Uglanov was closely associated with the so-called "Right Opposition" associated with Soviet party leader Nikolai Bukharin and he fell from his leadership position during the mass collectivization campaign of 1929.

Nikolai Aleksandrovich Uglanov was born 5 December 1886 to an ethnic Russian peasant family in the village of Feodoritskoye in Yaroslavl Governorate, located approximately 250 kilometers (160 mi) northeast of Moscow.

[1] Uglanov was introduced to radical ideas at an early age, beginning his participation in the revolutionary movement in 1903, distributing illegal literature and storing sensitive documents for underground activists.

[1] Uglanov was arrested for the first time by the Okhrana early in the summer of 1914 but he was subsequently released from captivity and inducted into the Army and sent to the front lines to fight for the Tsarist regime in World War I.

[1]' In February 1921 Uglanov succeeded Sergey Zorin[2] as secretary of the Petrograd guberniia committee of the Russian Communist Party [RKP(b)].