In hmolscience, Nikolai Bukharin (1888-1938) was Russian politician and scholar noted for his 1926 Historical Materialism: a System of Sociology, wherein he expands upon Karl Marx’s theory of historical materialism. [1]
Bukharin, supposedly, saw equilibrium in social systems as resulting from the interchange of energy among its parts. (Ѻ)
Bukharin’s quotes on physics and chemistry seem to given indication that he is anti-reductionist, siding with argument to the effect that “the law of cause and effect in social science must be a social law” and that “analogy with physical organisms” is useless. (Ѻ)
Bukharin, according to American political economist Kenneth Stokes (1994), is classified as one of the ‘heretical philosophers of social energetics’, along with: Wilhelm Ostwald, Leon Winiarski, Alexander Bogdanov, Eduard Sacher, Felix Auerbach, Rudolf Clausius, Patrick Geddes, Leopold Pflaunder, Georg Helm, Thomas Carver, Frederick Ackerman (Technocracy), Fred Henderson (The Economic Consequences of Power Production, 1923), Alfred Lotka, and Frederick Soddy. [2]
Reaction end
In 1938, Bukharin, a former friend and or intellectual idol of Joseph Stalin, was found guilty of counter-revolutionary activities and espionage. He was shot on 14 March 1938, along with 17 other "traitors". Stalin had assured Bukharin that the decision to execute him was "nothing against you personally". In his death letter to Stalin, Bukharin stated "I am not a Christian, but I do have my quirks." (Ѻ)
References
1. Bukharin, Nikolai. (1926). Historical Materialism: a System of Sociology. Routledge, 2013.
2. Stokes, Kenneth M. (1994). Man and Biosphere: Toward a Coevolutionary Political Economy (pg. 90-91). M.E. Sharpe.
Further reading
● Bukharin, Nikolai I. (1935). “Marx’s Teaching and its Historical Importance. In: Marxism and Modern Thought (§1, pgs. 1-64; “laws of social motion”, pg. 32). Routledge, 2013.
External links
● Nikolai Bukharin – Wikipedia.
