Both the Russian and Western press now recognize the importance of Nikolai Ivanovich Bukharin as a Soviet historical figure. Fifty years after his execution in Stalinist Russia, Bukharin has been rehabilated by the Communist Party and invoked as the intellectual antecedent of Gorbachev. Challenging this view, contributors to this volume reevaluate the intellectual and political legacy of this Bolshevik revolutionary. They cover aspects of his thoughts and activities previously left unexplored or misinterpreted. They conclude that Bukharin's legacy is easily distorted when he is torn from his own political and historical context and appropriated for contemporary political movements.

Contributors to this Centenary Appraisal reexamine issues central to Bukharin's intellectual and political legacy: the social, economic, and political forms needed for transition from capitalism to socialism; the nature of the modern capitalist state; and the meaning of imperialism as a stage in the development of capitalist world economy. Also covered are his activities in the Communist International and his work in the history, philosophy, and politics of science.