Written in May, 1918 and flush with revolutionary possibilities, Bukharin’s expansively emancipatory communist program is here translated and published by the Ukrainian Federation of the Socialist Party in the months before the 1919 split that formed the Communist movement. Online English text here.

Програма комуністів (більшовиків) Н. Бухаріна. Українська федерація Соціалістичної партії Америки. Видавничо-поліграфічної спілки «Робітника», Нью-Йорк, 1919.

Program of the Communists (Bolsheviks) by N. Bukharin. Ukrainian Federation of the Socialist Party of America. Published by the Printing Union of the “Worker”, New York, 1919.

Contents: The Reign of Capital the Working Class and the Poorer Elements of the Village Population, Plundering Wars – The Oppression of the Working Classes and the Beginning of the Fall of Capitalism, General Sharing or Co-operative Communist Production, An Anarchist or a Communist Order, To Communism Through Proletarian Dictatorship, A Soviet Government or a Bourgeois Republic?, Freedom for the Working Class and the Poorest Elements of the Peasantry, Restrictions for the Bourgeoisie, Banks, the Common Property of the Workers. Nationalisation of Banks, Industry to Belong to the Working Class, Communal Cultivation of Public Land, Workers’ Management of Production, Bread – Only for the Workers, Compulsory Labour Service for the Rich, A Systematic Distribution of Products, The Abolition of Trade Profits and Speculation, Co-operative Communes, Labour Discipline of the Working Class and the Poorest Elements of the Peasantry, The End of the Power of Money, “State Finances” and Financial Economy in the Soviet Republic, No Trade Communication Between the Russian Bourgeoisie and Foreign Imperialists, Spiritual Liberation – The Next Step to Economic Liberation, The People Armed to Defend Their Gains, The Liberation of Nations, Conclusion. 96 pages.

The Ukrainian Language Federation was largely based in the Midwest. With strongholds in Detroit and Cleveland, where Robitnyk was published, and 20 locals and with membership of 1000 when the Federation formally joined the SP in 1915. the Federation was strongly Internationalist during the war and increasingly pro-Bolshevik even before the October Revolution. At their Spring, 1917 conference Evhen Kruk was elected editor of Robitnyk. A new Executive Committee was elected, consisting of I. Bychk, A. Dmytryshyn, N. Kobrinskyi, N. Korzh, Evhen Kruk, D. Mois, and T. Pochynok. On June 1, 1918, the Cleveland office of Robitnyk and members in Detroit branches as well as deportations weakened the group. However, the Federation rebounded in the aftermath of Revolution, growing to 6000 members in 1919, one of the largest Language Federations in the US. The Federation almost entirely went with the new Communist Party of America in 1919 as Ukrainian Federation of the Communist Party of America and published a daily Ukrainskyi Shchodennyi Visti.

Access to 1919 pamphlet: https://hdl.handle.net/2027/uiug.30112071318320