The Tragedy of Bukharin

Despite its eventual failure, the Bolshevik experiment remains the sole example of revolutionary socialist rule. From 1917, the Bolsheviks confronted the fundamental questions of our time: how can a real alternative to capitalism be achieved? Can mass democracy triumph over bureaucracy? Nikolai Bukharin took a leading role in grappling with such problems. Sometimes brilliantly successful, at times misguided, Bukharin's career never failed to illuminate these issues. After Lenin's death, Bukharin was - with Trotsky and Stalin - one of the three key figures in the struggle for power and ideas in Russia. He was assassinated in 1928. This book challenges recent interpretations of Bukharin's legacy and brings to life a relatively neglected period of Russian history that began with the optimism of 1917 and ended with Stalin's final destruction of the revolution in 1929.

'An important contribution. This book helps fill what has been a major gap in historical and political writing. The Tragedy of Bukharin restores Bukharin to his rightful place – as an often brilliant, if flawed, revolutionary theorist whose achievements and failures are so instructive to those who aspire to fight for the cause to which he dedicated his life' - International Socialism