Nikolai Bukharin
Nikolai Bukharin is a Soviet politician and theorist within The Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
Early life and 1917 Revolution:
Nikolai Bukharin was born on 9 October 1888 in Moscow. By 1906, he joined the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party aligning with the Bolshevik faction. From there he was able to build connections, travelling the world and rose there in the party ranks, meeting figures like Vladimir Lenin and Leon Trotsky.
By the time of the October Revolution, Nikolai was considered a Bolshevik leader in Moscow and deeply opposed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. Despite, this, he praised Lenin leadership for their early victory in the Civil War and the Polish-Soviet War. However, the violence he witnessed in the collapse of the war, shifted him towards more gradual approaches and away toward's permeant revolution including hardliner methods like advocated by Joseph Stalin and Leon Trotsky.
By late 1919, he came a member of the executive committee as an opponent of Lenin's War Communism, believing it to be ineffective, causing them to lag behind technologically and industrially.
The NEP Plan:
By 1920, Nikolai created and tried to push 'The NEP Plan' to replace 'War Communism' which would allow peasants to sell surplus crops on the open market and allow small private businesses in retail and light industry while State still controlled large industries, banks, and foreign trade. This plan was criticized by all figures within the Party, labelling him and his supporters as the 'right opposition'.
By 1923, Nikolai and supporters continue to try to influence Lenin to change course, but to no effect, If he takes control he will tone down the extreme element's of Lenin's policy's.
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