Right-Wing Restorers Of Capitalism - Collection Of Articles
This is a publication of STC — SPC — DD(CP).
October 2026.
Source: ПРАВЫЕ РЕСТАВРАТОРЫ КАПИТАЛИЗМА (СБОРНИК СТАТЕЙ), Издание второе, исправленное, 1937
This collection contains several articles on the anti-party and anti-Soviet activities of the right-wing restorers of capitalism — Bukharin, Rykov, and others who, just like the Trotskyites, turned into a gang of wreckers, murderers, saboteurs, spies, agents of fascist intelligence services.
Partizdat CC AUCP(b)
"Now, I think, it is clear to everyone that the present wreckers and saboteurs, no matter what flag they mask themselves under —Trotskyite or Bukharinite—have long since ceased to be a political current in the working-class movement, that they have turned into an unprincipled and ideologically bankrupt gang of professional wreckers, saboteurs, spies, and murderers. It is clear that these gentry will have to be smashed and uprooted mercilessly, as enemies of the working class, as traitors to our Motherland."STALIN
P. Pospelov
The Struggle Of Bukharin And Rykov Against Lenin And The Party
Bl. Sorin
The Struggle Of Bukharin And Rykov Against The Party Of Lenin — Stalin
Em. Yaroslavsky
The Struggle Of Bukharin And Rykov Against The Party
B. Ponomarev
The Path Of The Bukharinite Grouping From Opposition To Counter-Revolution
M. Moskalev
From A Political Current — To An Unmasked Gang Of Enemies Of The People (Historical Reference)
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Source PDF- www.directdemocracy4you.uk
P. Pospelov
THE STRUGGLE OF BUKHARIN AND RYKOV AGAINST LENIN AND THE PARTY 1
I
Even before the revolution, Bukharin opposed Lenin on the question of the dictatorship of the proletariat with his own special line, which signified a break with Marxism. In 1916, an article by Bukharin (signed Nota Bene) appeared in the journal Jugend-Internationale ("Youth International"), directed against Lenin. In this article, Bukharin put forward a semi-anarchist view that socialists should adopt a principled hostile attitude toward any state. "For Social Democracy, which either is or at the very least must be an educational mass, it is now more than ever necessary to emphasize its principled hostility to the state," wrote Bukharin. Emphasizing his principled hostility to the state in general, Bukharin thus slipped into a denial of the dictatorship of the proletariat. He propagated the anarchist theory of the "abolition," the "blowing up" of the state instead of Lenin's theory of "smashing" the bourgeois state machine.
Criticizing Bukharin's semi-anarchist views, Lenin wrote:
"What distinguishes us from the anarchists is (a) the use of the state now and (β) during the proletarian revolution ("the dictatorship of the proletariat")—points of the utmost practical importance right now. (Bukharin has forgotten them!)"2
Lenin pointed out that Bukharin "...instead of exposing Kautskyism, helped them with his mistakes!!"3
Throughout our party's history, Bukharin confused things politically and theoretically. Here is what Lenin wrote about him back in 1916:
"...he (1) is gullible to gossip and (2) politically diabolically unstable.
The war pushed him toward semi-anarchist ideas. At the conference which passed the Bern resolutions (spring 1915), he gave out theses (I have them!) — the height of absurdity; disgrace; semi-anarchism."4
In 1925, Bukharin published in the collection Revolution of Law the article "Toward the Theory of the Imperialist State." This article had been rejected in its time by Lenin for publication in the Collection of the Social Democrat. Bukharin deemed it possible to crawl into print a year after Lenin's death with an article rejected by the great teacher’s party with this article. Moreover, he made a blasphemous footnote to the article, in which he asserted that in the dispute over the state he, Bukharin, was right, and Lenin was not.
The period of the Brest-Litovsk Peace (February — March 1918), when the young, unfortified, unarmed Soviet republic clashed with heavily armed German imperialism, was one of the most difficult moments of the proletarian revolution. The Brest Peace was a brilliant maneuver by Lenin, which made it possible to gain a breathing spell to strengthen the armed forces of the revolution. Bukharin and Pyatakov, heading the faction of the so-called "left communists," sought to disrupt this Leninist maneuver. They played an essentially treacherous role, pushing the Soviet power toward ruin under the pretext of "revolutionary war," which was hopeless under those conditions. They put forward truly monstrous, provocative resolutions, which spoke of "expediency"... of going along with the loss of Soviet power!
That is literally how it was recorded in the resolution of the Moscow Regional Bureau of February 24, 1918:
"In the interests of the international revolution, we consider it expedient to go along with the possibility of the loss of Soviet power, which is becoming for now purely formal."
By their adventurist policy, the "left communists" made it easier for imperialism to accomplish its task—to strangle the young Soviet republic. Lenin directly pointed out that by their struggle against concluding peace, the "left communists" "...thereby helped German imperialists and hindered the growth and development of the revolution in Germany."5
The struggle of the "left communists" against Lenin reached such ferocity that the Left SRs held negotiations with Bukharin and Pyatakov on a direct conspiracy with the aim of arresting Lenin and forming a government from the "left communists" and Left SRs. The counter-revolutionary conspirators wanted to make Pyatakov Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars instead of Lenin. The fact of these criminal negotiations with the Left SRs was acknowledged by Bukharin himself in 1924 (see Pravda of January 3, 1924).
The "left communists" waged their struggle against the party and Lenin, in fact, forming a bloc with Trotsky, who was also criminally wrecking the cause of peace. Among the "left communists" there were not a few people who later opposed the party as Trotskyites (Pyatakov, Radek, Preobrazhensky, and others). The "left communists" waged a fierce, unceasing struggle against the party not only on the question of concluding the Brest Peace. They also opposed the strengthening of the dictatorship of the proletariat, against the first steps of socialist construction that the party was making under Lenin's leadership after the conclusion of peace.
The "left communists" were characterized by Lenin as "frenzied petty bourgeois." The social nature of petty owners, hostile to proletarian discipline, was clearly manifested in the speeches of Bukharin and other "lefts" against Lenin on questions of the organization of the socialist economy, labor discipline, one-man management, piece-rate wages, accounting and control, etc.
During the VII and VIII Party Congresses, Bukharin spoke against the party and against Lenin on such a most important issue as the party program.
What was the essence of the dispute over the party program? Bukharin proposed to throw out of the program the analysis of commodity production, crises, and replace it with an analysis of "pure imperialism." Bukharin believed that the fundamental contradictions of the capitalist system (competition, crises) in the epoch of imperialism within the framework of individual capitalist countries are "smoothed out." In such a formulation were laid the foundations of the right-opportunistic theory of "organized capitalism." As early as 1917, in a discussion on the party program, Bukharin wrote the following:
"The former fragmented and unorganized capitalism is replaced by organized capitalism" (journal Spartak No. 2, p. 6).
Further, Bukharin directly capitulated to the Menshevik thesis that the new type of capitalist relations in the epoch of imperialism eliminates the contradictions of capitalist society within the framework of a single country.
In the article "The Ruin of Capitalism," Bukharin poses the question: "Does this new type of capitalist relations eliminate the contradictions of capitalist society? Does it eliminate above all the anarchy of the modern mode of production?" And, unblushingly, he answers: "If one limits oneself only to the framework of state organization, i.e., to the framework of the capitalist fatherland, then one can answer this question in the affirmative" (journal Spartak No. 10, p. 6).
Objecting to Bukharin's theory of "pure imperialism," Lenin said at the VIII Party Congress:
"Pure imperialism without the basic foundation of capitalism has never existed, does not exist anywhere and never will exist. This is an incorrect generalization of everything that was said about syndicates, cartels, trusts, finance capital, when finance capital was depicted as if there were no foundations of the old capitalism beneath it. If a program is written like Comrade Bukharin wants, such a program will be incorrect"6.
From Bukharin's anti-Leninist theory of "pure imperialism," which Bukharin stubbornly defended, grew Bukharin's right- opportunistic theory of "organized capitalism," which brought him close to the Menshevik II International.
Bukharin opposed Lenin during the discussion of the program and on the question of the growth of capitalist elements out of small peasant farming.
In his stubborn denial of the danger of the growth of capitalist elements from small-owner peasant farming, one can trace the roots of Bukharin's right-opportunistic theory of the "peaceful growing of the kulak into socialism," his denial of the necessity of the socialist transformation of the peasantry.
It should be noted that during the discussion of the program at the VII Party Congress, Bukharin proposed to proclaim the immediate withering away of the proletarian state. This proposal was connected with his mistakes during the period of the war, when he opposed the dictatorship of the proletariat.
Objecting to Bukharin, Lenin said:
"To prematurely proclaim the withering away of the state will be a violation of historical perspective"7.
During the discussion of the program at the VIII Party Congress, Bukharin spoke against Lenin on the national question.
Lenin and Stalin developed the programmatic views of the Bolsheviks on the national question as part of the theory of the proletarian revolution. Without the Lenin-Stalin national policy, the victory of the Great Proletarian Revolution, the victory of socialism in the USSR, would have been impossible.
Bukharin and Pyatakov, even during the war years, opposed Lenin, denying the significance of the national question in the epoch of imperialism. Thereby, they in practice doomed the proletarian revolution to isolation and defeat, repelling reserves, the revolutionary possibilities of the national- liberation movement of oppressed nations. The views of Bukharin and Pyatakov were called a " caricature of Marxism " by Lenin
At the VIII Party Congress, Bukharin stated that the Bolshevik slogan of the right of nations to self-determination allegedly contradicts the principles of the proletarian dictatorship.
In 1921, Bukharin once again opposed Lenin in the discussion on trade unions. It is known that this discussion, started by Trotsky, did immense harm, creating a party crisis in the most difficult conditions of early 1921. Bukharin initially assumed the role of a "buffer" in the discussion, but in reality acted solely against Lenin, as an ally of Trotsky. Bukharin treacherously fanned the discussion, pouring into it, in Lenin's expression, "buffer kerosene."
In Bukharin's theses, anarchist-syndicalist vacillations once again manifested themselves. Long differing from Lenin on the question of the dictatorship of the proletariat, in the trade union discussion Bukharin began to deny the leading role of the party in relation to economic organizations. He proposed that the trade unions appoint so-called "compulsory candidates" to the corresponding economic main committees, without the approval of these candidates by the party. Bukharin denied the leading role of the Communist Party among non-party workers, the prolonged work of enlightening and educating the working masses ("school of communism").
Regarding Bukharin's position, Lenin wrote:
"...the peak of ideological decay is the theses of Bukharin & Co...
This is a complete break with communism and a transition to the position of syndicalism"8.
Lenin warned Bukharin that the objective logic of factional struggle against the party and stubborn persistence in his deviations from communism could lead him very far.
"The further... Bukharin defends his clearly incorrect theoretical and deceitful political deviation from communism, the sadder will be the fruits of stubbornness"9.
In 1920, Lenin harshly criticized in his remarks Bukharin's book The Economics of the Transition Period, uncovering in it the absence of a Marxist, dialectical approach, Bogdanovian scholasticism in Bukharin.
Shortly before his death, Lenin made another warning to Bukharin. "...His theoretical views," wrote Lenin about Bukharin, "can be attributed with very great doubt to entirely Marxist ones, because there is something scholastic in him (he never studied and, I think, never fully understood dialectics)."
But Bukharin did not heed these warnings of Lenin. His old deviations from Marxism, from communism, served as the basis for the ideology of the right kulak deviation.
Another leader of the right deviation — Rykov — also more than once waged a struggle against Lenin and the party. In the years of reaction, Rykov held a conciliatory position toward all anti-party groups — toward the liquidators, Trotskyites, and otzovists. Rykov, together with Kamenev, Zinoviev, Tomsky, and others, hindered Lenin in fighting these anti-party groups, together with other conciliators betrayed Lenin.
At the April Conference of 1917, Rykov, together with Kamenev, opposed Lenin's April Theses, against the party's line on the growing over of the bourgeois-democratic revolution into a socialist one. Rykov openly stated that in Russia a socialist revolution is impossible. "Where will the sun of the socialist coup rise?" Rykov asked. "I think," he said, "that according to all conditions, the philistine level, the initiative of the socialist coup does not belong to us. We do not have the forces, the objective conditions for this"10.
At the April Conference, Lenin characterized Rykov's views as a "break with Marxism," as a "parody of Marxism."
Rykov waged a struggle against Lenin and the party during the October Uprising; he was against the October Revolution.
After the October Revolution, Rykov, together with Kamenev and Zinoviev, sought to transfer the dictatorship of the proletariat to the rails of bourgeois democracy. These people, the brakes on the revolutionary work, presented an ultimatum to the party — to include Mensheviks and Right SRs in the government, to demand the renunciation of the socialist revolution. The Party Central Committee in a resolution of November 15 (2), 1917, written by Lenin, condemned his criminal vacillations and emphasized that "the opposition that has arisen within the CC completely departs from all the fundamental positions of Bolshevism and the proletarian class struggle in general, repeating deeply non-Marxist cliches about the impossibility of a socialist revolution in Russia"11. On November 17 (4), 1917, Rykov submitted a statement of resignation from the CC and from the government, from the post of People's Commissar of Internal Affairs. Lenin branded this shameful act of Rykov as desertion and strike-breaking.
1- Pravda No. 71, March 13, 1937.
2- Lenin Collection XIV, p. 257.
3- Ibid., p. 259.
4- Lenin, vol. XXIX, pp. 229–230.
5- Lenin, A Serious Lesson and Serious Responsibility, Works, vol. XXII, p. 307.
6- Lenin, VIII Congress of the RCP(b), Works, vol. XXIV, pp. 131–132.
7- Lenin, Seventh Congress of the RCP(b), Works, vol. XXII, p. 365.
8- Lenin, Party Crisis, Works, vol. XXVI, p. 92.
9- Lenin, Once More on the Trade Unions, Works, vol. XXVI, p. 145.
10 - Protocols of the Seventh (April) Conference of the RSDLP(b), p. 93, Partizdat, 1934. Underlined by us. — P. P.
11- Lenin, Resolutions of the CC of the RSDLP(b), Works, vol. XXX, p. 360. Underlined by us. P. P.
II
Bukharin did not learn lessons from the warnings of Lenin, who repeatedly harshly criticized Bukharin's deviations from Marxism. After Lenin's death, Bukharin organized an anti- party "school," which he "educated" in opposition to himself, Bukharin, and Lenin. As it turns out now from the confessions of some participants of this "school," Bukharin directly stated to these people that in disputes with Lenin, he, Bukharin, was right, and Lenin was mistaken; that Lenin could defeat Bukharin only because the latter had no cadres of his own.
What kind of "cadres" did Bukharin begin to group around himself? Among these people, considered "youth," a significant part, before joining our party, managed to visit the Cadets, SRs, etc. These people never had anything in common with the working class, were organically alien to all the traditions of Bolshevism.
Bukharin literally corrupted his "rotten cadres," flattered them, and instilled in them that they, you see, should play a leading role in the party as "theoreticians."
In turn, the "disciples" deified Bukharin — this muddlehead, eclectic, who repeatedly broke completely with Marxism. The reflection of such moods was also the anti-party article by Maretsky, asserting that Bukharin was supposedly right in the dispute with Lenin over the state.
In this corrupted milieu of Slepkovs, Maretskys, Kuzminases, for a number of years the ideology of the right deviation was cultivated, the basis of which was Bukharin's old anti-Leninist mistakes on such root questions as the dictatorship of the proletariat.
Even in that period when Bukharin was fighting together with the party against the Trotskyites and Zinovievites, he had his own special line on a number of issues. In essence, he fought against the Trotskyites from his own special positions. Such was the case with the slogan "Enrich yourselves," condemned by the party, and with the theory of "growing into" capitalism into socialism. Bukharin spoke at the XIV Party Congress that we would supposedly "crawl to socialism at a turtle's pace."
With the transition to the reconstruction period, the class struggle in the country sharpens, the resistance of capitalist elements to the socialist offensive intensifies. The wrecking activities of bourgeois specialists connected with the capitalist environment are uncovered (the Shakhty affair). The kulak element actively resists the implementation of grain procurements.
It is precisely in this period that the right opportunists take shape as an anti-party faction and wage fierce attacks on the party.
In the period of the July (1928) Plenum of the CC, the Rights took shape as a finished anti-party faction with its center consisting of Bukharin, Rykov, and Tomsky.
Under the leadership of this center, fractional activity of the rights in the Moscow organization unfolded. A handful of right opportunists (Uglanov, Kotov, Kulikov, Ryutin, and others), later trying furiously to raise regional party organizations
against the party, was smashed. Tomsky develops vile anti- party activity among the bureaucratic elements of the trade union apparatus, cultivating enemies of the party and the people from them.
In the autumn of 1928, Bukharin speaks in the press with "Notes of an Economist," directed at disrupting the industrialization policy pursued by the party.
In the conditions of the reconstruction period, when the "last and decisive battle" with internal capitalism, growing out of small peasant farming, was underway, when the roots of capitalism were being eradicated, when the class struggle in the country sharpened, the Rights became active and appeared as a direct agency of the kulak. The right elements in the party acted in unison with such counter-revolutionary ideologues of the kulak as Kondratiev, Chayanov, and others. The Rights were sympathized with by wreckers from the "Promparty" (Ramzin and others).
The line of the Rights on preserving the backwardness of our country, on rejecting collectivization, on preserving the kulak, on rejecting the policy of industrialization led to the strengthening of capitalist elements, to the restoration of capitalism. The policy of the Rights literally drove the party into a trap, threatening the greatest dangers both from the standpoint of internal politics and international.
If the line of the right deviation, the line of preserving the backwardness of our country, had won in the party, we would undoubtedly have been threatened by China's fate. The Soviet Union would have become easy prey for imperialist plunderers, the prey of fascism. But the Lenin-Stalin party smashed the right deviation. Under the leadership of Comrade Stalin, our party has transformed from a backward into an advanced industrial power, a living, impregnable fortress of socialism, which is not afraid of any attacks of enemies.
A most important role in the rout of the right deviation was played by the April (1929) Plenum of the AUCP(b). At the beginning of 1929, fractional negotiations of Bukharin with the Trotskyites, which took place in July 1928, were uncovered.
When examining this issue, the leaders of the rights came out with a vile fractional "declaration," full of unheard-of, slanderous attacks against the party, taken from the arsenal of the Cadet leader Milyukov.
At the April Plenum of the CC, the rights again came out with their platform directed against socialist construction.
Countering the five-year plan, Rykov put forward an opportunistic "two-year plan" with the aim of discrediting and disrupting the implementation of the five-year plan, disrupting allocations for the cause of industrialization.
The Rights opposed new production forms of the bond with the village, proposed completely unleashing market spontaneity under the guise of "normalizing the market," and proposed giving full freedom to the development of the kulak in the countryside and private traders in the city.
Comrade Stalin's speech "On the Right Deviation in the AUCP(b)," delivered at the April Plenum, was of immense significance. It completed the ideological rout of the right deviation, the anti-Leninist character of the system of views of the right opportunists.
Bukharin's complete break with Marxist-Leninist class struggle theory was the basis of the views of the right deviation.
"The liquidation of classes through fierce class struggle of the proletariat — such is Lenin's formula.
The liquidation of classes through the dying out of class struggle and the transformation of capitalists into socialism — such is the formula of Comrade Bukharin...
Here is the basis of all the mistakes of Comrade Bukharin and his friends," pointed out Comrade Stalin12.
Comrade Stalin showed that the political essence of the Bukharinite group boils down to the decomposition of socialist construction, to the surrender of positions to capitalist elements, i.e., the betrayal of the revolution.
"Does Comrade Bukharin's group understand that to abandon the struggle against the right deviation means to betray the working class, to betray the revolution?" — thus Comrade Stalin ended his speech on the right deviation13.
The Plenum of the CC in a special resolution condemned the right-opportunistic, fractional activity of Bukharin, Rykov, Tomsky and warned them where this anti-party line is leading.
The XVI Party Congress, in its decision on the report of the CC AUCP(b), pointed out that "the implementation of the line of the right deviationists, who are objectively the agency of the kulak, meant the disruption of the construction of socialism and the restoration of capitalism in our country." The Congress declared the views of the right opposition incompatible with membership in the AUCP(b).
12 Stalin, Questions of Leninism, p. 254, 10th ed.
13 Ibid., p. 287.
III
For a long time, right up to the very last time, the CC AUCP(b) gave the Rights an opportunity to correct and redeem their sins before the party. The leaders of the rights, unlike the Trotskyites, were not expelled from the party, since they declared their abandonment of their anti-Leninist, anti-party views. However, after the formal recognition of their mistakes in 1929–1930, the rights began to employ a system of two- facedness, the most base deception of the party, and passed over to anti-Soviet views, methods, and techniques of struggle.
A characteristic document of this final stage in the development of the right deviation is the counter-revolutionary platform of the so-called Ryutin-Slepkov group. This group of Bukharinites was closely connected with the Trotskyites and Zinovievites, including Kamenev and Zinoviev, and directly set in its platform the task of the restoration of capitalism in the USSR. As it now turns out, this platform was approved by the leaders of the Rights. In the decision of the Presidium of the CCC AUCP(b) of October 9, 1932, it was indicated that this group of enemies of communism and Soviet power, traitors to the party and the working class, created through underground means a "bourgeois, kulak organization for the restoration of capitalism in the USSR, and in particular, the kulak system"14.
In July 1928, Bukharin conducts treacherous, dishonorable negotiations with Kamenev on a bloc with the Trotskyites. In 1932, in the case of the so-called Ryutin-Slepkov group, headed, as later transpired, by the leaders of the right deviation, a connection of the Rights with the bitterest enemies of the people — the Trotskyites, with Kamenev and Zinoviev — is established. In 1936 and 1937, participants of the united Trotskyite-Zinovievites anti-Soviet center and participants of the Trotskyite-fascist "parallel" anti-Soviet center stated in court about their counter-revolutionary connections and negotiations with the Rights. The defendants claimed that the Right was aware of the transition of the Trotskyite- Zinovievite fascist band of mercenaries of capital to methods of terror, espionage, sabotage, wrecking, and that the Right shared the traitorous platform of the restoration of capitalism.
Thus stretches the shameful chain of gravest, most vile treasons of the right two-facers and traitors, the chain of their "blocs" with the bitterest enemies of the people — the Trotskyites and Zinovievites.
Trotsky long ago ceased to be a political current in the ranks of the working class. In its time, this Menshevik current had certain roots in our country's economy in connection with the presence of capitalist elements. Now the roots of Trotskyism are not in our country, but in the capitalist environment, and Trotsky himself, as a political current, turned into an unmasked, predatory gang of mercenaries of fascism, into a gang of bloody murderers, wreckers, spies, saboteurs, who do not dare to speak openly about their program even to their closest confidants.
As for the rights, they too have ceased to be a political current, and have also turned into an unmasked gang of enemies of the people, irreconcilably hostile to Marxism-Leninism, ready for any and all crimes against our homeland.
For the rights as well, there are no longer any roots in our economy today, for the capitalist elements that nourished them, primarily the kulak, have been liquidated. Those remnants of capitalist elements in our country that still exist and are supported are galvanized by the capitalist environment, nourish and will continue to nourish the rights and Trotskyites as a political current, but as a gang of fascist scoundrels.
This evolution of Trotskyism and the rights from a political current to a gang of criminals, to a gang of mercenaries of international capital must be firmly grasped, in order to be able to recognize the enemy and beat him in time.
14 AUCP(b) in Resolutions, part II, p. 669, Partizdat, 1936. Underlined by name. — P. P.
