Introduction by Editor of the Communist Review

Nikolai Ivanovich Bukharin, the author of the following article, was born in 1888. His father being a college professor, young Bukharin passed through the municipal school, and from there to the college where he finished his secondary studies. He next went to the Faculty for Law in the University of Moscow, and worked one year in the Faculty for Law in the University of Vienna.

Bukharin joined the Social-Democratic Party (Bolshevik) in 1906, at the age of 18 years, and from that time devoted all his energy to the service of the Party and of revolutionary action.

After 1905, the revolutionary movement passed through a period of depression and stagnation, particularly following the massacre at Lena. The intellectuals were then frightened by the Czarist Terror, the advanced workers watched and pursued by the police. During these years it was particularly difficult for the revolutionaries to work. Nevertheless, Bukharin continued to be very active.

He helped to organise numerous economic and political strikes of the factory workers in Moscow and St Petersburg (now Leningrad), took part in all the student movements, in the celebrations of the first of May, mass meetings and other activities. In 1908, he was elected to the Moscow Committee of the Party. In 1910 he was arrested by the Moscow police for his revolutionary activity and after a year’s imprisonment he was deported to Siberia.

Escaping from Siberia, he went abroad and remained abroad till 1917. He lived in a number of countries, in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Sweden, Norway and America. It was while he was abroad that he made the acquaintance of Lenin, with whom he remained a devoted disciple. He occupied himself with the agitation and propaganda of Bolshevism, and took an active part in the international working-class movement. In the course of his peregrinations in the different countries, he carried on revolutionary propaganda amongst the workers in Germany, Austria, America, etc, organising a large number of workers’ study circles. At the same time, he employed himself in literature and displayed the qualities of a talented writer and Marxist theoretician. An eminent Bolshevik, Bukharin took part in many of the conferences of the Party.

In the early part of 1917, he returned to Russia. At Moscow, he became editor of the Social-Democrat and the reviews Spartacus and The Communist. While he devoted the most of his time to literary activity, he never neglected the practical work among the proletariat of Moscow. Under the Provisional Government, he conducted a fierce controversy against the conciliations. In 1918, he became Editor of the Pravda.

After the October Revolution his literary activity increased. In 1918, he was made a member of the collegium for editing the State edition , and continued as a member till 1921. In the year 1918, he began his pedagogical career. He was in charge of the First State University of Moscow, and of the Sverdlov University. He was also a member of the Presidium of the Socialist Academy. At the same time he continued his functions as Editor of Pravda.

At the Sixth Congress of the Party in 1917, Bukharin was elected to the Central Committee of the Russian Communist Party. Since 1918 he has been a member of the Pan-Russian Central Executive Committee, since 1917 a member of the Moscow Soviet, and since 1919 a member of the Presidium of the Communist International.

His chief writings are:

The ABC of Communism (in collaboration with Preobrazhensky) The Crisis of Capitalism and the Communist Movement (1923) World Economy and Imperialism The Revolution and Proletarian Culture (1923) The Theory of Historical Materialism The Programme of Communism From the Overthrowal of Czarism to the Collapse of the Bourgeoisie The Economics of the Transition Period (1920) The Political Economy of the Rentier

In addition, Comrade Bukharin has written a number of other works on economic and political questions.

In the recent Trotsky discussion, Bukharin made a report on 13 December 1924, to a meeting of the propagandists of the Moscow organisation on ‘The Theory of Permanent Revolution’. The following article is taken from that report and is a brilliant contribution to the theory and practice of Leninism.