Nikolai Bukharin - Power Struggle

Power Struggle

After Lenin's death in 1924, Bukharin became a full member of the Politburo. In the subsequent power struggle among Leon Trotsky, Grigory Zinoviev, Lev Kamenev, and Stalin, Bukharin allied himself with Stalin, who positioned himself as centrist of the Party and supported NEP against the Left Opposition, which wanted more rapid industrialization, escalation of class struggle against the kulaks, and agitation for world revolution. It was Bukharin who formulated the thesis of "Socialism in One Country" put forth by Stalin in 1924, which argued that socialism (in Marxist theory, the transitional stage from capitalism to communism) could be developed in a single country, even one as underdeveloped as Russia. This new theory stated that revolution need no longer be encouraged in the capitalist countries since Russia could and should achieve socialism alone. The thesis would become a hallmark of Stalinism.

Trotsky, the prime force behind the Left Opposition, was defeated by a triumvirate formed by Stalin, Zinoviev and Kamenev, with the support of Bukharin. By 1926, Stalin-Bukharin alliance ousted Zinoviev and Kamenev from the Party leadership, and Bukharin enjoyed the highest degree of power during the 1926-1928 period. He emerged as the leader of the Party's right wing, which included two other Politburo members Alexei Rykov, Lenin's successor as Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars and Mikhail Tomsky, head of trade unions, and he became chairman of Comintern's executive committee in 1926. However, prompted by grain shortage in 1928, Stalin reversed himself and proposed a program of rapid industrialization and forced collectivization because he believed that the NEP was not working fast enough. Stalin felt that in the new situation the policies of his former foes – Trotsky, Zinoviev, and Kamenev - was the right one.

Bukharin was worried by the prospect of Stalin's plan, which he feared would lead to “military-feudal exploitation” of the peasantry. Bukharin did want the Soviet Union to achieve industrialization but he preferred the more moderate approach of offering the peasants the opportunity to become prosperous, which would lead to greater grain production for sale abroad. Bukharin pressed his views throughout 1928 in meetings of the Politburo and at the Party Congress, insisting that enforced grain requisition would be counter-productive, as War Communism had been a decade earlier.