Is Gorbachev a Bukharinist? Moscow's reappraisal of the NEP period

Abstract

A reappraisal of the historical role of Bukharin is under way in the Soviet Union. The reopening of Soviet history that this involves constitutes an attempt by the reforming Soviet leadership to show that Stalin's revolution from above was not the only course acceptable as socialist, and indeed certain theorists now believe Bukharin to have been right and Stalin wrong in the ‘great debate’ of the 1920s. Less noted in the West is the international dimension of this reappraisal of Bukharin. The latter's view that fascism and not social democracy was the chief danger at the time of the Comintern's sixth congress in 1928 has a clear relevance to the European policies of the Gorbachev leadership. On both the internal and the international levels, Bukharin's views are not merely to be tolerated: they actually support the internal perestroika and the international ‘new thinking’.