BUHARINOV SPOPAD S STALINOM
BUHARIN'S CONFLICT WITH STALIN

Summary/Abstract: From his long research of the struggle between fractions of the Russian Communist Party (the Bolsheviks), the author singles out the attitude of Stalin towards the so-called „right” group, led by Buharin. During his earlier clash with the representatives of the „left” fraction (Trotski/Zinoviev), Stalin had actually relied on Buharin as one of the best Party ideologists, relenting temporarily to Buharin’s „rightist” orientation. In domestic affairs this meant carrying out the „New Economic Policy”, based to a great extent on market economy and on the doctrine of the feasibility of „socialism in a single country”, while in term s of foreign relations it meant supporting Chiang Kai-shek’s Chinese „national” revolution. Stalin introduced changes to all this towards the end of 1927, following his conflict with the „left” opposition and the failure of the Chinese Revolution. The political axis of this turnabout was the altered position regarding the social-democratic parties, which were branded as being imperialist and fashist aliys. In domestic politics, the „New Economic Policy” was abandoned, along with the allience with the peasantry, which was only a prelude to forced collectivization and mass persecution of peasants. Since Buharin’s fraction was against these steps, Stalin declared it „rightist” and the biggest threat to the Party. Stalin began the conflict with Buharin's group even before and during the Sixth Congress of the Comintern (in the summer of 1928), although Buharin was the main spokesman for the program of the Comintern at the Congress, and had considerably conformed to Stalin's views about the termination of the stabilization period of capitalism and the dawning of a „new era of revolutions and wars”. Stalin, then, carried out the political liquidation of Buharin’s group at the plenary session of the Russion Communist Party in 1929.

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