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Philosophical Arabesques
Bukharin’s Philosophical Arabesques was written while he was imprisoned in the Lubyanka Prison in Moscow, facing trial on charges of treason, and later awaiting execution after he was found guilty. After the death of Lenin, Bukharin cooperated with Stalin for a time. Once Stalin's supremacy was assured he began eliminating all potential rivals. For Bukharin, the process was to end with his confession before the Soviet court, facing the threat that his young family would be killed along with him if he did not.
While awaiting his death, Bukharin wrote prolifically. He considered Philosophical Arabesques as the most important of his prison writings. In its pages, he covers the full range of issues in Marxist philosophy—the sources of knowledge, the nature of truth, freedom and necessity, the relationship of Hegelian and Marxist dialectic. The project constitutes a defense of the genuine legacy of Lenin's Marxism against the use of his memory to legitimate totalitarian power.
Consigned to the Kremlin archives for a half-century after Bukharin’s execution, this work is now being published for the first time in English. It will be an essential reference work for scholars of Marxism and the Russian revolution and a landmark in the history of prison writing.
While awaiting his death, Bukharin wrote prolifically. He considered Philosophical Arabesques as the most important of his prison writings. In its pages, he covers the full range of issues in Marxist philosophy—the sources of knowledge, the nature of truth, freedom and necessity, the relationship of Hegelian and Marxist dialectic. The project constitutes a defense of the genuine legacy of Lenin's Marxism against the use of his memory to legitimate totalitarian power.
Consigned to the Kremlin archives for a half-century after Bukharin’s execution, this work is now being published for the first time in English. It will be an essential reference work for scholars of Marxism and the Russian revolution and a landmark in the history of prison writing.
448 pages, Hardcover
First published June 1, 2005
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About the author
Nikolai Bukharin
195 books66 followersNikolai Ivanovich Bukharin, Bolshevik revolutionary and Soviet politician, advocated gradual agricultural collectivization; after the last "show trial" of Moscow of the 1930s for treason, people executed him.
Nikolai Ivanovich Bukharin, a Russian prolific author, wrote on theory.
As a young man, he spent six years in exile, worked closely with Vladimir Ilich Lenin and Leon Trotsky. After February 1917, he returned, his credentials earned him a high rank in the party, and after the October, he served as editor of Pravda, the newspaper.
Within the bitterly divide, his move to the right as a defender of the new economy, positioned him favorably as chief ally of Joseph Stalin, and from the party leadership, they together ousted Trotsky, Grigori Evseyevich Zinoviev, and Lev Borisovich Kamenev. From 1926, Bukharin enjoyed great power as general secretary of committee of Comintern to 1929. Nevertheless, decision of Stalin to proceed drove the two men apart, and the Politburo expelled Bukharin.
When the purges began in 1936, Joseph Stalin for pretext liquidated his former allies and rivals for power, and some letters, conversations, and tapped phone calls of Bukharin indicated disloyalty. People arrested him in February 1937, and charged conspiracy to overthrow the state. Proceedings alienated many western Communist sympathizers.
Nikolai Ivanovich Bukharin, a Russian prolific author, wrote on theory.
As a young man, he spent six years in exile, worked closely with Vladimir Ilich Lenin and Leon Trotsky. After February 1917, he returned, his credentials earned him a high rank in the party, and after the October, he served as editor of Pravda, the newspaper.
Within the bitterly divide, his move to the right as a defender of the new economy, positioned him favorably as chief ally of Joseph Stalin, and from the party leadership, they together ousted Trotsky, Grigori Evseyevich Zinoviev, and Lev Borisovich Kamenev. From 1926, Bukharin enjoyed great power as general secretary of committee of Comintern to 1929. Nevertheless, decision of Stalin to proceed drove the two men apart, and the Politburo expelled Bukharin.
When the purges began in 1936, Joseph Stalin for pretext liquidated his former allies and rivals for power, and some letters, conversations, and tapped phone calls of Bukharin indicated disloyalty. People arrested him in February 1937, and charged conspiracy to overthrow the state. Proceedings alienated many western Communist sympathizers.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
October 21, 2021
Difficult going; not for someone new to philosophy and political theory, but certainly rewarding. It is not hyperbolic to say this stands beside other greats of Marxist literature. Surprisingly, Bukharin is certainly more dynamic and flexible and, well, dialectical than the mechanical materialism of his earlier "Historical Materialism". Highly recommended, 4/5 stars. Excerpts of a review by Craig Brandist in Radical Philosophy follow:
"Despite its title suggesting something much more fragmentary, Philosophical Arabesques actually constitutes a single sustained work on materialist dialectics. The scope of this work alone earns it a place alongside that other great Marxist work written in political incarceration, Antonio Gramsciʼs Prison Notebooks....
"If we compare this work with Bukharinʼs earlier Historical Materialism (1920, translated 1925), which earned the critical attention of, inter alia, Georg Lukács, Karl Korsch and Gramsci for its mechanical approach to Marxism, Philosophical Arabesques marks a significant advance. It is structured according to a dialectical spiral rising from the contradictions of solipsism and ʻthings in themselvesʼ through the nature of reason, the distinguishing features of idealism and materialism, and the concept of truth, before arriving at the divergence of Hegelian and Marxist dialectics. To summarize this adequately would be impossible within the space of a short review, but it is possible to draw out certain themes that receive special attention. The practical, theoretical and aesthetic relations towards the world are held to constitute a single process that leads to a broadening understanding of practice. Theory and practice are shown to be mutually implicated and mutually informing at every level and locked into a rising spiral. Connections within nature are held to be multifarious, encompassing causal, functional, statistical and teleological (the last understood as a ʻmoment of necessityʼ). The sociology of thinking is seen as an introduction to philosophy, growing out of an analysis of the interrelationship of modes of production and of representation, where the last includes ideological forms and ʻstyles of thinkingʼ. The role of experience and co-experience in art is seen as the equivalent of the immediacy of knowledge in science. And, finally, the unity of theory and history is posited, according to which theory is historical and history theoretical.
"This all clearly marks a major departure from the ʻnotorious 'theory of equilibrium', according to which dialectics is understood as ʻthe conflict of forces, disturbance of equilibrium, new combination of forces, restoration of equilibriumʼ. This had originated in the work of Aleksandr Bogdanov and dominated Bukharinʼs earlier work. Here, however, it is regarded as 'a refined variant of mechanistic materialism'."
"Despite its title suggesting something much more fragmentary, Philosophical Arabesques actually constitutes a single sustained work on materialist dialectics. The scope of this work alone earns it a place alongside that other great Marxist work written in political incarceration, Antonio Gramsciʼs Prison Notebooks....
"If we compare this work with Bukharinʼs earlier Historical Materialism (1920, translated 1925), which earned the critical attention of, inter alia, Georg Lukács, Karl Korsch and Gramsci for its mechanical approach to Marxism, Philosophical Arabesques marks a significant advance. It is structured according to a dialectical spiral rising from the contradictions of solipsism and ʻthings in themselvesʼ through the nature of reason, the distinguishing features of idealism and materialism, and the concept of truth, before arriving at the divergence of Hegelian and Marxist dialectics. To summarize this adequately would be impossible within the space of a short review, but it is possible to draw out certain themes that receive special attention. The practical, theoretical and aesthetic relations towards the world are held to constitute a single process that leads to a broadening understanding of practice. Theory and practice are shown to be mutually implicated and mutually informing at every level and locked into a rising spiral. Connections within nature are held to be multifarious, encompassing causal, functional, statistical and teleological (the last understood as a ʻmoment of necessityʼ). The sociology of thinking is seen as an introduction to philosophy, growing out of an analysis of the interrelationship of modes of production and of representation, where the last includes ideological forms and ʻstyles of thinkingʼ. The role of experience and co-experience in art is seen as the equivalent of the immediacy of knowledge in science. And, finally, the unity of theory and history is posited, according to which theory is historical and history theoretical.
"This all clearly marks a major departure from the ʻnotorious 'theory of equilibrium', according to which dialectics is understood as ʻthe conflict of forces, disturbance of equilibrium, new combination of forces, restoration of equilibriumʼ. This had originated in the work of Aleksandr Bogdanov and dominated Bukharinʼs earlier work. Here, however, it is regarded as 'a refined variant of mechanistic materialism'."
July 3, 2015
This was a really good book! Shame Bukharin couldn't continue his theoretical work, mainly because this seemed to be something of a beacon of him breaking from his previous, more mechanistic marxism, into something a lot more dynamic and flexible, there's good groundwork in here for a rejuvenated and less dogmatic marxism, I'd definitely recommend it to everyone.
October 23, 2024
It is well known that in his famous "Letter to the Congress", the dying Lenin made a comradely critique of the young N.I. Bukharin, stating that the latter had "never made a study of the dialectics, and, I think, never fully understood it". Lenin noted, however, that his comments "[were] 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" (note he was also talking about the lesser known Pyatakov as well). In this work, written while the author was imprisoned and awaiting execution by the Stalinist regime, we see the pupil Bukharin do exactly what his master Lenin expected of him: a comprehensive study and exposition of dialectics.
Here we see Bukharin make an outstanding contribution to dialectical materialism, addressing various problems of philosophy. I greatly appreciated his commentary detailing the relations of the subject and the object, Hegel and Marx's respective dialectics, Lenin's contributions to philosophy, science and philosophy, and much much more. One can really be taken back by the amount he covers in this work.
Bukharin is reminiscent of Engels in his extensive knowledge of both philosophy and modern science.
A cool bit is Bukharin's rejection of Eurocentrism. See how he reproaches old Hegel for his notoriously racist caricatures of non-European societies' thought: "it should be noted that Hegel's entire interpretation of the philosophy of India, China, and so on is as far from the truth as heaven is from earth. All it embodies is arrogant, white-racist European provincialism and ignorance of the topic, which, moreover, should not surprise us." (p. 347)
Bukharin's repeated positive evocation of Stalin is quite jarring however, considering the latter was the one ordering the death of the former, something not lost on the author in the slightest. If I had to speculate, this was a desperate attempt on behalf of Bukhrain to get the work published, which, as Helena Sheehan notes in the great introductory essay, he was desperate for and ultimately deprived of until long after his murder.
It is also quite a haunting read, considering the author himself knew he was a dead man waiting. Yet, Bukharin writes not only with wit and an often sharply humorous tone, but with a passion and devotion to Marxism and Leninism which he wished nothing more to be advanced by coming generations.
This is a fantastic read, much recommended.
Here we see Bukharin make an outstanding contribution to dialectical materialism, addressing various problems of philosophy. I greatly appreciated his commentary detailing the relations of the subject and the object, Hegel and Marx's respective dialectics, Lenin's contributions to philosophy, science and philosophy, and much much more. One can really be taken back by the amount he covers in this work.
Bukharin is reminiscent of Engels in his extensive knowledge of both philosophy and modern science.
A cool bit is Bukharin's rejection of Eurocentrism. See how he reproaches old Hegel for his notoriously racist caricatures of non-European societies' thought: "it should be noted that Hegel's entire interpretation of the philosophy of India, China, and so on is as far from the truth as heaven is from earth. All it embodies is arrogant, white-racist European provincialism and ignorance of the topic, which, moreover, should not surprise us." (p. 347)
Bukharin's repeated positive evocation of Stalin is quite jarring however, considering the latter was the one ordering the death of the former, something not lost on the author in the slightest. If I had to speculate, this was a desperate attempt on behalf of Bukhrain to get the work published, which, as Helena Sheehan notes in the great introductory essay, he was desperate for and ultimately deprived of until long after his murder.
It is also quite a haunting read, considering the author himself knew he was a dead man waiting. Yet, Bukharin writes not only with wit and an often sharply humorous tone, but with a passion and devotion to Marxism and Leninism which he wished nothing more to be advanced by coming generations.
This is a fantastic read, much recommended.
May 3, 2022
marxist zealotry overpowered by philosophical astuteness
August 17, 2023
A philosophical tour de force!
June 21, 2024
It seems like he wrote the last two paragraphs of the book just to convince the soviets to allow publication
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews