This classic biography carefully traces Bukharin's rise to and fall from power, focusing particularly on the development of his theories and programmatic ideas during the critical period between Lenin's death in 1924 and the ascendancy of Stalin in 1929.

"The only significant book on the earlier Soviet experience not trapped in simplistic Cold War categories. Crucial for advanced undergraduates."--Arthur Williamson, California State University at Sacramento "This magnificent book will come to be regarded by those whose opinions are worth listening to as one of the two or three really outstanding studies in the history of the Soviet Union of the past 25 years."--Leonard Schapiro, The New York Review of Books "The best book on the USSR to be published for many years."--Alec Nove, Soviet Studies "Cohen has not only written the most significant of the recent biographies of early Soviet leaders, but he has also posed questions about Soviet history which will be central in the discussion in coming years, perhaps decades."--The Russian Review "Bukharin has at last found full-length vindication in Professor Cohen's distinguished biography, undoubtedly one of the most important books on Soviet politics to appear in recent years."--Political Science Quarterly