Anniversary
of the Great October Socialist
Revolution A Watershed Moment Still in the Making
 November 7, 2017. Communist
organizations in Russia were joined by
representatives of political parties and democratic and progressive
organizations from more than 80 countries
at a march and rally in
Moscow honouring the 100th anniversary of the Great October
Socialist
Revolution. (teleSUR)
November 7 marks the 103rd anniversary of the 1917 Great
October Socialist Revolution in Russia. In "ten days that shook
the world," the first ever socialist workers' state was created.
The architect of that revolution, the great V.I. Lenin, spoke to
its significance saying that this revolution undertook the task
of completing the democratic revolution that got underway in
England in the 1660s. Old forms of governance based on liberal
democracy and a bourgeois civil society were replaced with new
ones. This created a socialist civil society with full
employment, free education, health care and housing for all and
no taxes. It provided political equality before the law, full
democracy to elect and be elected, no class privileges and no
exploiting classes. It affirmed that peace, prosperity, freedom
and fraternal unity of the peoples are not merely a utopia, a
pipe-dream. They are attainable and the necessity of our
times. Today, the dregs of the deposed ruling
classes of that time
are consumed with a spectre of communism which haunts them every
time they engage in practices which go against the public good.
They have created a stereotype of socialism which is a figment of
their deranged imaginations, dominated by morbid preoccupation
with their own demise. Such is the case in the United States
where the Trump campaign declared that a vote for his adversary
was a vote for socialism. Such is also the case in the defamatory
imperialist propaganda against the Communist Party of China or
Putin's Russia. This merely expresses how jealous they are of the
ability of others to channel all the human and material resources
of their countries in a manner which favours them -- something the
U.S. imperialists and their allies, to their chagrin, are unable
to accomplish.  In fact, the more
the counter-revolution launched since the
fall of the former Soviet Union deepens, the more the
significance of the Great October Revolution to human history
increases. The restoration of capitalism in the former Soviet
Union, which led to it becoming an imperialist superpower and
then to its collapse, is not a failure of socialism but of
capitalism. The consequence is the brutal neo-liberal anti-social
offensive and wars to achieve regime change and domination led by
the U.S. imperialists, as they collude and contend with other
great powers for domination over spheres of influence and sources
of cheap resources and labour, and zones for the export of capital
with highest returns.
In the conditions of the retreat of
revolution, the world is now waking up to take stock of what it
means to have a society such as the one which came into being
just over one hundred years ago when Soviet Russia was
established and Soviet power created a new society where the
workers decided all matters in a manner which favoured their
interests. The conditions of the present are
forcing all concerned to
look at the most important events of the past with the eye of the
present, to assist in securing the future. All over the world,
the peoples are striving to bring new forms into being, based on
democratic principles which vest sovereign decision-making power
in the people in a manner which is consistent with the needs of
the 21st century. The October Revolution
brought to power those forces which lay dormant in the bosom of
the old society. The workers, peasants and the intelligentsia and
other working people established a power which favoured them for
the first time in human history. Not only did the October Revolution
bring an entirely new
class to power -- the working class -- it also inspired the
workers and oppressed of all lands to embark on the same path.
The national crisis created out of the First World War was
resolved in favour of the people as the October Revolution ended that
bloodiest
war in history which was being fought between the imperialist
powers for the re-division of the world.
Lenin
declares Soviet power, October 26, 1917 at the historic
meeting of the Second All-Russia Congress of Soviets at
the Smolny Institute. This was the first
revolution that created an entirely new
society. Socialism appeared on the world historical scene, as
predicted by Karl Marx, and the practice of the proletarian
revolution ushered in an entirely new period, the period of
ending the exploitation of persons by persons and of creating a
socialist and communist society on the world scale. The
founder and leader of the Communist Party of Canada
(Marxist-Leninist), Hardial Bains, emphasized that during the
entire period which has followed the October Revolution, "people
have been profoundly imbued with change. Everything points to a
great upheaval in the making for the renewal of the society again
at this time. Workers cannot but draw the conclusion that
prejudices and dogmas are no substitute for a clear conscience
and scientific analysis, on the basis of which the crisis in the
sphere of ideas can be overcome and cognition can take place in
favour of the people and that this is the necessary ideological
preparation for renewal."[1]
"This period in history is increasingly bringing forth the
necessity to look at all events in history with an open mind, by
depending on the body of knowledge and experience of life itself
to come to pertinent conclusions. A grasp of the present, a
strong handle on what is going on in front of one's eyes, has
become vital to ward off that blindness which presents events in
history as the work of some evil forces, instead of recognizing
them as important milestones on the high road of civilization,"
Hardial Bains added.[2]
The Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist) hails the
Great October Revolution with a great deal of revolutionary
optimism, by always keeping in mind that it is the working people
who are to decide their future themselves. It is their stubborn
persistence to bring about the renewal of the world today which
reinforces the Party's resolve to continue until final
victory. The world is in transition from one system
to another. The
workers of the world and progressive peoples are striving to
bring a new world into being. They are taking stock of the
present situation in which democratic renewal has emerged as the
most important demand in order to humanize the social and natural
environment. What people are demanding is to be in control of
their lives, to participate meaningfully in the decisions which
affect their lives. Only if people can take part
in decision-making are they part of the political power.  The working class
is the most important part of this struggle
for renewal in which abolishing class privileges and
discrimination based on race, culture, nationality, religion,
gender, language and privileges has become the battle cry. The
content, the words, the analysis and observations, and the
demands which the working people are putting forward far exceed
the possibilities that the existing forms can provide. As a
result, people are calling for a change in the forms to ensure
that they can bring about the necessary changes for the
resolution of the conflicts in their favour.
Increasingly,
the political processes are coming under fire as
the politicians resort to even greater deception and anti-people,
anti-social laws. The experience of this entire
period is very instructive.
Taking into consideration all the developments of the past more
than 100 years since the triumph of the Great October Socialist
Revolution, the Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist)
calls on the workers to stand steadfastly behind their cause.
CPC(M-L) calls on the workers to join with the Party to leave
behind everything which has been negative, especially the
influence of the bourgeois world outlook and instead elaborate their
own reference points that can help them make heads
and tails of unfolding events, and work out what can be done to
turn things around in their favour. Notes
1. TML
Daily, Vol. 22, No. 27, November 7, 1992.
2. TML
Weekly, Vol 48 No. 38,
November 3, 2018.
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