The Failure of Lenin's Favorite

...The Failure of Lenin's Favorite Nikolai Bukharin: The Last Years By Roy A Medvedev Norton 176 pp $10 95 Reviewed by Lloyd Harrington The rehabhitation of the Bolshevik theoretician and economist Nikolai Bukharin, so ardently desired by Roy Medvedev and many other Soviet dissidents, would undoubtedly constitute a moral victory over the lingering admirers of Joseph Stalin who continue to dominate Soviet society But Bukharm lacked the strength that great leaders usually possess, and even Medvedev in this frankly partisan study cannot transform him into a man of heroic proportions Although his earlier attitudes were decidedly to the Left in Soviet affairs, Bukharin is most frequently identified with the more moderate approach represented by the New Economic Policy (NEP)ofthemid-'20s This admittedly conciliatory plan, worked out in a series of conversations with Lenin at the end of 1922, received its formal justification—a necessary Communist ritual?in Bukhann's 1925 book, The Road to Socialism and the Union of Workers and Peasants Stalin allied himself with Bukharin to anathematize Trotsky, who appeared to favor a harsher approach toward the peasantry Then, in 1929—shortly after crushing Trotsky and taking the time to consolidate his control over the Party apparatus—Stalin turned on Bukharin too, launching what Medvedev aptly describes as "a tendentious and unscrupulous reappraisal" of his policies Every difference of opimon Bukharin ever had with Lemn, and there were many, was dredged up in order to portray him as an enemy of the ideals of 1917 That Bukharin had been closer to the now dead leader than any other Bolshevik was ignored, and the support even of Trotsky's defeated adherents was sought in the effort to caricature Bukharm as an intriguer against Lemn For opposing enforced collectivization and a more rapid industrialization, the brilliant but organizationally helpless Bukharin was blasted as the "mainstay of the kulak class and of all theNepman profiteering elements " Thus did the opportunistic Stalin become the champion of a partial, highly vulgarized Trotskyism once Trotsky was already on his way into exile Bukhann's defending himself with his usual clanty was irrelevant, for logic and truth played no part in what was preordained by Stalin's control of the state bureaucracy and a majority of the Central Committee Between 1930-33, while the brutal collectivization of Soviet agriculture proceeded along the absurd lines laid down by Stalin's "experts," ahumihat-ed Bukharin remained silent In January 1934, however, at the 17th Party Congress, he took the floor to confess his errors and praise Stalin's acumen, urging the Party to close ranks behind his persecutor Medvedev says Bukhann was concerned about unity at home at that pomt because of the ominous developments in both Germany and Japan And in fairness it must be said that Bukhann's anxieties about the rise of Fascism were prescient Perhaps because he was a man of some restraint and flexibility, Bukharin also thought that acknowledging past heresies would allow him a fresh start in Soviet political life In fact, by the end of the following month, he became editor of Izvestiya, and no doubt believed such a new beginning was under way Medvedev tells us that he gave the government newspaper a sharper stance (before his fall from grace, he had been the editor of Pravda), Nazism and Fascist barbarity were excoriated daily, and Bukhann brought talented contnbutors to Izvestiya's pages But there was a price Like all Soviet papers, Izvestiya participated in the cult of Stalin Large pictures of the Great Leader, retouched to give him a higher forehead, were a constant feature Editor Bukharin, who at the 17th Party Congress had referred to the dictator as "the glorious field-marshal of the proletanan powers" and "the cream of the cream in revolutionary leadership, " earned on in the same vein in his new assignment On the tenth anniversary of Stalin's pedestrian " The Foundations of Leninism" for example, Bukhann himself penned a highly laudatory article on that work of dubious authorship Medvedev would have us accept this revolting nonsense as a necessary compromise in the interest of larger objectives Whatever his motivation, Bukhann from the 17 th Party Congress on maintained that any deviation from Stalin's line was wrong Stephen Cohen, in his 1973 study, Bukharin and the Bolshevik Revolution, strives mightily to make a hero of the ill-fated Bukhann, claiming to find in his final years numerous criticisms of Stalin couched in Aesopian language Even when Bukharin remained silent, Cohen sees him as "defiantly mute " Despite Medvedev's similar wish to honor the unfortunate Nikolai Ivano-vich, he cannot agree with the Cohen interpretation and consequently shoots down a possible defense of Bukhann's enigmatic role Bukhann very tellingly had his young wife memorize a message before Stalin's agents carted him away in early 1937 He asserted, among other things that he had not had "the slightest vestige of disagreement with the Party for nearly seven years," and that he had "never plotted against Stalin " Certainly there is little evidence to suggest that Bukharin opposed Stalin after 1930 Joseph Stalin's paranoid mind may well be what did Bukhann in His position as Lenin's favorite, his popularity with Soviet audiences and his theoretical pre-eminence all would have counted against him Around the Georgian psychopath many met their deaths for less...