Nikolai Bukharin

Russian Bolshevik and Marxist theorist (1888–1938); editor of Pravda (1918–29); General Secretary of the Comintern (1926–29); author of The ABC of Communism (1920, with Preobrazhensky), Historical Materialism (1921), The Economics of the Transition Period (1920), and Imperialism and World Economy (1915). Member of Lenin's Politburo (alongside Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin, Zinoviev, Kamenev, Rykov). Led the "Right Opposition" against forced collectivization (1928–29). Tried in March 1938 (the "Trial of the Twenty-One") and executed. For this wiki, Bukharin is the protagonist of Ch. II of *Humanism and Terror*, where his trial-defense — owning his "objective" historical responsibility while denying the espionage and sabotage charges — is read by MP as articulating a third political-philosophical position between Stalin's prosecution and Trotsky's defense.

Key Points

  • Ch. II of H&T: Bukharin's 1938 trial is the central case study of Humanism and Terror's analysis of revolutionary justice. MP reads the trial as "in the form and style that belong to the Revolution" but presented "as if [the trials] were ordinary trials" — and that form of presentation is the source of the trials' specific dishonesty. Bukharin's pleading at the trial works within the revolutionary form against its presentation-as-ordinary-trial.
  • The "third position": Bukharin pleads guilty "as one of the leaders, not as a cog," accepting historical-political responsibility for the "counter-revolutionary" trajectory of the opposition while denying the common-law charges (espionage, sabotage). MP reads this as articulating a position that exceeds both Stalin's prosecution (everything Bukharin did becomes complicity-in-fact) and the liberal reading (Bukharin merely capitulated under torture).
  • "The logic of the struggle led to the logic of ideas": Bukharin's own self-description of how the Right Opposition's politics, in the conjuncture of forced collectivization, became objectively counterrevolutionary even as it remained subjectively a Marxist correction. "The logic of the struggle led to the logic of ideas and to a change of our psychology, to the counter-revolutionizing of our aims" (Court Proceedings p. 380).
  • The müssen-vs-sollen exchange: MP cites the Vyshinsky/Bukharin exchange at trial (Court Proceedings pp. 95–96) where Bukharin insists on the modal distinction between "had to" (müssen) and "ought to" (sollen) against Vyshinsky's prosecutorial reduction of the modal language to determinate plan. MP reads this as the philosophical-juridical heart of the trial: the prosecution "would like to erase the region of indeterminism, Bukharin's conscience, where there exist things not yet known."
  • The unhappy consciousness: Bukharin's own description of his trajectory: "there arose what in Hegel's philosophy is called a most unhappy mind" (Court Proceedings p. 776). MP reads this as Bukharin's own articulation of the dialectical structure of his situation — not with the regime, not without it, the formula of opposition-within-fidelity.
  • Lenin's Politburo: Bukharin was one of the six men in the first rank mentioned in Lenin's testament; MP notes that "of the six men in the first rank mentioned in Lenin's testament only Stalin remained" by 1938. The trial liquidates the October generation. Lenin had described Bukharin as "unstable in politics" but also as "the favorite of the whole Party."
  • The political content of his opposition: against forced collectivization; for an extended NEP; for "double entry bookkeeping all along the line." Bukharin had been on the right of the Party (with Rykov, Tomsky) — he had supported Stalin against Trotsky in 1924–27 and was then attacked by Stalin from the left when Stalin adopted (and intensified) the Left Opposition's industrialization program.
  • Image-anchor for MP across 1946–49: Bukharin's confession recurs in MP's Inédits 1946–49 as the cardinal case of changement de quantité en qualité — the hinge case where the subject still confesses within the Marxist register (the "objective" sense of his actions) before the Stalinist legal-form completes its detachment from Marxism (cf. the 1949 Hungarian cardinal case).

Details

The 1938 Trial

The "Trial of the Twenty-One" (also called the "Trial of the Anti-Soviet 'Bloc of Rightists and Trotskyites'") opened on 2 March 1938 and concluded on 13 March with eighteen death sentences. Vyshinsky was the prosecutor. Bukharin was charged with espionage on behalf of foreign powers, wrecking, diversionist and terrorist activities, undermining the military power of the USSR, working for the defeat of the USSR, dismembering the USSR, and overthrowing the Socialist social and state system. The trial was conducted with public proceedings, foreign observers in attendance, and verbatim transcripts published in multiple languages.

MP's reading of the trial: the proceedings could not have been a serious adversarial-evidentiary investigation in 11 days for 21 accused; the "facts" remained at the level of testimony with no documentary substantiation; "the only competent witnesses were the accused, and as a consequence their statements never give us information on the brute reality." The trial was therefore not a common-law trial dressed up as a revolutionary trial — it was a revolutionary trial dressed up as a common-law trial. This form of presentation is the source of its dishonesty.

Bukharin's Strategy

Bukharin's defense, as MP reads it, was to introduce a distinction the prosecution wanted to erase: between political-historical responsibility (which Bukharin accepted) and common-law guilt (which he denied). His "I plead guilty to what directly follows from this, the sum total of crimes committed by this counter-revolutionary organization, irrespective of whether or not I knew of, whether or not I took a direct part in any particular act. Because I am responsible as one of the leaders and not as a cog of this counter-revolutionary organization" (Court Proceedings p. 370) is the formula MP makes central.

The strategy operates within the revolutionary register. To deny the historical-political responsibility would have been to deny the Marxist analysis of action (where actors are responsible for the forces they orient themselves on, not just their internal intentions). To accept the common-law charges (espionage, sabotage) would have been to capitulate to the trial's presentation as a common-law trial. Bukharin holds the middle: yes, my opposition's logic in this conjuncture became counter-revolutionary in fact; no, I was not a paid agent of foreign powers.

The Vyshinsky Exchange on Modality

The exchange MP cites (Court Proceedings pp. 95–96, H&T Ch. II) is paradigmatic of the trial's juridical-philosophical structure:

BUKHARIN: When I asked Tomsky how he conceived the mechanics of the coup he said this was the business of the military organization, which was to open the front. VYSHINSKY: So Tomsky was preparing to open the front? BUKHARIN: He did not say that. … He said "was to" ("dolzhna"); but the meaning of these words is "müssen" and not "sollen." VYSHINSKY: Leave your philosophy aside. In Russian "was to" means "was to."

MP's commentary: "Vyshinsky takes his stand in a world of objects where nothing is indeterminate. He would like to erase the region of indeterminism, Bukharin's conscience, where there exist things not yet known, empty zones; he would like to leave only things he has made or had made."

The exchange is the trial's philosophical hinge: the prosecutor wants to flatten Bukharin's modal language ("müssen" — was bound to, given the situation; "sollen" — ought to, by deliberate plan) into determinate plan, because the trial's form requires determinate plot. Bukharin's defense is the retention of modality — the insistence that political action is conducted under modal uncertainty, and that the prosecutor's flattening is itself the philosophical-juridical lie.

"Cog vs. Leader"

The "as one of the leaders, not as a cog" formulation is Bukharin's clearest statement of the political-philosophical content of his defense. To be a "cog" would be to be a participant whose action is determined by the apparatus; to be a "leader" is to be a participant whose action orients the apparatus on certain forces. Leaders are responsible for the forces they orient themselves on; cogs are responsible only for executing instructions. Bukharin owns leadership-responsibility (which the trial's logic requires) while denying cog-responsibility (which the espionage and sabotage charges would require).

The deeper structure: Bukharin accepts that political action is "of its nature impure" (MP's formulation in the Preface) — the leader counts on forces he does not control and is responsible for what those forces make of his action. He denies, however, that this impurity reaches all the way to the determinate-plot level the prosecution wants to establish.

The "Unhappy Consciousness" Self-Description

Bukharin's last plea includes the famous "unhappy mind" passage:

"Everyone of us … suffered from a peculiar duality of mind, an incomplete faith in his counter-revolutionary cause. … And this was due not to the absence of consistent thought, but to the objective grandeur of socialist construction. … There arose what in Hegel's philosophy is called a most unhappy mind. The might of the proletarian state found its expression not only in the fact that it smashed the counter-revolutionary bands, but also in the fact that it disintegrated its enemies from within, that it disorganized the will of its enemies." (Court Proceedings p. 776, Ch. II of H&T)

MP reads this as Bukharin's own articulation of the dialectical structure: the opposition's "incomplete faith in [its] counter-revolutionary cause" is not weakness but the structural condition of any Marxist opposition (an opposition that "remains faithful to the Party but because they believe in the Revolution as an idea in the mind as well, they criticize the party"). The "not with you and not without you" formula MP attaches to Bukharin is the formula of Marxist opposition.

Bukharin and the Inédits 1946–49

Bukharin recurs throughout MP's 1946–49 lecture notes (the Inédits published by Mimesis in 2022) as the cardinal case of the changement de quantité en qualité thesis. The contrast MP develops there:

  • 1938 Bukharin: confession is Marxist — the confession of "objective treason" within the Marxist analysis of action; the subject still recognizable as a Marxist agent.
  • 1949 Hungarian Cardinal Mindszenty: confession is not Marxist — the cardinal is not a Marxist; his confession can only be understood as police-extracted; the legal form has detached from the Marxist register and become pure governmental violence.

The shift from Bukharin (1938) to Mindszenty (1949) is the qualitative break MP names in changement-quantite-qualite. Bukharin sits on the qualitative line: his confession is the last case where the trial-form retains a Marxist content.

Lenin's Politburo

MP's framing emphasizes that Bukharin was one of "the six men in the first rank mentioned in Lenin's testament" (with Stalin, Trotsky, Zinoviev, Kamenev, and Rykov). By 1938, "only Stalin remained." The trials liquidated the October generation:

  • Zinoviev, Kamenev: shot August 1936 (Trial of the Sixteen)
  • Piatakov, Radek, Sokolnikov: tried January 1937 (Trial of the Seventeen) — Piatakov shot, Radek and Sokolnikov sentenced to prison and killed in 1939
  • Bukharin, Rykov: shot March 1938 (Trial of the Twenty-One)
  • Trotsky: assassinated in Mexico, August 1940

The historical-philosophical point MP draws: "it would surely be strange if Lenin had surrounded himself with supporters all of whom except one were capable of crossing over into the service of capitalist governments." The Marxist categories cannot explain the trials as Stalin's prosecution presents them; the trials require a different analytic — the analytic of historical responsibility under the contingency of the future.

Connections

  • is the protagonist of Ch. II of merleau-ponty-1947-humanism-and-terror
  • recurs in *Inédits II* as the cardinal case of changement-quantite-qualite
  • parallels (and inverts) Koestler's Rubashov in Darkness at Noon — Rubashov has Zinoviev's body and Bukharin's character (per MP's footnote), but Koestler's reading misses what MP recovers in Bukharin's actual defense
  • exemplifies historical-responsibility — the structural concept MP develops in H&T Ch. II
  • enacts the contingency of the future as the structural condition of revolutionary politics
  • is contrasted with Trotsky — both were principal Bolshevik figures liquidated under Stalin, but Bukharin (capitulated, defended within the Marxist register) and Trotsky (refused to capitulate, defended from outside) represent different responses to the same structural situation; Bukharin's "last plea reveals as much pride as Trotsky writing in exile" (H&T Ch. III)
  • was opposed by Stalin in the Right Opposition (1928–29) — having previously supported Stalin against Trotsky's Left Opposition (1924–27); the inversion is one of H&T's structural illustrations of how positions in revolutionary politics shift under the logic of the struggle
  • writes within the philosophical heritage of Hegel (master-slave, unhappy consciousness) and Marx (proletarian as universal class, German Ideology's class-individual)
  • theorizes (in his earlier work) the concrete economy of NEP — Imperialism and World Economy (1915), Historical Materialism (1921), The Economics of the Transition Period (1920) — though H&T engages mainly the trial figure, not the theoretician

Open Questions

  • Is MP's reading of Bukharin's defense as a third position philosophically defensible, or is it interpretively willed? The alternative reading — that Bukharin was simply broken in a more articulate way than Rubashov — is held off by MP's interpretive will, not by argument. (See H&T's Critique / Limitations section for the explicit acknowledgment.)
  • How much of Bukharin's pre-trial theoretical work (The ABC of Communism, Historical Materialism, The Economics of the Transition Period) bears on MP's reading of the trial figure? H&T engages mainly the trial; the connection between Bukharin's pre-trial Marxism and his trial-defense is suggestive but not argued.
  • Bukharin's Philosophical Arabesques (written in prison 1937, published 2005) is a sustained engagement with German idealism and Marx; it is not engaged by MP (who could not have read it, as it was unpublished in 1947). A future engagement with the Arabesques would test MP's reading of Bukharin as a philosophical Marxist working in the master-slave register.
  • The relation between Bukharin's "unhappy consciousness" self-description (Court Proceedings p. 776) and MP's later use of "unhappy consciousness" in merleau-ponty-1955-adventures-of-the-dialectic is suggestive but not developed in H&T.
  • The Hungarian cardinal contrast (Mindszenty 1949) appears in Inédits II but not in H&T; the contrast is the empirical motivation for the changement-quantite-qualite thesis, but H&T itself only intimates the qualitative break.

Synthetic Claims

  • live claim, see claims#bukharin-as-mp-exemplar-phenomenological-political-ethics — MP reads Bukharin's 1938 trial defense as the positive exemplar of phenomenological political ethics: the agent who owns historical-political responsibility (the leader, not the cog) while refusing the prosecution's reduction to common-law guilt. Bukharin is the philosophical-juridical articulation of agency-under-the-contingency-of-the-future across MP's 1946–49 corpus. This page is named wiki home for the claim.

Sources

  • merleau-ponty-1947-humanism-and-terror — Ch. II "Bukharin and the Ambiguity of History" is the primary engagement (~50 pages of close reading of the Court Proceedings). Key citations: Bukharin's "as one of the leaders, not as a cog" at Court Proceedings p. 370 (anchored in H&T Ch. II); the "logic of the struggle" passage at Court Proceedings p. 380; the müssen/sollen exchange at Court Proceedings pp. 95–96; the "unhappy mind" passage at Court Proceedings p. 776; Bukharin's denial of being broken (rejection of Tibetan-powders / Dostoyevsky-soul / hypnotism explanations) at Court Proceedings p. 777.
  • merleau-ponty-2022-inedits-ii-1947-1949 — Mexico II "Antinomie de la vie collective" (March 1949) and NY "Pensée politique" (March 1949) develop the contrast between 1938 Bukharin and 1949 Mindszenty as the cardinal case of changement de quantité en qualité.
  • Report of Court Proceedings, Heard before the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the U.S.S.R., Moscow, March 2-13, 1938 (People's Commissariat of Justice of the U.S.S.R., 1938) — the verbatim transcript MP reads. Cited extensively throughout H&T Ch. II.
  • (Secondary; not directly cited in H&T) Stephen F. Cohen, Bukharin and the Bolshevik Revolution: A Political Biography, 1888–1938 (1973) — the standard biographical-political treatment.