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105-455: Nikolai Ivanovich Bukharin (Russian: Николай Иванович Бухарин , IPA: [nʲɪkɐˈlaj ɪˈvanəvʲɪdʑ bʊˈxarʲɪn] ; 9 October [ O.S. 27 September] 1888 – 15 March 1938) was a Russian revolutionary, Soviet politician, and Marxist theorist . A prominent Bolshevik described by Vladimir Lenin as a "most valuable and major theorist" of the Communist Party , Bukharin

210-573: A bear hug and immediately began to tell them about a public library which stayed open late at night and which he proposed to show us at once" dragging the tired Trotskys across town "to admire his great discovery"). At the news of the Russian Revolution of February 1917 , exiled revolutionaries from around the world began to flock back to the homeland. Trotsky left New York on 27 March 1917, sailing for St. Petersburg. Bukharin left New York in early April and returned to Russia by way of Japan (where he

315-788: A curt reply that he "had no moral right" to criticise decisions made by the party. From July 1925, Osinsky was a member of the Presidium of the State Planning Committee of the Soviet Union (Gosplan). In 1926–28, he was head of the Central Statistical Administration. In 1926–1927 he was director of the Institute of World Economy and World Politics at the Communist Academy . In 1928, when Joseph Stalin embarked on

420-463: A decade earlier. Bukharin's support for the continuation of the NEP was not popular with higher Party cadres, and his slogan to peasants, "Enrich yourselves!" and proposal to achieve socialism "at snail's pace" left him vulnerable to attacks first by Zinoviev and later by Stalin. Stalin attacked Bukharin's views, portraying them as capitalist deviations and declaring that the revolution would be at risk without

525-541: A double team of interrogators. Bukharin's confession and his motivation became subject of much debate among Western observers, inspiring Koestler's acclaimed novel Darkness at Noon and a philosophical essay by Maurice Merleau-Ponty in Humanism and Terror . His confessions were somewhat different from others in that while he pleaded guilty to the "sum total of crimes", he denied knowledge when it came to specific crimes. Some astute observers noted that he would allow only what

630-566: A former ally and friend of Bukharin, wrote that in spring 1929, Bukharin told him that he had formed an alliance with Zinoviev and Kamenev, and that they were planning to use individual terror (assassination) to get rid of Stalin. Eventually, Bukharin lost his position in the Comintern and the editorship of Pravda in April 1929, and he was expelled from the Politburo on 17 November of that year. Bukharin

735-548: A general change in policy, after mass collectivization was largely completed and the worst was over. Although Bukharin had not challenged Stalin since 1929, his former supporters, including Martemyan Ryutin , drafted and clandestinely circulated an anti-Stalin platform, which called Stalin the "evil genius of the Russian Revolution". However, Sergey Kirov , First Secretary of the Leningrad Regional Committee

840-506: A letter dated "12/22 Dec. 1635". In his biography of John Dee , The Queen's Conjurer , Benjamin Woolley surmises that because Dee fought unsuccessfully for England to embrace the 1583/84 date set for the change, "England remained outside the Gregorian system for a further 170 years, communications during that period customarily carrying two dates". In contrast, Thomas Jefferson , who lived while

945-447: A list of 292 high-ranking officials sentenced to death on 1 November 1937, but he was kept alive to be called as a witness at the show trial of Bukharin and others, on 7 March 1938, and made to testify that during the dispute over the Treaty of Brest Litovsk in 1918 Bukharin had planned to assassinate Lenin, Stalin and Yakov Sverdlov . The communist authorities acknowledged in 1988 that all

1050-464: A long critique in the magazine Kommunist of what he called the 'new orientation' laid down by Lenin, claiming that the newly created Red Army was "too intimately and too dangerously" reliant of former officers of the Tsar's Imperial Army, and arguing that similarly there could be no 'peace treaty' with former factory managers and other middle class specialists, who must be subjected to workers' control. During

1155-730: A major Bolshevik theorist. His work Imperialism and World Economy influenced Lenin, who freely borrowed from it in his larger and better-known work, Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism . He and Lenin also often had hot disputes on theoretical issues, as well as Bukharin's closeness with the European Left and his anti-statist tendencies. Bukharin developed an interest in the works of Austrian Marxists and heterodox Marxist economic theorists, such as Aleksandr Bogdanov , who did not agree with Lenin . Also, while in Vienna in 1913, he helped

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1260-796: A member of its Bolshevik faction. With Grigori Sokolnikov , Bukharin convened the 1907 national youth conference in Moscow, which was later considered the founding of Komsomol . By age twenty, he was a member of the Moscow Committee of the party. The committee was widely infiltrated by the Tsarist secret police, the Okhrana . As one of its leaders, Bukharin quickly became a person of interest to them. During this time, he became closely associated with Valerian Obolensky and Vladimir Smirnov . He also met his future first wife, Nadezhda Mikhailovna Lukina, his cousin and

1365-637: A policy of forced collectivisation of agriculture, Osinsky was briefly reunited with Bukharin, leader of the 'right' opposition. He advocated raising the price of agricultural produce, to improve living standards in the countryside, a proposal which was accepted by the Central Committee when it met in July 1928, although Stalin argued against it. With less success, he also argued against setting up large collective farms before 'without knowing whether they are profitable'. From December 1929 to December 1930, Osinsky

1470-403: A program of rapid industrialization and forced collectivization because he believed that the NEP was not working fast enough. Stalin felt that in the new situation the policies of his former foes—Trotsky, Zinoviev, and Kamenev—were the right ones. Bukharin was worried by the prospect of Stalin's plan, which he feared would lead to "military-feudal exploitation" of the peasantry. Bukharin did want

1575-511: A single country, even one as underdeveloped as Russia. This new theory stated that socialist gains could be consolidated in a single country, without that country relying on simultaneous successful revolutions across the world. The thesis would become a hallmark of Stalinism . He is an unprincipled intriguer, who subordinates everything to the preservation of his own power. He changes his theory according to whom he needs to get rid of. Bukharin on Stalin's theoretical position, 1928. Trotsky,

1680-878: A start-of-year adjustment works well with little confusion for events before the introduction of the Gregorian calendar. For example, the Battle of Agincourt is well known to have been fought on 25 October 1415, which is Saint Crispin's Day . However, for the period between the first introduction of the Gregorian calendar on 15 October 1582 and its introduction in Britain on 14 September 1752, there can be considerable confusion between events in Continental Western Europe and in British domains. Events in Continental Western Europe are usually reported in English-language histories by using

1785-599: A strong policy that encouraged rapid industrialization. Having helped Stalin achieve unchecked power against the Left Opposition, Bukharin found himself easily outmaneuvered by Stalin. Yet Bukharin played to Stalin's strength by maintaining the appearance of unity within the Party leadership. Meanwhile, Stalin used his control of the Party machine to replace Bukharin's supporters in the Rightist power base in Moscow, trade unions, and

1890-429: A symbol of the Party" even though he "is not a man, but a devil". In Dan's account, Bukharin's acceptance of the Soviet Union's new direction was thus a result of his utter commitment to Party solidarity. To his boyhood friend, Ilya Ehrenburg , he expressed the suspicion that the whole trip was a trap set up by Stalin. Indeed, his contacts with Mensheviks during this trip were to feature prominently in his trial. Stalin

1995-526: Is 9 February 1649, the date by which his contemporaries in some parts of continental Europe would have recorded his execution. The O.S./N.S. designation is particularly relevant for dates which fall between the start of the "historical year" (1 January) and the legal start date, where different. This was 25 March in England, Wales, Ireland and the colonies until 1752, and until 1600 in Scotland. In Britain, 1 January

2100-495: Is extremely important. I don't know what words I should summon up in order to entreat you to grant me this as an act of charity. After all, politically, it won't really matter, and, besides, no one will know a thing about it. But let me spend my last moments as I wish. Have pity on me! In his letter of 10 December 1937, Bukharin suggests becoming Stalin's tool against Trotsky, but there's no evidence Stalin ever seriously considered Bukharin's offer. If, contrary to expectation, my life

2205-509: Is some evidence that Bukharin was thinking of evolution toward some kind of two-party or at least two-slate elections. Boris Nikolaevsky reported that Bukharin said: "A second party is necessary. If there is only one electoral list, without opposition, that's equivalent to Nazism." Grigory Tokaev , a Soviet defector and admirer of Bukharin, reported that: "Stalin aimed at one party dictatorship and complete centralisation. Bukharin envisaged several parties and even nationalist parties, and stood for

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2310-445: Is the embodiment of chaste but self-absorbed laboratory craftsmanship". His speech was greeted with wild applause, though it greatly offended some of the listeners, such as the communist poet Semyon Kirsanov , who complained: "according to Bukharin, all the poets who have used their verses to participate in political life are out of date, but the others are not out of date, the so-called pure (and not so pure) lyric poets". When Bukharin

2415-667: Is to be spared, I would like to request (though I would first have to discuss it with my wife) the following: While Anastas Mikoyan and Vyacheslav Molotov later claimed that Bukharin was never tortured and his letters from prison do not give the suggestion that he was tortured, it is also known that his interrogators were given the order: "beating permitted". Bukharin held out for three months, but threats to his young wife and infant son, combined with "methods of physical influence" wore him down. But when he read his confession amended and corrected personally by Stalin, he withdrew his whole confession. The examination started all over again, with

2520-607: The Civil War , Osinsky worked as a journalist and propagandist. In 1919–20, he was based in Tula and Penza . In 1921–23, he was deputy People's Commissar for Agriculture. On 4 July 1922, Osinsky published an article in Pravda praising Anna Akhmatova as Russia's living poet. This was a highly unusual intervention, because it was well known that Akhmatova was not a supporter of the revolution, and that her ex-husband, Nikolai Gumilev had been shot

2625-646: The Comintern 's executive committee. Following Stalin's decision to proceed with agricultural collectivisation in the Great Break , Bukharin was labelled as the leader of the Right Opposition and was removed from Pravda , the Comintern, and the party leadership in 1929. After a period in lower positions, in 1934 Bukharin was reelected to the Central Committee and became editor of the newspaper Izvestia . He

2730-591: The February Revolution of 1917, Bukharin returned to Moscow and became a leading figure in the party, and after the October Revolution became editor of its newspaper, Pravda . He led the Left Communist faction in 1918, and during the civil war wrote The ABC of Communism (1920; with Yevgeni Preobrazhensky ) and Historical Materialism: A System of Sociology (1921), among other works. Bukharin

2835-696: The Georgian Bolshevik Joseph Stalin write an article " Marxism and the National Question " at Lenin's request. In October 1916, while based in New York City, Bukharin edited the newspaper Novy Mir ( New World ) with Leon Trotsky and Alexandra Kollontai . When Trotsky arrived in New York in January 1917, Bukharin was the first of the émigrés to greet him. (Trotsky's wife recalled, "with

2940-990: The Holodomor in Ukraine. He attended the World Social Economic Conference organised by the International Industrial Relations Institute held at the Vereeniging Koloniaal Institute in Amsterdam . This was the first occasion that Soviet officials had travelled to the West to discuss how the Five Year Plan worked. He became and Academician of Lenin All-Union Academy of Agricultural Sciences from 1935. From 1935 to 1937 he

3045-549: The Institute of Red Professors , and worked as a publisher of children's literature. Arrested on 17 October 1937, four days after her husband, she spent eight years in labour camps run by the gulag in Mordovia , Karelia and Perm . A fellow prisoner who saw her in Butyrka prison before she was deported described her as "a dark-eyed, dark-haired and stately woman". Released in 1945, she

3150-562: The International Communist Opposition , though it became better known as the Right Opposition , after a term used by the Trotskyist Left Opposition in the Soviet Union to refer to Bukharin and his supporters there. Even after his fall, Bukharin still did some important work for the Party. For example, he helped write the 1936 Soviet constitution , which he believed would guarantee real democratization. There

3255-638: The Kharkiv Agricultural Society's commissioner for coal transportation in Kharkiv. He studied the economics of agriculture, published two books on the subject. In 1916 Osinsky was mobilized in the Imperial Russian Army and served and served as a quartermaster officer. After the February Revolution of 1917, Osinsky was elected a member of the Moscow bureau of the RSDLP (Bolsheviks) – later renamed

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3360-510: The Left Opposition , who supported Leon Trotsky in the power struggle that followed Lenin's death. In the mid-1920s, several leading members of the opposition, including Lev Kamenev , Christian Rakovsky and Alexandra Kollontai were sent abroad on diplomatic missions. Osinsky was soviet plenipotentiary in Sweden, from March to October 1924, then was dispatched on an extended trade mission to

3465-592: The Russian Empire and the very beginning of Soviet Russia . For example, in the article "The October (November) Revolution", the Encyclopædia Britannica uses the format of "25 October (7 November, New Style)" to describe the date of the start of the revolution. The Latin equivalents, which are used in many languages, are, on the one hand, stili veteris (genitive) or stilo vetere (ablative), abbreviated st.v. , and meaning "(of/in) old style" ; and, on

3570-627: The 19th century, a practice that the author Karen Bellenir considered to reveal a deep emotional resistance to calendar reform. Valerian Obolensky Valerian Obolensky was born in to a minor noble family in the Kursk province, where his father was manager of a stud farm. While studying at the Faculty of Law of the Moscow University , Obolensky participated in the 1905 Russian Revolution and distributed revolutionary literature among students and

3675-532: The 4th century , had drifted from reality . The Gregorian calendar reform also dealt with the accumulated difference between these figures, between the years 325 and 1582, by skipping 10 days to set the ecclesiastical date of the equinox to be 21 March, the median date of its occurrence at the time of the First Council of Nicea in 325. Countries that adopted the Gregorian calendar after 1699 needed to skip an additional day for each subsequent new century that

3780-792: The All-Russian Communist Party. After the Bolshevik Revolution , in November, he was chief commissar of the Russian State Bank. On 14 December, he was appointed chairman of the newly created Supreme Economic Council (Vesenkha). During the dispute over to sign the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk in 1918, Osinsky supported the Left Communists around the Kommunist journal in 1918, who opposed the peace. He resigned from his posts when

3885-650: The Bolsheviks were in the majority in Moscow. Furthermore, the Moscow Regional Bureau was formally responsible for the party organizations in each of the thirteen central provinces around Moscow – which accounted for 37% of the whole population of Russia and 20% of the Bolshevik membership. While no one dominated revolutionary politics in Moscow during the October Revolution as Trotsky did in St. Petersburg, Bukharin certainly

3990-579: The Boyne was commemorated with smaller parades on 1 July. However, both events were combined in the late 18th century, and continue to be celebrated as " The Twelfth ". Because of the differences, British writers and their correspondents often employed two dates, a practice called dual dating , more or less automatically. Letters concerning diplomacy and international trade thus sometimes bore both Julian and Gregorian dates to prevent confusion. For example, Sir William Boswell wrote to Sir John Coke from The Hague

4095-504: The British Isles and colonies converted to the Gregorian calendar, instructed that his tombstone bear his date of birth by using the Julian calendar (notated O.S. for Old Style) and his date of death by using the Gregorian calendar. At Jefferson's birth, the difference was eleven days between the Julian and Gregorian calendars and so his birthday of 2 April in the Julian calendar is 13 April in

4200-410: The British colonies, changed the start of the year from 25 March to 1 January, with effect from "the day after 31 December 1751". (Scotland had already made this aspect of the changes, on 1 January 1600.) The second (in effect ) adopted the Gregorian calendar in place of the Julian calendar. Thus "New Style" can refer to the start-of-year adjustment , to the adoption of the Gregorian calendar , or to

4305-639: The Bukharin trial marked their final break with Communism and even turned the first three into passionate anti-Communists eventually. Bukharin wrote letters to Stalin while imprisoned, attempting without success to negotiate his innocence in the case of the alleged crimes, his eventual execution, and his hoped for release. If I'm to receive the death sentence, then I implore you beforehand, I entreat you, by all that you hold dear, not to have me shot. Let me drink poison in my cell instead (let me have morphine so that I can fall asleep and never wake up). For me, this point

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4410-532: The Comintern. Bukharin attempted to gain support from earlier foes including Kamenev and Zinoviev who had fallen from power and held mid-level positions within the Communist party. The details of his meeting with Kamenev, to whom he confided that Stalin was " Genghis Khan " and changed policies to get rid of rivals, were leaked by the Trotskyist press and subjected him to accusations of factionalism. Jules Humbert-Droz ,

4515-612: The Gregorian calendar. For example, the Battle of Blenheim is always given as 13 August 1704. However, confusion occurs when an event involves both. For example, William III of England arrived at Brixham in England on 5 November (Julian calendar), after he had set sail from the Netherlands on 11 November (Gregorian calendar) 1688. The Battle of the Boyne in Ireland took place a few months later on 1 July 1690 (Julian calendar). That maps to 11 July (Gregorian calendar), conveniently close to

4620-466: The Gregorian calendar. Similarly, George Washington is now officially reported as having been born on 22 February 1732, rather than on 11 February 1731/32 (Julian calendar). The philosopher Jeremy Bentham , born on 4 February 1747/8 (Julian calendar), in later life celebrated his birthday on 15 February. There is some evidence that the calendar change was not easily accepted. Many British people continued to celebrate their holidays "Old Style" well into

4725-430: The Julian and Gregorian dating systems respectively. The need to correct the calendar arose from the realisation that the correct figure for the number of days in a year is not 365.25 (365 days 6 hours) as assumed by the Julian calendar but slightly less (c. 365.242 days). The Julian calendar therefore has too many leap years . The consequence was that the basis for the calculation of the date of Easter , as decided in

4830-564: The Julian calendar had added since then. When the British Empire did so in 1752, the gap had grown to eleven days; when Russia did so (as its civil calendar ) in 1918, thirteen days needed to be skipped. In the Kingdom of Great Britain and its possessions, the Calendar (New Style) Act 1750 introduced two concurrent changes to the calendar. The first, which applied to England, Wales, Ireland and

4935-454: The Julian date of the subsequent (and more decisive) Battle of Aughrim on 12 July 1691 (Julian). The latter battle was commemorated annually throughout the 18th century on 12 July, following the usual historical convention of commemorating events of that period within Great Britain and Ireland by mapping the Julian date directly onto the modern Gregorian calendar date (as happens, for example, with Guy Fawkes Night on 5 November). The Battle of

5040-489: The Moscow City Committee and also became a member of the Moscow Regional Bureau of the party. To complicate matters further, the Bolsheviks themselves were divided into a right wing and a left wing. The right-wing of the Bolsheviks, including Aleksei Rykov and Viktor Nogin , controlled the Moscow Committee, while the younger left-wing Bolsheviks, including Vladimir Smirnov , Valerian Osinsky , Georgii Lomov , Nikolay Yakovlev, Ivan Kizelshtein and Ivan Stukov, were members of

5145-440: The Moscow Regional Bureau. On 10 October 1917, Bukharin was elected to the Central Committee , along with two other Moscow Bolsheviks: Andrei Bubnov and Grigori Sokolnikov . This strong representation on the Central Committee was a direct recognition of the Moscow Bureau's increased importance. Whereas the Bolsheviks had previously been a minority in Moscow behind the Mensheviks and the Socialist Revolutionaries, by September 1917

5250-440: The NEP reintroduced money and allowed private ownership and capitalistic practices in agriculture, retail trade, and light industry while the state retained control of heavy industry. After Lenin's death in 1924 , Bukharin became a full member of the Politburo. In the subsequent power struggle among Leon Trotsky, Grigory Zinoviev , Lev Kamenev and Stalin, Bukharin allied himself with Stalin, who positioned himself as centrist of

5355-462: The NKVD charged an ever-growing group of former oppositionists with Kirov's murder and other acts of treason, terrorism, sabotage, and espionage. In February 1936, shortly before the purge started in earnest, Bukharin was sent to Paris by Stalin to negotiate the purchase of the Marx and Engels archives, held by the German Social Democratic Party (SPD) before its dissolution by Hitler. He was joined by his young wife Anna Larina , which therefore opened

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5460-429: The Party and supported the NEP against the Left Opposition , which wanted more rapid industrialization, escalation of class struggle against the kulaks (wealthier peasants), and agitation for world revolution. It was Bukharin who formulated the thesis of " Socialism in One Country " put forth by Stalin in 1924, which argued that socialism (in Marxist theory, the period of transition to communism) could be developed in

5565-403: The Russian parliament, or Duma , Osinsky backed the otzovists , who supported a boycott, in opposition to Vladimir Lenin . Obolensky was arrested in 1911, and exiled to Tver and started to write under the name pseudonym Nikolai Osinsky , in honor of the Russian revolutionary and Narodnik terrorist Valerian Osinsky . From 1914 to 1916 he was deputy head of the statistical department of

5670-419: The Soviet Union to achieve industrialization but he preferred the more moderate approach of offering the peasants the opportunity to become prosperous, which would lead to greater grain production for sale abroad. Bukharin pressed his views throughout 1928 in meetings of the Politburo and at the Communist Party Congress, insisting that enforced grain requisition would be counterproductive, as War Communism had been

5775-497: The Soviet government to use terror to impose order. Later, Osinsky was one of the leaders of the Democratic Centralist opposition, which campaigned for greater democracy within the party and the soviets. He argued that meetings of the Central Committee should be open to all party members unless the matters under discussion were secret, and that minority views should be represented in party elections and minorities should be permitted to publish their views. In April 1918, he published

5880-494: The Soviet state. Photostatic evidence shows that Stalin's first impulse was to simply exile Bukharin, without sending him to trial. In the end, Bukharin was killed, but according to historian Alec Nove , "the road to his demise was not a straight one". Bukharin was tried in the Trial of the Twenty One on 2–13 March 1938 during the Great Purge , along with ex-premier Alexei Rykov, Christian Rakovsky , Nikolai Krestinsky , Genrikh Yagoda, and 16 other defendants alleged to belong to

5985-422: The Transitional Period (1920) and Historical Materialism (1921). By 1921, he changed his position and accepted Lenin's emphasis on the survival and strengthening of the Soviet state as the bastion of the future world revolution. He became the foremost supporter of the New Economic Policy (NEP), to which he was to tie his political fortunes. Considered by the Left Communists as a retreat from socialist policies,

6090-402: The Treaty was signed, in March 1918. He went further than Bukharin and other leading Left Communists by arguing that socialist Russia should never sign any treaties with any 'imperialist' states. But after the assassination of the German ambassador, Count von Mirbach by the Left Socialist-Revolutionary , Yakov Blumkin , Osinsky severed links with the Left SRs, and publicly defended the right

6195-568: The US, during which he was fascinated by the car industry, and thought that motor transport could be the means of overcoming the divide between town and countryside in the Soviet Union. He was one of the founders of the Gorky car plant . Back in Russia, Osinsky split with the opposition, and in December 1925 was elected a candidate member of the Central Committee . When his former comrades Vladimir Smirnov and Timofei Sapronov were sent into exile, Osinsky wrote privately to Stalin, on 1 January 1928, protesting about their harsh treatment, but received

6300-594: The active intervention of Bukharin. The journey to Armenia , our apartment and ration cards, contracts for future volumes – all this was arranged by Bukharin." Bukharin wrote to Stalin, pleading clemency for Mandelstam, and appealed personally to the head of the NKVD , Genrikh Yagoda . It was Yagoda who told him about Mandelstam's Stalin Epigram , after which he refused to have any further contact with Nadezhda Mandelstam, who had lied to him by denying that her husband had written "anything rash" – but continued to befriend Pasternak. Soon after Mandelstam's arrest, Bukharin

6405-447: The age of four, often asked him to recite poetry for family friends. His childhood is vividly recounted in his mostly autobiographic novel How It All Began . Bukharin's political life began at the age of sixteen, with his lifelong friend Ilya Ehrenburg , when they participated in student activities at Moscow University related to the Russian Revolution of 1905 . He joined the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party in 1906, and became

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6510-406: The campaign. Instead of going mad, they accepted terror as a normal administrative method and regarded obedience to all orders from above as a supreme virtue. ... They are no longer human beings. They have truly become the cogs in a terrible machine." Yet to another Menshevik leader, Fyodor Dan , he confided that Stalin became "the man to whom the Party granted its confidence" and "is a sort of

6615-538: The charges against Bukharin and the others were fabricated. Osinsky was included on another death list submitted to members of the Politburo on 19 April, but someone, possibly Stalin, crossed his name off. His name then appeared on a third list, containing 312 names, which was signed by Stalin and Molotov on 20 August. Osinsky was executed on 1 September 1938. Osinsky was posthumously rehabilitated in June 1957. Osinsky married Yekaterina Smirnova (1889–1964), sister of Vladimir Smirnov. An Old Bolshevik, she studied at

6720-431: The combination of the two. It was through their use in the Calendar Act that the notations "Old Style" and "New Style" came into common usage. When recording British history, it is usual to quote the date as originally recorded at the time of the event, but with the year number adjusted to start on 1 January. The latter adjustment may be needed because the start of the civil calendar year had not always been 1 January and

6825-432: The end of the following December, 1661/62 , a form of dual dating to indicate that in the following twelve weeks or so, the year was 1661 Old Style but 1662 New Style. Some more modern sources, often more academic ones (e.g. the History of Parliament ) also use the 1661/62 style for the period between 1 January and 24 March for years before the introduction of the New Style calendar in England. The Gregorian calendar

6930-505: The great might of the U.S.S.R. become clear to all. Old Style and New Style dates Old Style ( O.S. ) and New Style ( N.S. ) indicate dating systems before and after a calendar change, respectively. Usually, they refer to the change from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar as enacted in various European countries between 1582 and 1923. In England , Wales , Ireland and Britain's American colonies , there were two calendar changes, both in 1752. The first adjusted

7035-452: The highest degree of power during the 1926–1928 period. He emerged as the leader of the Party's right wing , which included two other Politburo members ( Alexei Rykov , Lenin's successor as Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars and Mikhail Tomsky , head of trade unions) and he became General Secretary of the Comintern 's executive committee in 1926. However, prompted by a grain shortage in 1928, Stalin reversed himself and proposed

7140-425: The leader of the Left Communists in bitter opposition to Lenin's decision to sign the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk . In this wartime power struggle, Lenin's arrest had been seriously discussed by them and Left Socialist Revolutionaries in 1918. Bukharin revealed this in a Pravda article in 1924 and stated that it had been "a period when the party stood a hair from a split, and the whole country a hair from ruin". After

7245-461: The lying-in-state of the Soviet police chief, Vyacheslav Menzhinsky in May 1934, when Pasternak was seeking help for his fellow poet, Osip Mandelstam , who had been arrested – though at that time neither Pasternak nor Bukharin knew why. Bukharin had acted as Mandelstam's political protector since 1922. According to Mandelstam's wife, Nadezhda, "M. owed him all the pleasant things in his life. His 1928 volume of poetry would never have come out without

7350-548: The maximum of decentralisation." In the brief period of thaw in 1934–1936, Bukharin was politically rehabilitated and was made editor of Izvestia in 1934. There, he consistently highlighted the dangers of fascist regimes in Europe and the need for "proletarian humanism". One of his first decisions as editor was to invite Boris Pasternak to contribute to the newspaper and sit in on editorial meetings. Pasternak described Bukharin as "a wonderful, historically extraordinary man, but fate has not been kind to him". They first met during

7455-403: The other, stili novi or stilo novo , abbreviated st.n. and meaning "(of/in) new style". The Latin abbreviations may be capitalised differently by different users, e.g., St.n. or St.N. for stili novi . There are equivalents for these terms in other languages as well, such as the German a.St. (" alter Stil " for O.S.). Usually, the mapping of New Style dates onto Old Style dates with

7560-478: The possibility of exile, but he decided against it, saying that he could not live outside the Soviet Union. Bukharin, who had been forced to follow the Party line since 1929, confided to his old friends and former opponents his real view of Stalin and his policy. His conversations with Boris Nicolaevsky , a Menshevik leader who held the manuscripts on behalf of the SPD, formed the basis of "Letter of an Old Bolshevik", which

7665-407: The previous year as a suspected counter-revolutionary. He wrote: Although we are dealing with a person not of our way of life, she has what is most important, most necessary to a poet – an honourable soul and civic consciousness. In October 1923, he was one of the signatories of The Declaration of 46 calling for inner party democracy. In the early part of 1924, he was one of the leading figures in

7770-612: The prime force behind the Left Opposition, was defeated by a triumvirate formed by Stalin, Zinoviev, and Kamenev, with the support of Bukharin. At the Fourteenth Party Congress in December 1925, Stalin openly attacked Kamenev and Zinoviev, revealing that they had asked for his aid in expelling Trotsky from the Party. By 1926, the Stalin-Bukharin alliance ousted Zinoviev and Kamenev from the Party leadership, and Bukharin enjoyed

7875-602: The promise of world revolution . In the Russian turmoil near the end of World War I , when a negotiated peace with the Central Powers was looming, he demanded a continuance of the war, fully expecting to incite all the foreign proletarian classes to arms. Even as he was uncompromising toward Russia's battlefield enemies, he also rejected any fraternization with the capitalist Allied powers : he reportedly wept when he learned of official negotiations for assistance. Bukharin emerged as

7980-463: The ratification of the treaty, Bukharin resumed his responsibilities within the party. In March 1919, he became a member of the Comintern's executive committee and a candidate member of the Politburo . During the Civil War period, he published several theoretical economic works, including the popular primer The ABC of Communism (with Yevgeni Preobrazhensky , 1919), and the more academic Economics of

8085-580: The sister of Nikolai Lukin , who was also a member of the party. They married in 1911, soon after returning from internal exile. In 1911, after a brief imprisonment, Bukharin was exiled to Onega in Arkhangelsk , but he soon escaped to Hanover . He stayed in Germany for a year before visiting Kraków ( Poland ) in 1912 to meet Vladimir Lenin for the first time. During the exile, he continued his education and wrote several books that established him in his 20s as

8190-654: The so-called "Bloc of Rightists and Trotskyites". In a trial meant to be the culmination of previous show trials , it was alleged that Bukharin and others sought to assassinate Lenin and Stalin from 1918, murder Maxim Gorky by poison, partition the Soviet Union and hand out her territories to Germany, Japan, and Great Britain. Even more than earlier Moscow show trials, Bukharin's trial horrified many previously sympathetic observers as they watched allegations levelled against someone who had been so close to Stalin and Lenin. For some prominent Communists such as Bertram Wolfe , Jay Lovestone , Arthur Koestler , and Heinrich Brandler ,

8295-634: The start of a new year from 25 March ( Lady Day , the Feast of the Annunciation ) to 1 January, a change which Scotland had made in 1600. The second discarded the Julian calendar in favour of the Gregorian calendar, skipping 11 days in the month of September to do so. To accommodate the two calendar changes, writers used dual dating to identify a given day by giving its date according to both styles of dating. For countries such as Russia where no start-of-year adjustment took place, O.S. and N.S. simply indicate

8400-477: The tables into an anti-trial of Stalinism (while keeping his part of the bargain to save his family). While his letters to Stalin – he wrote 34 very emotional and desperate letters tearfully protesting his innocence and professing his loyalty – suggest a complete capitulation and acceptance of his role in the trial, it contrasts with his actual conduct in the trial. Bukharin himself speaks of his "peculiar duality of mind" in his last plea, which led to "semi-paralysis of

8505-407: The whole case") and saying that "the confession of the accused is not essential. The confession of the accused is a medieval principle of jurisprudence" in a trial that was solely based on confessions, he finished his last plea with the words: ... the monstrousness of my crime is immeasurable especially in the new stage of struggle of the U.S.S.R. May this trial be the last severe lesson, and may

8610-546: The will" and Hegelian " unhappy consciousness ", which likely stemmed not only from his knowledge of the ruinous reality of Stalinism (although of course he could not say so in the trial) but also of the impending threat of fascism. The result was a curious mix of fulsome confessions (of being a "degenerate fascist" working for the "restoration of capitalism") and subtle criticisms of the trial. After disproving several charges against him (one observer noted that he "proceeded to demolish, or rather showed he could very easily demolish,

8715-551: Was Deputy Chairman of Vesenkha . In summer 1930, he tried to prevent the People's Commissar for War, Kliment Voroshilov from taking over control the aviation industry from Vesenkha, but Stalin ruled in Voroshilov's favour, accusing Osinsky of 'impudence' and he was removed from his post four months later. From January 1932 to August 1935, Osinsky was deputy Chairman of Gosplan, and Head of its Central Statistical Directorate . In 1932 he

8820-630: Was a principal architect of the 1936 Soviet Constitution . During the Great Purge , Bukharin was accused of treason in February 1937 and executed after a show trial in 1938. Nikolai Bukharin was born on 27 September (9 October, new style), 1888, in Moscow . He was the second son of two schoolteachers, Ivan Gavrilovich Bukharin and Liubov Ivanovna Bukharina. According to Nikolai his father did not believe in God and, from

8925-533: Was a reporter for the newspaper Izvestiya . In 1907, he joined the Bolshevik faction of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party . In the same year, he and Nikolai Bukharin organised a mass student demonstration. They and Vladimir Smirnov formed a trio of young economists who conducted theoretical 'raids' in which they disrupted lectures to challenge the lecturer. When the Bolshevik faction split over whether to continue participating in

9030-474: Was active in the Soviet leadership from 1917 to his purge in the 1930s. Bukharin joined the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party in 1906, and studied economics at Moscow Imperial University . In 1910, he was arrested and internally exiled to Onega , but the following year escaped abroad, where he met Lenin and Leon Trotsky and built his reputation with works such as Imperialism and World Economy (1915). After

9135-474: Was altered at different times in different countries. From 1155 to 1752, the civil or legal year in England began on 25 March ( Lady Day ); so for example, the execution of Charles I was recorded at the time in Parliament as happening on 30 January 164 8 (Old Style). In newer English-language texts, this date is usually shown as "30 January 164 9 " (New Style). The corresponding date in the Gregorian calendar

9240-459: Was arrested on the same day as his father, at the extended family's shared apartment, accused of plotting to assassinate Stalin, tried on 10 December 1937, and shot the same day. His wife, Dina, was exiled to Kharkov in 1937. Their daughter, Svetlana, and younger surviving son, Valerian, and Rem Smirnov were all in their teens when their parents were arrested, and were sent to an orphanage. Valerian Obolensky (1922–1941) studied classics, and joined

9345-444: Was arrested two years later, Boris Pasternak displayed extraordinary courage by having a letter delivered to Bukharin's wife saying that he was convinced of his innocence. Stalin's collectivization policy proved to be as disastrous as Bukharin predicted, but Stalin had by then achieved unchallenged authority in the party leadership. However, there were signs that moderates among Stalin's supporters sought to end official terror and bring

9450-479: Was assassinated in Leningrad in December 1934, and his death was used by Stalin as a pretext to launch the Great Purge , in which about 700,000 people were to perish as Stalin eliminated all past and potential opposition to his authority. Some historians believe that Kirov's assassination in 1934 was arranged by Stalin himself, despite the lack of evidence to plausibly posit such a conclusion. After Kirov's assassination,

9555-713: Was banned from living in Moscow and spent 14 with her daughter in a village in Kalinin province. She was 'rehabilitated' in 1955. The couple separated temporarily during the civil war, after he began an affair with a nurse, Anna Shaternikova. Yekaterina took a post in the soviet embassy in Finland , and Anna moved into his apartment in the Kremlin. Around 1923 they ended the affair and he returned to his wife. They had five children, including two boys who died in infancy, and in 1927 they adopted their nephew, Rem Smirnov, when his father, Vladimir,

9660-587: Was celebrated as the New Year festival from as early as the 13th century, despite the recorded (civil) year not incrementing until 25 March, but the "year starting 25th March was called the Civil or Legal Year, although the phrase Old Style was more commonly used". To reduce misunderstandings about the date, it was normal even in semi-official documents such as parish registers to place a statutory new-year heading after 24 March (for example "1661") and another heading from

9765-404: Was constantly barracked as he reluctantly began, and under pressure declared that "the basic accusations against them stand". He was expelled from the Central Committee on 23 June, and he and his extended family were evicted from the Kremlin. Osinsky was arrested on 13 October 1937, and accused of being part of an underground counterrevolutionary and pro-fascist terrorist group. He was included in

9870-535: Was delegated to prepare the official report on poetry for the First Soviet Writers' Congress, in August 1934. He could not any longer risk mentioning Mandelstam in his speech to the congress, but did devote a large section of his speech to Pasternak, whom he described as "remote from current affairs ... a singer of the old intelligensia ... delicate and subtle ... a wounded and easily vulnerable soul. He

9975-668: Was elected Academician of the Soviet Academy of Sciences in the Department of Social Sciences. From December 1932 to March 1937, he was a member of the Special State Commission (TsGK) for determining the yield and size of the gross harvest of grain crops. In this capacity, he set the targets for crop planting in various provinces, often disregarding local conditions. This was in the period when forced collectivisation and centralised control of agriculture led to catastrophes such as

10080-418: Was exiled. Their oldest son, Vadim Obolensky (1912–1937) was arrested as a student at military academy in 1935, along with his closest friend, Andrei Sverdlov . When Bukharin intervened on their behalf, Stalin said they were detained because they were 'freethinkers', but ordered their release. Vadim worked as a design engineer for the arms industry, and was married, with a son, Ilya, born in summer 1937. He

10185-417: Was for a long time undecided on Bukharin and Georgy Pyatakov . After receiving Nikolay Yezhov 's written evidence denouncing Bukharin, Stalin declined to sanction his arrest. After the trial and execution of Zinoviev, Kamenev, and other leftist Old Bolsheviks in 1936, Bukharin and Rykov were arrested on 27 February 1937 following a plenum of the Central Committee, and were charged with conspiring to overthrow

10290-519: Was forced to renounce his views under pressure. He wrote letters to Stalin pleading for forgiveness and rehabilitation, but through wiretaps of Bukharin's private conversations with Stalin's enemies, Stalin knew Bukharin's repentance was insincere. International supporters of Bukharin, Jay Lovestone of the Communist Party USA among them, were also expelled from the Comintern. They formed an international alliance to promote their views, calling it

10395-593: Was implemented in Russia on 14 February 1918 by dropping the Julian dates of 1–13 February 1918 , pursuant to a Sovnarkom decree signed 24 January 1918 (Julian) by Vladimir Lenin . The decree required that the Julian date was to be written in parentheses after the Gregorian date, until 1 July 1918. It is common in English-language publications to use the familiar Old Style or New Style terms to discuss events and personalities in other countries, especially with reference to

10500-426: Was in the written confession and refuse to go any further. There are several interpretations of Bukharin's motivations (besides being coerced) in the trial. Koestler and others viewed it as a true believer's last service to the Party (while preserving the little amount of personal honor left) whereas Bukharin biographer Stephen Cohen and Robert Tucker saw traces of Aesopian language , with which Bukharin sought to turn

10605-532: Was initially a proponent of war communism , but in 1921 supported the introduction of the New Economic Policy (NEP) and became its chief theorist and advocate, supporting the party leadership against Trotsky and the Left Opposition . By late 1924, this stance had positioned Bukharin favourably as Joseph Stalin 's chief ally, with Bukharin soon elaborating Stalin's theory of " socialism in one country ". From 1926 to 1929, Bukharin served as General Secretary of

10710-647: Was temporarily detained by local police), arriving in Moscow in early May 1917. Politically, the Bolsheviks in Moscow were a minority in relation to the Mensheviks and Social Democrats. As more people began to be attracted to Lenin's promise to bring peace by withdrawing from the Great War, membership in the Bolshevik faction began to increase dramatically – from 24,000 members in February 1917 to 200,000 members in October 1917. Upon his return to Moscow, Bukharin resumed his seat on

10815-520: Was the director of the Institute of the History of Science and Technology of the Academy of Sciences of the Soviet Union. When the Central Committee met in February 1937, early in the Great Purge , to decide whether Bukharin and Alexei Rykov were to be arrested, the hard line Stalinists Lavrentiy Beria and Pavel Postyshev demanded that Osinsky speak, suspecting that he would try to defend Bukharin. Osinsky

10920-572: Was the most prominent leader in Moscow. During the October Revolution, Bukharin drafted, introduced, and defended the revolutionary decrees of the Moscow Soviet. Bukharin then represented the Moscow Soviet in their report to the revolutionary government in Petrograd. Following the October Revolution, Bukharin became the editor of the party's newspaper, Pravda . Bukharin believed passionately in

11025-576: Was very influential in contemporary understanding of the period (especially the Ryutin Affair and the Kirov murder), although there are doubts about its authenticity. According to Nicolaevsky, Bukharin spoke of "the mass annihilation of completely defenseless men, with women and children" under forced collectivization and liquidation of kulaks as a class that dehumanized the Party members with "the profound psychological change in those communists who took part in

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