Opening the Path to Socialism World Wide

Workers' Daily Internet Edition: Article Index :

90th Anniversary of the Great October Socialist Revolution:
Opening the Path to Socialism World Wide

November 7 marks the 90th anniversary of the Great October Socialist Revolution which broke out in Russia in 1917 in the midst of the First World War.* The October Revolution was the act of the working people of Russia who, led by Lenin’s Communist Party, empowered themselves and became the decision-makers in their own country. The October Revolution showed in practice that the working people could rule themselves, and that it was only the working people, and principally the working class, that could solve the grave economic, social and political problems that faced the country. As a result of the October Revolution, Russia was able to extricate itself from the bloody conflict of the First World War, for the first time provide its mainly agricultural population with land, and create the economic conditions to provide food and other necessities for its people. The October Revolution also had major global significance and was a major blow for the entire imperialist system. It meant that one of the leading world powers, a sixth of the world’s land mass, became a beacon for working and oppressed people throughout the world. The October Revolution therefore acted as an inspiration to millions in all continents and, within a few years, communist parties were established throughout the world, not just in the advanced industrial countries such as Britain but also in Africa, Asia and Latin America.

            The October Revolution was, in essence, the culmination of a trial of strength between the old and the new in Russia, between the working people on the one hand and the Provisional Government, a coalition representing the monopolies but including those who claimed to speak for “labour”, on the other. In Russia the working people had established their own democratic institutions in the Soviets, or people’s councils, which had developed out of their own experience of the need for the people themselves to develop new institutions for their own empowerment. The October Revolution was therefore also the culmination of a trial of strength between two forms of democracy – the old bourgeois democracy of the Provisional Government, which prevented the people from becoming the decision-makers and kept power in the hands of the rich, and the new revolutionary people’s democracy of the Soviets, which were based in the factories, farms and workplaces and in the military, which allowed the ordinary people to decide their own future.

            During the course of 1917, the people of Russia were able to see from their own experience that although the old Tsarist government had been overthrown, a new government of the rich had taken power which refused to stop the slaughter of millions of Russians in the war, refused to provide land for the tiller and was unable to provide the conditions to feed its own citizens. Led by Lenin’s Communist Party, the working people were made conscious of the fact that “Peace, Bread and Land” would only come about if the demand “All Power to the Soviets” became a reality, that is to say, if the people were empowered and the Soviets, rather than appealing to, or working in collaboration with, the Provisional Government actually took power themselves.

            The great achievement of the Communist Party was that it was able to provide the Russian people with the organisation, consciousness and analysis that was required in rapidly changing circumstances. It did not lose its bearings or conviction, and worked alongside and was trusted by the advanced sections of the working class. The October Revolution was made by the masses of the Russian people but it was the Communist Party which made them conscious of their historic mission.

            The 90th anniversary of the Great October Revolution should be the occasion not just to celebrate a great historic event, indeed the defining event in the 20th century, but also an occasion to draw the appropriate lessons from the past in order to create the conditions to usher in a socialist Britain in the 21st century.

           

*(At that time, Russia still used the old Julian calendar)