Editing Nikolai Bukharin (section)

== From 1917 to 1923 ==
[[File:Троцкий на II конгрессе Коминтерна 1920.jpg|thumb|left|300px|Delegates of the [[2nd World Congress of the Comintern]] in 1920]]
{{Imperialism Studies sidebar|People}}
At the news of the [[February Revolution|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.<ref>Isaac Deutscher, ''The Prophet Armed: Trotsky 1879–1921'' (Vintage Books: New York, 1965) p. 246.</ref> Bukharin left New York in early April and returned to Russia by way of Japan (where he was temporarily detained by local police), arriving in Moscow in early May 1917.{{sfn|Cohen|1980|p=44}} Politically, the Bolsheviks in Moscow were a minority in relation to the Mensheviks and the [[Socialist Revolutionary Party|Socialist Revolutionaries]]. As more people began to be attracted to  Lenin's promise to bring peace by withdrawing from the Great War, {{Citation needed|date=March 2017}} membership in the Bolshevik faction began to increase dramatically – from 24,000 members in February 1917 to 200,000 members in October 1917.{{sfn|Cohen|1980|p=46}} Upon his return to Moscow, Bukharin resumed his seat on the Moscow City Committee and also became a member of the Moscow Regional Bureau of the party.{{sfn|Cohen|1980|p=49}}

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 (politician)|Vladimir Smirnov]], [[Valerian Osinsky]], [[Georgy Oppokov|Georgii Lomov]], Nikolay Yakovlev, Ivan Kizelshtein and Ivan Stukov, were members of the Moscow Regional Bureau.{{sfn|Cohen|1980|p=50}}  On 10 October 1917, Bukharin was elected to the [[Central Committee of the CPSU|Central Committee]], along with two other Moscow Bolsheviks: [[Andrei Bubnov]] and [[Grigori Sokolnikov]].<ref>Leonard Shapiro, ''The Communist Party of the Soviet Union'' (Vintage Books: New York, 1971) pp. 175 and 647.</ref> 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 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.{{sfn|Cohen|1980|p=50}}

[[File:Voroshilov Budyonny Frunze Bukharin.jpg|thumb|left|300px|[[Kliment Voroshilov]], [[Semyon Budyonny]], [[Mikhail Frunze]] and Nikolai Bukharin in [[Novomoskovsk, Ukraine|Novomoskovsk]] 1921 with the [[1st Cavalry Army]] (Konarmia)]]

While no one dominated revolutionary politics in Moscow during the [[October Revolution]] as Trotsky did in St. Petersburg, Bukharin certainly was the most prominent leader in Moscow.{{sfn|Cohen|1980|p=51}} 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.{{sfn|Cohen|1980|p=53}} Following the October Revolution, Bukharin became the editor of the party's newspaper, ''[[Pravda]]''.{{sfn|Cohen|1980|pp=43–44}}

Bukharin believed passionately in 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.<ref name="Ulam410ff">{{cite book |title=The Bolsheviks: The Intellectual and Political History of the Triumph of Communism in Russia |last=Ulam |first=Adam Bruno |author-link=Adam Bruno Ulam |year=1998 |publisher=Harvard University Press |location=Cambridge, Massachusetts |isbn=0-674-07830-6 |pages=410–412 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=TdCK1WkconkC&q=Bukharin&pg=PA412 |access-date=26 January 2011 }}</ref> Even as he was uncompromising toward Russia's battlefield enemies, he also rejected any fraternization with the capitalist [[Allies of World War I|Allied powers]]: he reportedly wept when he learned of official negotiations for assistance.<ref name="Ulam410ff" />
Bukharin emerged as the leader of the [[Left Bolsheviks|Left Communists]] in bitter opposition to Lenin's decision to sign the [[Treaty of Brest-Litovsk (Russia–Central Powers)|Treaty of Brest-Litovsk]].<ref>Rabinowitch, Alexander (2007). ''The Bolsheviks in power: the first year of Soviet rule in Petrograd''. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, pp. 167, 174–175, 194 and ''passim''. {{ISBN|978-0-253-34943-9}}. At the crucial meeting of the [[All-Russian Central Executive Committee|CEC]] convened at 3:00&nbsp;am, on 24 February 1918, few hours before the German ultimatum was due to expire, Bukharin had the courage to break ranks and voted against accepting the treaty, while many other Left Communists either observed party discipline ([[V. Volodarsky]] and [[Stanislav Kosior]], for instance) or were simply "no shows" ([[Felix Dzerzhinsky|Dzerzhinsky]], [[Alexandra Kollontai|Kollontai]], [[Moisei Uritsky|Uritsky]], etc.) (p. 178).</ref> In this wartime power struggle, Lenin's arrest had been seriously discussed by them and [[Left Socialist-Revolutionaries|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".<ref name=":0" />

After 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 of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union|Politburo]]. During the [[Russian Civil War|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 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, 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.