Bukharinism

[Communist Mutant From Outer Space]

What exactly is Bukharinism, if it could be defined as a form of Leninism? I understand he was part of the "Right Opposition" and was opposed to the mass scale of collectivisation (preferring a moderate approach to industrialisation), etc., but is Bukharinism a distinct ideology or just an offshoot of Leninism (or Stalinism)?

[Emmett Till]

What exactly is Bukharinism, if it could be defined as a form of Leninism? I understand he was part of the "Right Opposition" and was opposed to the mass scale of collectivisation (preferring a moderate approach to industrialisation), etc., but is Bukharinism a distinct ideology or just an offshoot of Leninism (or Stalinism)?

Offshoot of Stalinism. Nor is it something that has gone away.

Gorbachev was pretty much an explicit Bukharinist, when he was in charge Bukharin was not just "rehabilitated," his ideas were seen as the model, you had officially sponsored Bukharin conferences etc.

And then of course we have the Chinese. Dengism is essentially Bukharinism on steroids.

[Asero]

but is Bukharinism a distinct ideology or just an offshoot of Leninism (or Stalinism)?

During turn-of-the-century Social-Democracy (and this practice still goes on today every now and then), many slurs (Marxists love their slurs) were taken by adding an 'ism', implying what was associated with that 'ism' had been reduced to an 'ism' of of sorts. For example, the Narodniks were called 'Terrorists' for making an ism out of Terror. When the Mensheviks and Bolsheviks split, the Bolsheviks were chastised as 'Leninists' for following Lenin. The members of the Left-opposition were labeled 'Trotskyites' and followers of Stalin 'Stalinists'. And so on. Same goes for 'Bukharinism'.

Bukharinism isn't really a distinct ideology per se. You can point at the ideology of the Right Opposition, but that hasn't really survived as it was intact following its death. As Emmett Till just demonstrated above, movements with certain opportunist undercurrents are characterized as a this-or-that-ism of another movement with the same or similar opportunist undercurrents. Think: Revisionism. A term that originally signified the progeny of the arch-opportunist Bernstein has come to encompass as a slur all perceived theoretical opportunism. While not a bad thing in-of-itself, it can lead to some confusion à la revisionism the slur isn't actually Revisionism the movement.

After Lenin had died, many people attempting to undertake the mantle of successor by positing their doctrine as being the doctrine of Lenin, of Leninism. If you narrowly categorize Leninism as such, then yeah. If take Leninism as something more abstract, as the doctrine of Lenin, in a more universal sense, then you enter muddled territory because of all the myriad ways in which this abstract "Leninism" is used. (But the answer is no because it's not.)


Offshoot of Stalinism. Nor is it something that has gone away.

Gorbachev was pretty much an explicit Bukharinist, when he was in charge Bukharin was not just "rehabilitated," his ideas were seen as the model, you had officially sponsored Bukharin conferences etc.

And then of course we have the Chinese. Dengism is essentially Bukharinism on steroids.

I wouldn't be so dismissive of Bukharin. It's undeniable that Bukharin was a major thinker in the Bolshevik Party with a great influence within Revolutionary Russia, especially with the ABC of Communism and Imperialism and World Economy (Both, I remind you, approved by Lenin). His politics were abysmal and most of his ideas tend to have theoretical problems of varying degrees (which is probably why he is so often peddled by revisionists), but rejecting him out of hand because latter-day Bukharinites used his ideas for opportunist policies is ridiculous.

[Emmett Till]

...
I wouldn't be so dismissive of Bukharin. It's undeniable that Bukharin was a major thinker in the Bolshevik Party with a great influence within Revolutionary Russia, especially with the ABC of Communism and Imperialism and World Economy (Both, I remind you, approved by Lenin). His politics were abysmal and most of his ideas tend to have theoretical problems of varying degrees (which is probably why he is so often peddled by revisionists), but rejecting him out of hand because latter-day Bukharinites used his ideas for opportunist policies is ridiculous.

Bukharin flip flopped. His period of genuine theoretical contributions, and they were genuine, was from his ultra-leftist period. ABD of Communism, by the way, was co-authored with Preobrazhensky, a very important but forgotten figure, who provided the first really worthwhile analyses of the dynamics of the Soviet economy in the '20s, when he was a Trotskyist.

Bukharin read Lenin's comment in the so-called "Testament" that he didn't understand dialectics and totally took it the wrong way. A very accurate charge by the way, though Gramsci belabored the point more than a bit too much in his ferocious criticism of Bukharin in the "Prison Notebooks."

So he spent the rest of his life trying to be "dialectical," which unfortunately he interpreted as going from the far left to the far right wing of the party.

[blake 3:17]

I think the politics of the Right Opposition are worth looking at. I think the Left Opposition and Stalin were wrong on the question of the peasantry.

[Emmett Till]

I think the politics of the Right Opposition are worth looking at. I think the Left Opposition and Stalin were wrong on the question of the peasantry.

Bukharin's slogan for the peasants was "enrich yourselves." An actual quote. He was a market socialist basically, which is why Gorbachev liked him so much.

for Burkharinism in action, check out contemporary China.

[Communist Mutant From Outer Space]

Bump. Would like more responses, since I still don't know what Bukharinism entails (the above posts seem biased and could be wrong).

[oneday]

Bump. Would like more responses, since I still don't know what Bukharinism entails (the above posts seem biased and could be wrong).

Everything's going to be biased, read some of his works on marxists.org if you want to know what he thought.

[Communist Mutant From Outer Space]

I'm finding it very difficult to discern what constitutes "Bukharinism", in either of its forms (as a form of Left Communism and then later as a form of Right Communism). For example, despite being described as being on the far right of the party in 1928, he warned on the dangers of involving foreign private capital in the Russian economic system and also warned of the dangers the "rich peasants". This seems thoroughly inconsistent with the accusation that he was the biggest proponent of the NEP. His thought, as accused of being above, does not seem even remotely close to Gorachevism or Dengism which willfully draw in masses of private capital under a market system.

[Blake's Baby]

There is no 'Bukharinism'. Bukharin was a Left Communist from 1918-23 or thereabouts, then became a 'Right Communist', whatever that might mean, and supported (as Emmet Till said, though being wrong about pretty much everything else) market reforms. The two don't go together. He was, literally, a guy who changed his opinions.

You might as well ask what is 'Mussolinism' that can encompass being a member of the Socialist Party and founding the Fascists, or ask how 'Stalinism' can reconcile Marxism and wanting to be a priest.

[ComradeOm]

There is no 'Bukharinism'. Bukharin was a Left Communist from 1918-23 or thereabouts, then became a 'Right Communist', whatever that might mean, and supported (as Emmet Till said, though being wrong about pretty much everything else) market reforms. The two don't go together. He was, literally, a guy who changed his opinions.I'm not really sure why/if that's supposed to be a bad thing. Bukharin 'changed his opinions' after witnessing first-hand the Revolution and Civil War, understanding that many of the Bolsheviks' pre-1917 assumptions were flawed. For example, I certainly wouldn't agree with many of its conclusions but *The Economics of the Transition Period* was a genuine attempt to grapple with the realities of Civil War and War Communism, one of the few (semi-)successful additions to Marxist theory in the 1920s.


You might as well ask what is 'Mussolinism' that can encompass being a member of the Socialist Party and founding the Fascists, or ask how 'Stalinism' can reconcile Marxism and wanting to be a priest.Ugh. Stop being a pedant. Nobody has ever used those terms in that way. Nobody pretends that the term 'Stalinism' should be stretched back to the time when baby Joseph was in diapers. Because that would be stupid. 'Stalinism' is very much a time-bound term, just as we're able to distinguish between the phases in Mussolini's life. Or, you know, the evolution in Lenin's thought over the years.

In this context 'Bukharinism' refers to his post-1924 turn towards a semi-market economy in which capital accumulation would follow from advancements in agriculture. That is, 'coming to socialism through market relations'. Whether we want to give this school of thought a formal label or not, it was certainly prominent in the 1920s (and erratically afterwards) and provided an alternative to Stalinist crash-industrialisation. It's no more invalidated by his previous opinions as Stalin's policies are by his place of education.

[L.A.P.]

I could be completely wrong, as I dont know that much about the Russian Communist Left, but I think it's unfair to say Bukharin moved from the left to the right of the party. It seems that when it became apparent that the Bolshevik state had taken an irreversible course towards capital, Bukharin had the best, or rather least shitty, strategy in those circumstances. Integrating the kulaks into the Russian economy would have resulted in the same thing as the collectivizations (the capitulation of the Party-State to capitalist relations), just I think the former could have resulted in less deaths.