Bukharinism

Bukharinism (Russian: Бухаринизм, romanized: Bukharinizm) was the political and economic system of thought developed by the Bolshevik revolutionary and Soviet politician Nikolai Bukharin. It was characterized by its advocacy of gradual, evolutionary development toward socialism in the Soviet Union, based on a mixed economy and a stable alliance between the workers and the peasantry. Bukharinism served as the primary economic policy of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1925 until Joseph Stalin abolished it in 1929.

Bukharin's theories grew out of his analysis of the specific conditions of revolutionary Russia, a politically socialist state presiding over a backward, agrarian economy. His program, often described as a form of market socialism, centered on the continuation of the New Economic Policy (NEP). It proposed using market relations to encourage both the state-owned industrial sector and private peasant agriculture, believing that the prosperity of the peasantry would stimulate industrial growth. This strategy of "growing into socialism" was designed to achieve social harmony and gradual development, in contrast to the theories of the Left Opposition, which advocated for rapid industrialization at the expense of the peasantry.

From 1925 to 1927, the Communist Party, under the leadership of a duumvirate of Bukharin and Stalin, officially followed Bukharin's program. However, by 1928, Stalin had turned against these policies, launching a "revolution from above" that entailed forced collectivization and rapid heavy industrialization. Bukharin and his allies, who became known as the Right Opposition, were defeated in the ensuing political struggle and removed from power in 1929. The subsequent official campaign against Bukharinism discredited its ideas as a "right deviation" and a restorationist threat.

Despite its suppression, the legacy of Bukharinism endured. Its principles resurfaced in the Soviet Union during the Khrushchev Thaw and influenced reform communism movements in Eastern Europe, such as the Prague Spring, and in China under Deng Xiaoping. During perestroika in the 1980s, Bukharin was politically rehabilitated and his ideas became a central inspiration for the reforms of Mikhail Gorbachev.