Novosel, Anthony S.
(2006)
NIKOLAI BUKHARIN: ALTERNATIVE OR INTERREGNUM?
Doctoral Dissertation, University of Pittsburgh.
(Unpublished)
Abstract
This dissertation examines the claims that Nikolai Bukharin was an inconsistent Marxist theoretician, at times "un-Marxist" in his thinking who radically altered his political philosophy to justify his support for such different policies as War Communism and the New Economic Policy. It also investigates the validity of the accepted wisdom that Bukharin represented a "liberal" alternative to Stalin and Stalinism within Bolshevism and that, by 1925, he had moved to the Right of the Party. This study begins by examining the conflicting visions of the state and the evolutionary and revolutionary strains within Marxism. It then studies the works of those Marxist thinkers, of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, whose work on the state, revolution and the transition to socialism significantly influenced Bukharin's work. Finally, it subjects Bukharin's major theoretical works on imperialism, revolution and the role of the state in the transition to socialism, between 1915-1925, to an in-depth analysis to determine the validity of the claims made about Bukharin and his works.While one can still argue that Bukharin may have acted differently from Stalin once in power, this dissertation demonstrates that Bukharin was consistent in his theoretical work on the revolution and the transition to socialism. This study also conclusively demonstrates that Bukharin was located within the heart of both Marxism and Bolshevism and did not move to the Right during the NEP. It clearly shows that Bukharin's support for War Communism and the NEP flowed directly from his original synthesis of the revolutionary and evolutionary strains within Marxism, and the need for a powerful, proletarian state, "The Dictatorship of the Proletariat," that would manage the socialization of antagonistic petit-bourgeois elements into socialism, build socialism economically, and do whatever was necessary to protect the Revolution from its internal and external enemies. Thus, in reality, Bukharin, the "liberal alternative," provided the philosophical foundation and justification for the use of unlimited state power, which in the hands of Stalin led to the "Revolution from Above" and from this perspective one can locate Bukharin as the philosophical interregnum between Lenin and Stalin.
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Details
| Item Type: |
University of Pittsburgh ETD
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| Status: |
Unpublished |
| Creators/Authors: |
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| ETD Committee: |
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| Date: |
20 March 2006 |
| Date Type: |
Completion |
| Defense Date: |
16 September 2005 |
| Approval Date: |
20 March 2006 |
| Submission Date: |
17 September 2005 |
| Access Restriction: |
No restriction; Release the ETD for access worldwide immediately. |
| Institution: |
University of Pittsburgh |
| Schools and Programs: |
Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences > History |
| Degree: |
PhD - Doctor of Philosophy |
| Thesis Type: |
Doctoral Dissertation |
| Refereed: |
Yes |
| Uncontrolled Keywords: |
Finance Capitalism; Imperialism; Revisionism; State Capitalism; The New Economic Policy; transition to socialism; War Communism |
| Other ID: |
http://etd.library.pitt.edu/ETD/available/etd-09172005-111150/, etd-09172005-111150 |
| Date Deposited: |
10 Nov 2011 20:02 |
| Last Modified: |
15 Nov 2016 13:50 |
| URI: |
http://d-scholarship.pitt.edu/id/eprint/9362 |
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