Bukharin-Kamenev Meeting, 1928

Various euphemisms have attached to the events in the Soviet Union that began in early 1928 and culminated in the frenzy of Stalin’s revolution from above at the end of 1929. Some of these characterizations are scholarly; others, frankly political. All obscure the real significance of 1928-29 as a turning point in modern history, and the difficulty of explaining it.

Western historians sometimes speak, for example, of 1928-29 as the onset of “fullblown totalitarianism,” suggesting a continuous, ineluctable, and thus easily understood outcome. Recent scholarship points, however, to the presence of alternatives. Soviet and Western writers alike speak of a first “five-year plan” in the economy, implying a...