p November 7 (October 25 according to the Julian calendar then in use), 1917, when in alliance with the working peasants the Russian workers set up the dictatorship of the proletariat, has entered history as the dawn of the present epoch of transition from capitalism to socialism. In this connection, Lenin wrote: “...we have a right to be and are proud that to us has fallen the good fortune to begin the building of a Soviet state, and thereby to usher in a new era in world history, the era of the rule of a new class, a class which is oppressed in every capitalist country, but which everywhere is marching forward towards a new life, towards victory over the bourgeoisie, towards the dictatorship of the proletariat, towards the emancipation of mankind from the yoke of capital, and from imperialist wars.” The winning of the right to build the new society involves formidable difficulties. The grim struggle against the autocracy, the landowners and capitalists in the years preceding the Revolution cost the people and the Party the lives of many of their best sons. The Communist Party 58 rallied the working class and all other revolutionary forces, organised and tempered them and led them against the exploiting system. The Russian workers and peasants passed through a stern school of struggle before accomplishing the Revolution under the Party’s leadership. They had to exert a still greater effort and suffer prodigious sacrifices to uphold the great gains of the October Revolution, to defend the world’s first working people’s state. The struggle of the Communist Party, the proletariat and other working people of Russia against the old system is, to this day, an example for all fighters for the new, socialist future.

p In itself the October Revolution was a Russian revolution, a revolution that triumphed in one country, and in that context it is the internal, national affair of the peoples of Russia. At the same time, it stretched far beyond the boundaries of one country and had a tremendous impact on the entire course of world history. It raised and successfully solved a number of social problems, which are to this day being tackled by the proletariat and other working masses in the non-socialist countries. It gives practical confirmation of the reality of Marxism-Leninism and has provided the proletariat and other working people of all countries with experience of struggle against capitalism, for socialism. It opened for mankind the road to the new, socialist society, put an end to the undivided rule of capitalism in the world, and split the world into two opposing systems—the capitalist and the socialist—as a result of which the entire course of history has been changed.

p The triumph of the October Revolution drove capitalism into a sustained general crisis caused by the exacerbation of all its contradictions and the narrowing down of the sphere of capitalist exploitation. Having acquired a mighty ally and a reliable assistant in the person of the first proletarian state, the working people of the whole world received greater possibilities for their revolutionary struggle.

p The October Revolution powerfully stimulated the international working-class movement. Under its direct influence workers rose to the struggle against the exploiters in different parts of the world. Revolutions broke out in 59 Germany, Austria-Hungary and other countries, and revolutionary actions of the proletariat swept across Europe and America.

p After the example set by the Russian Communist Party and under the influence of its victories, Marxist parties sprang up in Europe, Asia, Africa and America, and these united organisationally and ideologically in the Third, Communist International, which laid the beginning for the contemporary communist movement and was, for the Communists of the whole world, a fine school of revolutionary struggle against the bourgeoisie.

p The October Revolution awakened the peoples of colonial and dependent countries, across which swept a mighty wave of national liberation revolutions. That sparked off the disintegration of the colonial system of imperialism and created the prerequisites for the complete liberation of the oppressed peoples.

The main revolutionary forces of the modern epoch are coming to the forefront as a result or under the direct impact of the October Revolution, and the main thing is that the Revolution laid the foundation for their unity in a single world revolutionary process that is undermining and destroying imperialism.