Bukharin, Nikolai Ivanovich
Bukharin, Nikolai Ivanovich
(nyĭkəlī` ēvä`nəvĭch bo͞okhä`rēn), 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 CominternComintern[acronym for Communist International], name given to the Third International, founded at Moscow in 1919. Vladimir Ilyich Lenin feared a resurgence of the Second, or Socialist, International under non-Communist leadership.
..... Click the link for more information. and editor of the Soviet newspaper Pravda [truth]. In 1924 he was made a full member of the politburo. As StalinStalin, Joseph Vissarionovich
, 1879–1953, Soviet Communist leader and head of the USSR from the death of V. I. Lenin (1924) until his own death, b. Gori, Georgia.
..... Click the link for more information. rose to power in the 1920s, Bukharin first allied with him against KamenevKamenev, Lev Borisovich
, 1883–1936, Soviet Communist leader. His original name was Rosenfeld. He joined (1901) the Social Democratic party and sided with the Bolshevik wing when the party split (1903).
..... Click the link for more information. and ZinovievZinoviev, Grigori Evseyevich
, 1883–1936, Soviet Communist leader, originally named Radomyslsky. He joined the Russian Social Democratic Labor party in 1901 and sided with Vladimir Lenin's Bolshevik faction after 1903 (see Bolshevism and Menshevism).
..... Click the link for more information. . 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).