ABSTRACT
How distinct were the alternative views of the transition period developed by the leading Bolshevik figures after Lenin’s death? The highly politicized nature of the historical writings on this period-both East and West-has tended to obscure and obfuscate the central issues in the debates on economic policy, party democracy and relations between the peasants and the workers. The vogue to rehabilitate Bukharin after 1985, the contested place of Trotsky in Marxist discourse (both East and West), and the relative lack of attention paid to the ideas of Preobrazhensky, all reflect the way the history of this period has been subject to the shifting sands of highly politicized historiography.
