily exploited by his enemies. His position was politically incongruous: driven by outraged contempt for Stalin and his policies, he remained throughout a restrained, reluctant oppositionist.

"Apart from public appeals too Aesopian to be effective, Bukharin , Rykov, and Tomskii therefore colluded with Stalin in confining their fateful conflict to a small private arena, there to be 'strangled behind the back of the party.' And it is in this context that Stalin's decisive victory must be explained."

[Rick · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a stunning book - remarkable research went into its preparation. The writing is excellent. The subject matter - and subject-of-the-biography - are fascinating and meaningful about how Stalinism developed in opposition to Bukharin's entirely different intentions and theory about how to build communism. I never encountered the name or story of Nikolai Bukharin in my history studies in high school or college. I am glad I have now, and I will read more of this man and the story of the development of the USSR that terrified and murdered its people and ravaged its culture & economy.

[Jay · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bukharin's tragedy was hardly unique, but he faced it with characteristic ingenuity and brilliance, the same virtues he brought to Bolshevism in his role as the Party's greatest theorist. He led the Soviet Union during the NEP, the flexible mixed economy of the 1920s, before defeat in the Central Committee by Stalin relegated him to editorship of Pravda and other comparatively minor roles. Cohen's biography of Bukharin's ideas and exercise of power reveals paths of promise never trod by the world's first workers' state.

[Shaun Richman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Masterful. One of the most satisfying explanations of the Bolshevik 20's and Stalin's consolidation of power. How is it, three decades after the Soviet archives were opened up, that no one has dared to write an updated biography of the main Soviet alternative to Stalinism?

[Ming · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Author was my teacher on a course on Russia in college. An interesting look at the power stuggle between party members with the power vacuum left by lenin

[Mikaellyng · Rating 5 out of 5]

Cohen

[Jnoub101 · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was equal parts captivating and frustrating. I have previously read the Deutscher "prophet series" as well as "October", parts of the recent Stalin biography, and a Left Communist history of the Russian Revolution and its aftermath, and this book is a fitting book end to those readings. Cohen, uniquely among other historians of the Russian Revolution and the early days of the USSR avoids taking either an expressly anti communist line or a line promulgated by any existing sect-parties so common to the left today. Instead, Cohen weaves a robust, thorough, and sympathetic history of Bukharin's life and theories. Throughout reading the book one will meet a Bukharin who is equal parts brilliant, cowardly, brave, closed minded (in terms of party unity), and cosmopolitan.

My biggest gripe with this book is one that a good friend pointed out, it consistently portrays the Bolsheviks as both the chosen representatives of the proletariat as they took power, and as a clique of 'oligarchs' who deposed a democratic regime. Perhaps there is truth in this tension, but Cohen certainly does not investigate the claims thoroughly enough. Further, Cohen often portrays Bukharin's 'humanistic' tendencies, i.e. his discomfort with forced collectivization of the peasantry, mass executions, and the creeping bureaucratization of the party, as expressions of his "right wing" or liberal tendencies. A strong critique I have seen online argues that this fails to place Bukharin within his own history. Bukharin began his political career on the extreme left of the Bolsheviks. He was renowned for his violent internationalism. And, in some ways, it may be better to see his support for the NEP and a reduced Soviet State not as some covert liberalism, but instead as adherence to his internationalism -- if there cannot be international revolution the goal should be to prepare the USSR for that revolution by developing collectivism in the cities and capitalism in the country side, while retaining the all important alliance between peasants and proletariats.

I came into this book with preconceived notions on Bukharin, and leave with different, but no less sympathetic views. In the end, Bukharin was a failure, someone who allowed and abetted the rise of Stalinism and was unable to create a lasting theoretical or practical legacy -- unless one wishes to give him the infamous title of "the grandfather of Dengism." But, at the same time we see someone honestly committed to the Communist project, someone who refused to give up on the dream of October, and someone who was sober enough, and humble enough, to fight within and against the Soviet system, rather than follow Trotsky/Zinoviev and simply leave. Maybe Bukharin is the best we can ever get, and the question is whether that will ever be good enough. Who knows what kinds of compromises and experiments are needed in the heat of revolution. Bukharin did try to answer that, he tried to play the game, and he lost.

Really a 4.5/5.

[Saeed abedi · Rating 3 out of 5]

همین ابتدا بگم که کسانی که صرفاً به دنبال یک کتاب تاریخی هستند این کتاب یکم اذیت شون میکنه چون نویسنده صرفا به زندگی بوخارین نپرداخته بلکه ( مخصوصا در بخش های چهارم و پنجم کتاب) به مباحث تئوریک و اختلاف این تئوریسین جوان با عقاید لنین و بعد از آن با تروتسکی پرداخته است . البته شاید نوشتن درباره بوخارین بدون پرداختن به تئوری های او که باعث شاخص شدن او می شود کار غیرممکنی باشد اما نویسنده حقیقتا بسیار در این مورد توضیح و تشریح داده که جاهایی کتاب تبدیل به کتاب اقتصادی فلسفی سیاسی میشد و از قالب کتاب تاریخی بیرون می آمد
بوخارین دولت بزرگ کمونیستی را به یک لویاتان و هیولایی تشبیه میکرد که احتمال میرود کنترل آن از دست خارج شود بعلاوه او مخالف تئوری کمونیسم جنگی و عناد سخت با دهقانان بود و همیشه اعتقاد داشت باید نسبت به شوراهای روستایی مهربان تر رفتار کرد و دست دهقان را در تملک زمین کوچک و دامداری خرده باید باز گذاشت جالب است که در بعد از حذف تروتسکی همین عقاید کم کم باعث فاصله گیری او از استالین نیز شد. بوخارین اشتراکی سازی گسترده و قیمت گذاری غلات توسط دولت را باعث سرخوردگی دهقانان از حکومت کمونیستی می دانست به علاوه این که نتایج فاجعه بار تصمیم استالین ( قحطی گسترده و تلف شدن حدود ده میلیون نفر) را مدت ها قبل از وقوع فاجعه پیش بینی کرده و هشدار داده بود
افسوس که هنگامی که ملتی دچار پرستش کیش شخصیت میشوند هرچه رهبر معظم می گوید وحی منزل است و نظرهای دلسوزان ملت به نظرات مغرضان فریب خوردگان یا دشمنان ملت تعبیر می‌شود
بوخارین مرد و ندید که پس از مرگ استالین سرکردگان حکومت برای بازگشت به راه تعادل بسیاری از پیشنهاد های او را برای اصلاح نظام به کار بردند البته بدون نام بردن از اسم ممنوعه او
سایه سنگین اتهامات استالین بر این دلسوز نظام چنان بود که بوخارین یکی از آخرین نفراتی بود که در زمان گورباچف از او اعاده حیثیت شد و از تمامی اتهامات پوچ و بی اساسی که باعث مرگش شد تبرئه شد

[J · Rating 3 out of 5]

A very extensive Biography of one of the most interesting figures in the history of the russian revolution.

It is very extensive with lots of detail and goes over Bucharins beginnings as a young communist in Moscow to his rise as one of the leading bolshevik theoretician, architect of the NEP and subsequent downfall over the Soviet Industrialization debates.

I liked the chapters on his views on the road to socialism and industrialization. Theoretically the contrast of his model against that of stalin was well done but the chapters on Stalin could have been better off without the needless vilifying of him. Especially the attempt to paint Stalins Soviet Union as having fascistic traits was needlessly biased and ahistoric.

Apart from that it is a very good book if you really want to look into the details of early soviet history from the point of Bucharin and are interested in the NEP, aswell as alternative models of the road to socialism

[Alek · Rating 5 out of 5]

When asking about Bukharin bios this is what was recommended to me. Didn't know much about this story, which is the story of soviet politics in the 1920s. The Trotskyist perspective on this period is familiar to a lot of leftists, and I had just read up on that perspective, but Bukharin's perspective is less familiar, didn't spawn a bunch of movements or anything. Bukharin's non-stalinist post-1917 bolshevism points to a road not taken (continued alliance with peasantry, peaceful growth of collective farming) that might have worked, was certainly preferable to Stalin's assault on the peasantry and the police state this required, and more informative/relevant to how the still actually existing socialist regimes survive the shock therapy era in the 1980s-90s.

[Apostolos · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a great book. It offers the reader a very good understanding of the inner workings, ideological struggles and political struggles within the then multifaceted bolshevik party. It does get repetitive at times but it remains very interesting and even an easy read.

[Hazzem · Rating 3 out of 5]

the first 3 chapters are so informative and clears alot of misconceptions about the bolshevik party and the russian revolution

[Fred Phillips · Rating 5 out of 5]

I never knew Bolsheviks were split between Left to Right Political spectrum. Lots of things about Bolsheviks not properly discussed.

[CrownOfThorns · Rating 5 out of 5]

Best book on Russian history I have ever read, and on Russian political/economic history from the Revolution to the terror of the Purges. Highly recommend.

[Jonathan · Rating 4 out of 5]

My review is biased because my political hero is Trotsky. This is a useful biography of a key figure in the rise and formation of Stalinism, which distorted Marxism/Lenninism to produce the murderous centralist regime of Stalin. But it should be read along with wider accounts of the revolution and the leading characters.
What it doesn't do in any way shape or form is explain Bukharin's actions when it came to Lenin's will, the routing of Trostky and his expulsion from the USSR or his part in the re-writing of the Russian revolution to enhance the invisible Stalin to a central figure and as ultimately Lenin's heir. It seems this period after Lenin's death is regarded only as a political and ideological struggle and ignores Bukharin's motives in playing Stalin's game which he acknowledges was based on inexhaustible jealousy of anyone more talented, intellectual, charismatic or charming. It appears that Bukharin accepts the revolution as an accomplished fact but denies entirely the danger of rewriting and distorting history and thus Bukharin along with Zinoviev and Kamenev become equally responsible for the rise of Stalin and to their own deaths. What is ultimately unanswered was Bukharin a dupe, willing or otherwise or cynically hoping to outmanouevre Stalin; what was his motive in colluding with a man who was clearly a dangerous psychopath that Lenin wanted expelled from the party?