Shane
Tomashot
Cohen and Deutscher, in their
respective tomes, provide an excellent picture of the politics and behind the
scenes maneuvering of Stalin and Bukharin during and shortly after NEP. The key contention between Stalin and
Bukharin involved views of economic stimulation of Russia’s countryside. Bukharin and his close “leftist” allies,
including Rykov and Tomskii, were advocates of agricultural reformation (pro-muzhik). Stalin and his “rightist” allies leaned
toward the urban worker and industrialization.
Ironically, Bukharin and Stalin, at the outset of NEP, were politically
similar in their desire to approach industrialization slowly, allowing for the
peasantry to, in essence, catch up.
Power plays and uncontrollable circumstances following Lenin’s death,
however, divided these former allies.
Stalin became the dictator of a disastrous collectivization while
Bukharin, by 1938, was a victim of Stalin’s purges.
Cohen describes the NEP’s positive
and negative aspects in his ninth chapter.
The early NEP era was one in which party members were more concerned
with debating policy rather than political maneuvering and political capital. Cohen labels this era the “golden era of
Marxist thought (p. 272). The arts
flourished, at least in comparison with the coming Stalinist era. Literacy, social welfare, and school
attendance increased across the countryside.
Peasants had their own land, for the most part without arrears, governed
by traditional communes. Under NEP, the
industrial worker witnessed reformation in working conditions, receiving eight
hour days and higher pay.
The negatives, however, fueled
debate within the Communist Party.
Rampant alcoholism and homeless vagabonds made both leftists and
rightists question the effectiveness of the NEP. Agriculture was still primitive, as millions
still hopelessly utilized wooden plows.
City workers operated under horrendous conditions as urbanization
flooded the cities with unskilled labor.
Within the plenum, Trotsky defended the cultural diversity of the NEP
while most Bolsheviks viewed it still as the “correct transition to
socialism.” The main question was: to
what extent should industrialization and agricultural reformation be
implemented?
Bukharin’s group advocated an
“emphasis on harmonious co-operation between the various sectors of the
national economy,” with much attention to the agricultural sector. Bolsheviks on the right sought more rapid
industrialization (Deutscher, p. 300). Increasingly,
factions within the party sought support through covert meetings. Public interactions consisted of “Aesopian
polemic debate” and platitudes. Economic
disagreements amongst party members, according to Cohen, had been simmering throughout
the 1920’s. These disagreements were
exacerbated by the 1927 grain shortages and collection drives carried out by
the government. The “pivotal event” that
permanently split the Bukharin and Stalin factions occurred during January of
1928 during the grain collections (Cohen, p. 278).
On February 6, 1928, Stalin verbally
attacked Bukharin, Rykov, and Tomskii for their ‘“excesses,” victimization of
the middle peasants and disruption of the local markets” (Cohen, p. 279). Stalin believed that peasant agriculture was
not capable of the changes that Bukharin believed were essential in the
countryside. Grain had to be
requisitioned from hoarding peasants, according to Stalin. Bukharin, on the other hand, believed that
the state’s errors in price policy were to account for the problem of grain
shortages.
What
became apparent by the end of the debate was Stalin’s political power. As the General Secretary, Stalin was an
“impeccable surgeon” with the power of implementing the directives of the
Politburo to his advantage (Deutscher, p. 306).
Moreover, during the Shakhty Mine Affair, Stalin utilized rumors to provoke
a national political scandal in March. Bukharin
was discredited. By 1929, Stalin was
powerful enough to have “non party intelligentsia” arrested in a regional
“witch hunt” (Cohen, p. 281). Stalin and
Bukharin increasingly addressed party policy and the condition of the Soviet
economy from radically different viewpoints.
Stalin
viewed the Shakhty strikes and grain crisis as evidence of coming class
warfare, rather than “by-products of faulty planning.” While Bukharin et al. sought moderate reforms
to deal with the grain crisis, Stalin and his rightist allies pushed for
radical solutions. Stalin was, in
Bukharin’s eyes, becoming militant and viewing “extraordinary” measures as a
“normal” reaction to the situation. By
the summer of 1928, joint public appearances by Bukharin and Stalin became
“thinly veiled confrontations” (Cohen, p. 285).
As of late 1928, they were no longer on speaking terms, as Stalin was
using “evasive and deceitful” Politburo tactics to quell opposition from
Bukharin and his associates. Stalin had
effectively created a “shadow government” within the party (p. 288). Stalin’s movements toward collectivization
and orders for a “peasant tribute” led Bukharin to openly refer to him as a
“Genghis Khan” (p. 290).
July
of 1928 was a key turning point. Stalin
openly criticized Bukharin’s stance (and hence the left) on foreign
policy. In Stalin’s estimation, the
West’s capitalist system was in the initial stages of utter failure and ripe
for socialist revolution. This
estimation, Bukharin felt, was short-sighted.
However, the “impeccable surgeon” was simply too powerful within
Politburo circles to be criticized.
Stalin’s foreign agents spread rumors of Bukharin’s misguided “rightist
deviation” and “political syphilis,” undermining his power over Comintern
affairs (p. 293). Soon, Stalin was on
the verge of omnipotence, as previously “unimpeachable acts” became
“unpardonable” acts within the Politburo (Deutscher, p. 314-315).
Bukharin,
by late 1928, was virtually a political outcast. The right/left divide within the Politburo
returned to the issue of domestic affairs, focusing on the rate of industrialization. Citing the efforts of Peter the Great, Stalin
called for rapid, assiduous industrialization.
In his “Notes of an Economist,” Bukharin chastised Stalin’s views as
“adventurist,” calling instead for relatively gradual industrialization. Stalin, however, was already in the process
of preparing his first “Five Year Plan.”
Bukharin loyalists were strong-armed in the Politburo by Stalinists, as
Stalin seized operation of the Party’s periodicals. Stalin,
despite adamant opposition by Bukharin, was able to muster enough votes to
exile Trotsky in early 1929. Stalin
publicly acknowledged Bukharin as the leader of the right a month later
(Deutscher, 314). By late 1929,
Bukharin, Rykov and Tomskii were simply “a minority opposition in Stalin’s
Politburo” (Cohen, p. 301). They simply
could not compete with Stalin’s ability to covertly organize sycophants and
loyal followers at the regional level and within the Politburo.
Bukharin’s
eventual defeat was, in Cohen’s words, a “prelude to ‘revolution from above,”’
(p. 312). “Political conflict within the
party leadership grew increasingly covert” by late 1927 (Cohen, p. 277). Factions emerged over the continuation of NEP
policy, as Bukharin, an avid NEP supporter, argued for its continuation. The Stalinist faction, on the other hand, was
not necessarily adamantly anti-NEP.
However, Stalin and his supporters were increasingly concerned with
addressing grain issues in the countryside in a more direct manner. The 1927 grain shortages destroyed hopes for
agreement between Bolshevik right and left factions. Stalin was able to actively seek
collectivization by late 1929 despite the unyielding protestations of Bukharin
and the left, and their identification of Stalin’s “abuses of power.”
Deutscher
more directly addresses Stalin’s decision to carry out collectivization as well
as his almost reciprocal shifts in policy and theory. For example, Stalin did not always view
kulaks with such disdain. As late as May
of 1928, he claimed the “’expropriation of kulaks would be folly”’ (p.
319). Within a year, “Stalin was carried
away by the momentum of the movement,” calling for the liquidation of “’the
kulaks as a class”’ (p. 324). Deutscher
contends that “Stalin was precipitated into collectivization by the chronic
danger of famine in 1928 and 1929” (p. 322).
To Stalin, Deutscher believes, the predicament of starvation was no less
drastic or desperate than “the requisitioning of hidden stocks” of grain across
the countryside. Moreover, the peasant
would view the collective farm as a “reward” since he had been forced to work
without a horse or a cow for so long (p. 323).
A collective farm promised government goods requisitioned from kulaks,
including tractors.
Collectivization
spiraled into “a cruel civil war” in the countryside (p. 324). Russia’s economic situation was simply too
“backward and primitive” for any type of radical industrialization such as
Stalin’s Five Year Plans. Hence,
Stalin’s contrived industrial revolution met disastrous effects. Although the production of steel and pig iron
were exponentially increased, the production never met Stalin’s
expectations. Moreover, his
dekulakization decimated hopes for a market and shattered any hope for bonding
the government with the peasantry. When
signs of disaster became evident by early 1930, he issued his “Dizziness with
Success” article, blaming over-zealous “opportunists” and regional
managers. Stalin slowed collectivization
(the second revolution/great change, as Deutscher calls it) over the course of
the next three years. By the late
1930’s, he initiated his infamous purges.
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