The significance of the October Revolution today

Joint Declaration
October 2007
 

The significance of the October Revolution today

 
The socialist revolution of October 1917 was an event of worldwide significance for all proletarians and oppressed peoples of the world, because, under the leadership of the communist party of Lenin, the revolutionary Russian proletariat had assumed state power by destroying the bureaucratic military machinery and overthrowing the rule of the Tsars, one of the most obsolete and oppressive monarchies in history.

On 16 October 1917, the Central Committee adopted the resolution proposed by Lenin which put the armed uprising on the agenda. The uprising succeeded on 25 October 1917 (7 November according to our calendar) with the call "To the Citizens of Russia!". It was in this night that the Winter Palace of the tsars was taken.

"Let the ruling classes tremble at a Communist revolution", said Marx and so the bourgeoisie in Russia and the rest of the world trembled, not believing that the power of the workers, peasants and soldiers would prevail for long. Practice proved the contrary to be true. The workers, the peasants and the semi-proletariat in the cities and in the countryside, the intellectuals of the people, men and women, as well as the nations oppressed by imperialism and the working class and toilers in the capitalist countries, however, thought and felt completely differently: for them the October Revolution was not only possible, but also necessary. It was like a breath of fresh air in the midst of capitalist and feudal exploitation and oppression. It was a ray of hope in the midst of despair, a dream that had come true.

The power of the workers, peasants, soldiers, which began with the elimination of capitalism and the building of socialism for the first time in the history of mankind, expropriated the capitalists and big land owners and gave the estates to the peasants, established the control over production and built up a new state.

Worldwide counterrevolution against the emerging Soviet power raged; three years of civil war in which the counterrevolution at home was supported by 14 imperialist powers. However, it was the anonymous heroes, workers, peasants, soldiers and even the intellectuals who gave their lives in support of this new power and built up their armed forces, the Red Army, in this period which defeated the white army in numerous battles.

After that the Soviet peoples faced the difficult task of rebuilding a country which lay in rubbles with a people starving and living in misery, and they succeeded in getting back on their feet. These heroic deeds were accomplished in the 1930s, when they succeeded in building up cooperatives, in collectivization, industrialization and  far-reaching cultural transformations.

At great sacrifice, struggling against the inheritance of tsarist mismanagement and threatened by the German fascist Reich, the dictatorship of the proletariat was able to provide the people with bread, work, housing, education, health care, land and social welfare, for all workers and toilers, both male and female. The new power put an end to unemployment and illiteracy, established the 8-hour-day and even the 5-hour-working day and involved millions of women in socialized production. These were achievements unknown to capitalism.

Proletarian democracy proved its superiority to bourgeois democracy. The broad majority of the people arose, the exploited, the oppressed, those who had been ignored - the direct producers - those who actually produce all wealth - these broad masses arose. Those who had no influence upon the decisions made by bourgeois governments began to take the political, military, cultural, economic affairs into their own hands. They began to govern. This was a revolutionary transition in the history of mankind.

Neither the 14 imperialist armies that invaded Russia during the civil war and tried to reverse the revolution, nor the fascist German armies along with those of half of Europe were able to defeat the socialist Soviet Union. Socialism was destroyed from within when in 1956, with the 20th Party Congress of the CPSU, the degenerated new bourgeoisie with a party membership book in its  pocket took over power and restored capitalism.

The defeat suffered by the proletariat and its socialist state in the USSR, resulting from 20th Party Congress of the CPSU in 1956, and the restoration of capitalism, prompted Mao Tsetung to think in depth about the causes for capitalist restoration having become possible in the first socialist country. He reached the conclusion that classes, class contradictions and class struggle continue to exist in a socialist society and that these can either intensify or weaken. The whirl of this class struggle lies within the communist party, because class struggle in society is reflected there in its struggles over the line. If this party degenerates as a result of a new bourgeoisie coming to power and undergoes a process of bureaucratization, this new bourgeoisie with a party membership book in its pocket allies itself with the reactionary sectors within and outside of the state. Therefore this struggle is expressed in a struggle between two directions: the socialist and the capitalist one, as well as the one between Marxism and revisionism. Mao applied the method with which he analysed the USSR to China in order to prevent the restoration of capitalism by means of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. This was successful in the ten years between 1966 and 1976.

In 1991 the USSR broke down. This revealed the complete bankruptcy of modern revisionism. In the entire world, the bourgeoisie attempts to depict this as the destruction of socialism.

The imperialist aggressions, with US-imperialism and its allies at the head, bring forth a dramatic situation in Iraq and Afghanistan with their preventive wars and fascist laws passed under the pretext of the "anti-terror struggle". The insatiable greed with which they exploit and plunder the working-class, the oppressed peoples and nations and drive millions of people into poverty, all show the necessity of revolution and the struggle for socialism and communism even more clearly.

Let us defend the right of coalition for Marxist-Leninist, communist parties. Let us take a stand for the revolutionary liberation struggle and the right of self-determination of the peoples against imperialism and neo-colonialism! 

Let us celebrate the anniversary of the October Revolution together and let us launch together an offensive of genuine socialism against the distortions of imperialist historians.

Today the struggles of the workers and the peoples against exploitation and oppression are increasing on an international level, increasingly shoulder to shoulder with the Marxist-Leninist parties. The worldwide search for an alternative to capitalism cannot be overlooked. That is why the imperialists are launching a campaign of anticommunism with anger, hate and lies. Against better judgement, the millions of victims of the two invasions of the imperialist armies in Russia are being depicted as victims of communism in this filthy campaign. The same applies to those who starved as a result of these invasions and the legacy of the Tsars. Their goal is to destroy the high regard of socialism and to rob the people of their future.

Today, 90 years after the victory of October, when we regard the process of revolutionary construction, we are obliged to evaluate what has occurred in order to draw conclusions for a new upswing in the struggle for genuine socialism. This celebration serves to show that socialism is superior to capitalism, to assimilate its progressive lessons and to correct mistakes, so that one day, the proletariat in the entire world, together with all the masses who are exploited and oppressed by reactionary capitalists and imperialists, will overthrow imperialism and build up socialism in the entire world, and that one day, the people can say that "the earth is the most beautiful paradise of humanity."
 
The Joint Coordinating Group (JCG) of the International Conference of Marxist-Leninist Parties and Organisations (ICMLPO) calls up to signing the declaration. It is possible to sign only single points or paragraphs . Contact: JCG, PO 13 10 58, D -70068 Stuttgart, Germany, Fax: ## 49-711- 99 79 571, E - Mail: int.co@t-online.de - www.icmlpo.de

Signatories up till now (2.11.07): Revolutionary Communist Party of Argentina (PCR); Party of the "Committee to Support Resistance - for Communism" (CARC), Italy; Communist Party of Columbia-Maoist (PCC-M); Revolutionary Organization Congo; Marxist-Leninist Party of Germany (MLPD), Workers' Party (Partija Rada), Serbia.