Here at last in English is Nikolai Bukharin's autobiographical novel and final work. Many dissident texts of the Stalin era were saved by chance, by bravery, or by cunning; others were systematically destroyed. Bukharin's work, however, was simultaneously preserved and suppressed within Stalin's personal archives. At once novel, memoir, political apology, and historical document, How It All Began, known in Russia as "the prison novel," adds deeply to our understanding of this vital intellectual and maligned historical figure. The panoramic story, composed under the worst of circumstances, traces the transformation of a sensitive young man into a fiery agitator, and presents a revealing new perspective on the background and causes of the revolution that transformed the face of the twentieth century. Among the millions of victims of the reign of terror in the Soviet Union of the 1930's, Bukharin stands out as a special case. Not yet 30 when the Bolsheviks took power, he was one of the youngest, most popular, and most intellectual members of the Communist Party. In the 1920's and 30's, he defended Lenin's liberal New Economic Policy, claiming that Stalin's policies of forced industrialization constituted a "military-feudal exploitation" of the masses. He also warned of the approaching tide of European fascism and its threat to the new Bolshevik revolution. For his opposition, Bukharin paid with his freedom and his life. He was arrested and spent a year in prison. In what was one of the most infamous "show trials" of the time, Bukharin confessed to being a "counterrevolutionary" while denying any particular crime and was executed in his prison cell on March 15, 1938. While in prison, Bukharin wrote four books, of which this unfinished novel was the last. It traces the development of Nikolai "Kolya" Petrov (closely modeled on Nikolai "Kolya" Bukharin) from his early childhood though to age fifteen. In lyrical and poetic terms it paints a picture of Nikolai's growing political consciousness and ends with his activism on the eve of the failed 1905 revolution. The novel is presented here along with the only surviving letter from Bukharin to his wife during his time in prison, an epistle filled with fear, longing, and hope for his family and his nation. The introduction by Stephen F. Cohen articulates Bukharin's significance in Soviet history and reveals the troubled journey of this novel from Stalin's archives into the light of day.

How It All Began: The Prison Novel

Literature & Fiction

Bukharin, Nikolaĭ

History & Criticism

Columbia University Press

Biographies & Memoirs

Historical

The Politics and Economics of the Transition Period

For many years a neglected figure, Nikolai Bukharin has recently been the subject of renewed interest in the West. Now regarded as a leading Marxist theorist, Bukharin's work has wide appeal to those interested in Soviet history and Marxist economics as well as to those concerned with theories of development and socialist economies.

Business & Money

Economics

Routledge

First published in English in 1926, this work by Nikolai Bukharin, a highly influential Marxist and Soviet Politician who would later become one of the most famous victims of Stalin’s show trials, expands upon Karl Marx’s theory of historical materialism. Offering a Marxist interpretation of sociology, this reissue is important not only from a sociological and economic perspective, but is also extremely valuable as a socio-historical document of contemporary thought in the Soviet Union in the years following the Bolshevik revolution.

Historical Materialism: A System of Sociology (Routledge Revivals)

History

First published in English in 1926, this work by Nikolai Bukharin, a highly influential Marxist and Soviet Politician who would later become one of the most famous victims of Stalin's show trials, expands upon Karl Marx's theory of historical materialism.

There are few if any really good anthologies devoted to the topic of philosophical Marxism (Dialectical and Historical Materialism) which so thoroughly cover the dialectical method as the selections in this anthology.\nCarlos L. Garrido, a philosophy instructor, PhD candidate at Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, an activist in the struggle for socialism in the U.S., and a co-founder and editor of Midwestern Marx, a Marxist educational Institute, and the Journal of American Socialist Studies, has scoured the literature of both the classic Marxist thinkers (Marx, Engels, Lenin), two of their most influential followers who came to power by means of major revolutions (Stalin and Mao), as well as some of the most important thinkers whose work was informed by this classical tradition (Plekhanov, Bukharin, Bernal, Haldane, Olgin and Ilyenkov). Additionally, he has provided an exceptional systematization of the dialectical materialist worldview in his introduction to the anthology.\nThese selections present the heart of the philosophy of Dialectical Materialism and aim to help students get to the essence of this view of reality in order to apply practically its lessons to contemporary political, economic and social problems. It is not intended for those who just want to read about reality, but for those who want, as Marx insisted, to change it as well.

Marxism and the Dialectical Materialist Worldview: An Anthology of Classical Marxist Texts on Dialectical Materialism

Politics & Social Sciences

ENGELS, FRIEDRICH

Ilyenkov, Evald

Lenin, V.I.

Stalin, J.V.

Marx,Karl

Garrido, Carlos L.

Plekhanov, Georgi

Tsetung, Mao

Philosophy

Midwestern Marx Publishing Press

Bukharin's Philosophical Arabesques was written while he was imprisoned in the Lubyanka Prison in Moscow, facing trial on charges of treason and execution after he was found guilty. After the death of Lenin, Bukharin co-operated with Stalin for a time. Once Stalin's supremacy was assured he began eliminating all potential rivals. For Bukharin, the process was to end with his confession before the Soviet court, facing the threat that his young family would be killed along with him if he did not.*BR**BR*While awaiting his death, Bukharin wrote prolifically. He considered Philosophical Arabesques as the most important of his prison writings. In its pages, he covers the full range of issues in Marxist philosophy -- the sources of knowledge, the nature of truth, freedom and necessity, the relationship of Hegelian and Marxist dialectic. The project constitutes a defense of the genuine legacy of Lenin's Marxism against the use of his memory to legitimate totalitarian power. *BR**BR*Consigned to the Kremlin archives for a half-century after Bukharin's execution, this work is now being published for the first time in English. It will be an essential reference work for scholars of Marxism and the Russian revolution and a landmark in the history of prison writing.

Philosophical Arabesques

Politics & Government

Pluto Press

This is Jack London's account of the fulfillment of his boyhood dream of sailing in the Pacific in the wake of Herman Melville and Robert Louis Stevenson. His first port of call was Hawaii, continuing on through the Marquesas, Tahiti, Samoa, Fiji, the New Hebrides and the Solomon Islands, ending in Sydney, Australia. Although his odyssey was a troubled one, London's Polynesian adventure renewed his faith in individual effort, courage, and daring. And it is this theme that makes The Cruise of the Snark one of the finest account of Pacific sailing ever written.

Imperialism and World Economy

Longwood Pr Ltd

Bukharin completed this work in 1914; it represented an attempt to grapple with the Austrian School of political economy, as represented chiefly by Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk. Bukharin interprets the school as reflecting the social position of the rentier stratum of the capitalist class, which tends to view the economy from the point of view of consumption rather than production. But this is merely the introduction to a close consideration of the theory of marginal utility as contrasted with the labor theory of value which formed the starting point of both Marxism and classical economics. His discussion, therefore, while it does not deal with the many changes and refinements of neoclassical economics, does contrast, in polemical form, Marxism with the fundamental premises of modern academic economics. His discussion of "subjective" and "objective" value definitions, in particular, will help clarify for many the essential differences that distinguish Marxist political economy from other schools.

The Economic Theory of the Leisure Class (Monthly Review Press Classics)

Monthly Review+press

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