The Rehabilitation of N.I. Bukharin

Science in the Soviet Union, which inherited the Academy of Sciences founded by Peter the Great, is a difficult subject of study. Many war memorials in the Soviet Union carry the proud words, "Nobody forgets; nobody is forgotten." That is, nobody forgets those-who died in defense of the ideals of communism and the territory of the U.S.S.R. But, in light of others who perished, it might be added "Nobody remembers; those who do remember do not say."A number of major, but inconvenient, figures have simply dropped out of the history of the Soviet Union. This is a pity, because some of them have had interesting ideas about science, particularly the ways in which science could be applied to forwarding the aims of society. One of these non-persons is N.I. Bukharim, who at one time might have become Lenin’s heir. Bukharin, in fact, might be claimed as one of the founders of what is now called science policy. In 1917 Bukharin was in exile in New York, editing an emigré journal, Novoe Vremya, and speaking around the country, but he returned at once to Russia to help run the revolution. He was one of the greatest planners and theorists of the Soviet Revolution, a fervent believer in the power of science. An amateur politician and a professional revolutionary, Bukharin was one of the agents in the professionalization of science in the Soviet Union. He remained a leading figure in politics until 1929 when he was expelled from the Plitburo because he opposed forced industrialization and collectivization. As director of industrial research in the early 1930s he devoted himself to setting up a chain of educational institutes across the country. He was chief editor of the first edition of the Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1926). His biography appeared in that edition, but later editions omit any mention of him. Like Leon Trotsky, the arch-fiend in the Soviet pantheon who met a similar fate— Bukharin had a number of admirable ideas about Soviet science. Atomic energy had long fascinated the Russians, and about 1930 Bukharin offered the entire electricity supply of Leningrad for a day to George Gamow if he could use it for an experiment in nuclear fusion. Like some progressive American companies, Bukharin proposed that scientists should have the right to spend part of their working hours pursuing their own research—a program similar to the private plots of collective farmers, which now produce a disproprortinately large share of Soviet foodstuffs. His idea was ignored. In 1931 Bukharin led a delegation of scientists to the Second International Congress of the History of Science and Technology in London. He had just come from the first All-Union Congress on the Planning of Science, and his views were of great interest to those scientists who thought that things in Britain, then enduring the Depression, could be better organized. Even at that time the British Home Office was reading all telegrams, and so learned immediately the perceptive comments of the Izvestia correspondent reporting back to his newspaper: “ possibly scientific congress become historic in sense that it involuntarily provided tremendous impetus, study dialectical materialism especially England among growing generation scientific workers” (July 5, 1931). With the rise-of Stalin, Bukharin’s fortunes fell, and in the Great Terror that began in 1936 he was finally arrested, tried as a Western agent, and executed at the last of the spectacular public show trials. Bukharin made a heroic defense and did not confess to any crimes until pressure was put on him through his wife and son. Bukharin’s ideas about science policy, although officially banned, did eventually filter back to the Soviet Union through the work of J.D. Bernal, a crystallographer and a leader in the revolution of molecular biology, and J.G. Crowther, the inventor of the profession of science journalist, who had shown Bukharin around London during the 1931 conference. Bernal’s book The Social Function of Science (1939), although never translated into Russian, considerably influenced later Russian thought about science planning. His later book, Science in History (1954) was much discussed at a special meeting in 1957 of the Institute for the History of Science and Technology of the Academy of Sciences attended by 400 scientists. Of course, the names of Bukharin, Trotsky and others could not be mentioned. October 9, 1988 marks the centenary of Nikolai Bukharin’s birth, and March 14 was the 50th anniversary of his execution. In 1962, during the Khrushchev thaw, Bukharim was nearly rehabilitated, and it was admitted that he was not a foreign agent. In 1977 his widow and son tried again, but were rejected by the Soviet government. Today, discussion of Bukharin is increasing, and Gorbachev may well act when his immediate problems are resolved. The prospects are looking better that this prophet will be honored in his own country. Machay is with the department of crystallography, Birkbeck College, University of London, Malet St., London WC1E 7HX, and is an editorial consultant to THE SCIENTIST.

The Rehabilitation of N.I. Bukharin

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Alan Mackay

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May 1988

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