Bukharin and the Bolshevik Revolution: A Political Biography, (book notes)

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

The book is a political biography of Nikholai Bhukarin written by an American in the 1970. The book's contention is that Bhukarin, not Stalin or Trotsky was the successor to Vladmir Lenin.

The author Stephen Cohen has credited people like Robert Conquest among others in his preface. For those who aren't aware Conquest has greatly exaggerated the numbers of casualities on his books on the Great purge, the 1932-33 famine. Despite the opening up of the archives, Conquest continued to stand by his bloated up numbers feeding to the bourgeoisie propaganda of the Stalinist period.

This book was written in the 1970s, which makes the book part fiction with laughable sentences like the one below,

'Stalin is said to have received them(Resignation of Bhukarin, Rykov, and Tomskii) "paling and with trembling hands." '

A lot of sentences contain words like supposed, may have, believed to have etc, exposing the intent of the book. That said, the author tries to make a strong case for Bhukarinism and Bhukarin himself to be the idealogical successor to Lenin. 

With Bhukarinism, the authour mostly identifies it with the New Economic Policy (NEP) of the Lenin era where private businesses were allowed to exist alongside state enterprises and particularly individual peasant farming. He also repeatedly uses the word Humanist to generally describe Bhukanrinist ideas ( I will come back to it latter). Some people equate Bhukarinist ideas especially his support for NEP with Dengism, a similar set of policies that has lead to the present day China. 

The author more than once ascribes to the Lenin's Testament which in a post script Lenin is supposed to have asked for Stalin's removal. Stephen Kotkin's book on Stalin argues that the letter may not have been dictated by Lenin since he was incapacitated by December 1922.

Besides the genuinity of the letter, Stephen Cohen only repeats the point about how Bhukarin was the party's favorite but not Lenin's damnation that Bhukarin was not a Marxist (i.e has not read dialectics).

Whereas Stephen Kotkin does not, even for a moment, think Bhukarin would have had a chance to succeed Lenin or Stalin. He says Ricof might have had a chance had the politburo decided to implement Lenin's Testament.

More than harping on Bhukarin's ideas the author retorts to the failure of Stalin's collectivisation in the formative years. Of course he cannot but acknowledge it's successes post the 1933 famine.

The 'humanist' part of Bhukarin seems to be the major argument for the superiority of Bhukarnism over Stalinism. Engels, Lenin have written about the dictatorship of the proletariat being, not humane (whatever that means) but, a period of consolidation of the power of the workers, the people and it's antithesis the destruction of the bourgeoisie. A look at the formative years of the Lenin period should also be clear why Bhukarin is definitely not the successor to Lenin.  The NEP was the response to the bad shape of the economy post the civil war, collectivisation and the ending of the NEP was of course the response to the consolidation of power by the bourgeoise and the kulaks. 

To contend that it was Stalin's revolution from above is baseless as archives have proven that it was politburo decisions in response to the growing international situation, the kulak menace and the effects of NEP in the cities. This is something China will face sooner or later.

What people who criticise the Stalinist era refuse to acknowledge, I think, is that without the Stalin led leadership the USSR would not have been there. With out collectivisation or the five year plans or the concentration of large industry, the USSR would not have stood the Nazis. Reading about the world war 2 is an eye opener.  Without all these the world would have had to wait, I don't know how many years, to see the rise of a socialist power that kept the world in balance, gave rise to China, supported the DPRK, Cuba, Vietnam and countless countries , the end of which has lead to neoliberalisation and a lopsided hegemony of finance capital and the USA. Without which we would not be even discussing socialism or communism.

The formative years of both the USSR and China were periods of consolidation of not personal power but power of the communist party and so its people. Dengism would have not been possible if not for Maos era. If these periods did not exist they would have been easily decimated by the capitalist powers. 

The book contends that the rise of Nazism was because of Stalin and the CCCP and equates fascism with the rise of Stalin. Well with that I will conclude because that should tell you who the book is talking for and why. 

*For some structured destruction of the contentions in this book particularly about the collectivisation, the 1932 famine and the purges I would recommend Another view of Stalin by Ludo Martens and all books of Grover furr which cite archival evidence and not presuppositions.