5

p The bourgeoisie came to power at the time of the English Industrial Revolution of the 17th century and the French Revolution of the 18th century. Once they had disposed of the feudal aristocracy and broken the royal power, the bourgeoisie began to flaunt the slogans of liberty, equality and fraternity merely to clear the way for ultimate economic and political domination. It was not liberty that prevailed, but a new form of exploitation of the labouring masses; not equality, but a new and deeper chasm of social and economic inequality; not fraternity, but a savage struggle between antagonistic classes. In the period between 1789 and 1871, the bourgeoisie played a comparatively progressive role in social development. This was not to last long. At the turn of the century, the bourgeoisie found itself on a downgrade, bourgeois democracy increasingly giving way to reaction all along the line. Free-enterprise capitalism evolved into monopoly capitalism. The anti-feudalist bourgeoisie gave way to reactionary finance capital which, in collusion with the surviving feudal lords, took up the cudgels against the rising socialist forces.

p The salient feature in world affairs after 1871 was the slow maturation and strengthening of the proletariat. It 6 served notice on the world of its determination to change society when the French workers first shattered the bourgeois state machine in the very heart of capitalist France and established their own revolutionary government—the Paris Commune. In the years that followed, imperialism itself created the material conditions for transition to socialism, and the proletarian revolution became historically inevitable. The labour movement gathered momentum and again and again shook the edifice of capitalism. Yet it was to be some time before the working class could achieve its ultimate aim of gaining power.

p Early in the present century, the centre of the world revolutionary struggle shifted to Russia. Marx himself had foreseen this possibility when he wrote, in 1877, that “the revolution begins in the East, hitherto the unbroken bulwark and reserve army of counter-revolution".  [6•1 

p The great honour and responsibility of commencing the historical rejuvenation of the world on socialist principles fell to the Russian proletariat. At the turn of the century, the workers of Russia took up the battle against tsarism, the landowners and the bourgeoisie. Russia was then’the weakest link in the imperialist chain and the focus of its contradictions. Moreover, by then the conditions necessary for the victory of socialism had formed on Russian soil. The development of her productive forces had created an economic basis for socialist revolution, and the Russian workers stood out as the most revolutionary-minded, the best organised and the most experienced in class struggle. At their head stood a Marxist-Leninist party guided by advanced revolutionary theory and tempered in many class conflicts. It channelled into a single revolutionary tide the workers’ struggle for socialism, the country-wide campaign for peace, the peasants’ drive for land and the national liberation struggle of the oppressed peoples of the Russian Empire; it effectively directed these forces to the overthrow of capitalism.

p Russia became the cradle of the proletarian revolution; the course of history brought her workers to the forefront of the world socialist and revolutionary movement. Victory in the first socialist revolution came as a logical consequence 7 of the long battle of Russia’s Leninist Party for leadership of the working class in all three Russian revolutions: in 1905, and in February and October of 1917. This struggle also embodied the best revolutionary traditions of workers in other lands, among them the valiant English Chartists, the French and German martyrs of the 1848 barricades, the immortal Paris communards, and the workers of America.

p Marx once said revolutions were the locomotives of history. Although the definition applies to all social revolutions, it best expressed the October events resulting as they did in an unprecedented acceleration of social progress and serving as the most powerful motor of history the world had ever seen.

p The cosmopolitan nature of capital led to the global proliferation of capitalist societies; yet it was merely the substitution of one form of class oppression and exploitation for another. The events of October 1917 brought in their wake the abolition of all exploitation and class tyranny, and the rooting out of the cause: private property in the means of production.

p The October Revolution in Russia marked the end of the social pre-history and the start of real history: it was the inauguration of socialist society, with mankind shedding the last form of slavery—capitalist, or wage-slavery.

p The October Revolution in Russia fully bore out Lenin’s theory that socialist revolution would initially win out in one country. But it was also an international proletarian revolution. Integration of the capitalist world economy and the international nature of the working class spring from the capitalist mode of production, and find expression in the world-wide character of the revolution, while the uneven economic and political development of capitalism leads to proletarian revolutions in various countries at different times.

p The global significance and international character of the October Revolution were apparent in the victorious solution of the tasks that had matured not only within the confines of Russia but throughout the world. The revolution marked the first stage in the world socialist revolution and provided a powerful base for its further progress. World events have confirmed that the replacement of capitalism by socialism is historically inevitable, and that the working class alone can 8 save society from the horrors of capitalism in its death throes.

p Contrary to enemy forecasts, the October Revolution was neither a passing historical anomaly, nor a chance deviation from the mainstream of social development, nor yet an isolated incident in the history of one nation. The socialist revolution in Russia showed that capitalism had outlived itself, that it had no future, and that in its evolution it had generated the objective and subjective prerequisites for mankind’s transition to a new and higher social structure.

p Although it had outlived its day, the capitalist class will not voluntarily relinquish power. Indeed, world reaction used its entire arsenal against the Russian revolution, the Russian workers and their allies. It poured all manner of filth and slander on socialism, employed the whiteguard counterrevolutionaries and foreign intervention, war and economic blockade, plots and conspiracies, sabotage and terror—all to destroy the Soviet power, restore capitalism, and halt the course of world-wide socialist revolution. But all these attempts failed.

p The October Revolution triumphed under the banner of proletarian internationalism. For many decades progressive workers of Britain, France, Germany and the U.S.A., of nations big and small, had fought for the victory of socialism. And when, at last, their cause triumphed in a country with one-sixth of the world’s land surface, the world’s workingclass movement rose to new heights. Socialist Russia, which had provided a powerful impulse to the movement all over the world, herself received resolute support from the workers of the world.

p The imperialists and their agents in the working class and their accomplices, factionalists and splitters in the communist and working-class movement, have resorted to various shifts and dodges to undermine and disrupt the moral and political unity of the international proletariat, all the world revolutionary forces and the world’s first socialist state. But there is no power in the world that can separate the Soviet Union from the world’s workers, nor separate the latter from the Soviet Union. The Soviet people are assisting revolutionary and liberation movements, the peoples of other socialist states, the workers of industrially-advanced capitalist countries and of Asian, African and Latin American countries, 9 and mass democratic movements everywhere. In turn, the peoples of the world have pledged their support, and continue to do so, for socialist and communist construction in the U.S.S.R.

p This solid brotherhood, which has become a regular feature of contemporary development, has been and will continue to be an inexhaustible source of strength for the world revolutionary process. This mighty alliance is a great force that is doing much to strengthen the hegemony of the working class in world social development and fortify socialism’s international positions. As the Declaration of the 1957 Moscow Meeting of Representatives of Communist and Workers’ Parties pointed out, the vital interests of workers of all countries today require the support of the Soviet Union and all the socialist countries pursuing a policy of peace throughout the world and providing a bulwark for peace and social progress.

p The triumph of the October Revolution and the emergence of the Soviet Union signified a great turning-point in world politics, economics and ideology, a turning-point in the destiny of society—from the old capitalist world to a new socialist world—a most profound change in the minds and lives of hundreds of millions of people. The October Revolution heralded the era of socialist revolutions, an era of liberation of colonial peoples from imperialism. The last half-century has borne witness to the triumph of the great ideas and principles of the October Revolution.

p Since October 1917, world revolutionary events have radically altered the face of the earth (see Table 1). The socio-political map of the contemporary world shows, first, that a mass movement is sweeping the world for the universal abolition of capitalist exploitation, social and national oppression, and poverty, and for the establishment of peace, democracy and socialism. Imperialism has forfeited its dominance over the bulk of mankind once and for all.

p The second distinctive feature of contemporary society is the peoples’ resolution to take the path of socialism and communism. Imperialism has been helpless in preventing the birth and progress of the world socialist system, which has now been firmly established on three continents comprising one-quarter of the world and embracing more than one-third of the world’s population—more than 1,000 million people, 10 who have cast off capitalism and are building socialist and communist societies.

Third, the colonial system of imperialism is being incinerated in the flames of the national liberation movement. The Russian revolution also marked a turning-point in the course of the national liberation movement, uniting the struggle of the proletariat and other revolutionary forces for socialism and the struggle of oppressed peoples against colonial tyranny. The national liberation revolutions have destroyed colonial empires and dealt a crushing blow to the citadels of colonialism. Dozens of independent national states have emerged on the ruins of the colonial empires. The revolutionary democratic forces of several newly free states are now directing their development along noncapitalist lines.

Table 1 Territory and World Population by mid-1970 Territory Estimated population mln. sq km % of total mln. people %f total The world ....... 135.8 100 3,615 100 Socialist countries . . . 35.2 25.9 1,215 31.4 Of which U. S. S. R. 22.4 100.6 32.6 9.4 68.0 the U. 16.5 74.1 24.0 6.9 50.7 S.S.R., 242.8 2,400 705 205.3 1,695 196’, Mosct 6.7 66.4 19.5 5.7 46.9 )W, 1970, Other countries . ... Advanced capitalist countries ..... Of which U. S. A. . . ... Developing nations . . . Source: The Economy of p. 92 (Russ. ed.).

p Two worlds, that of socialism and capitalism, have been confronting each other internationally ever since the socialist revolution took Russia out of the sphere of capitalist laws. This ushered in an era of contention, coexistence and competition of the two systems, an epoch of decline, disintegration and ultimate demise of capitalism, and of growth, fortification and ultimate triumph of socialism throughout the world. Capitalism cannot extricate itself from 11 the deep crisis that has seized bourgeois society from top to bottom, engulfing its economic and political order, its productive forces, domestic and foreign policy, and its entire ideological superstructure.

p It is ridiculous to seek some kind of conspiratorial force or export of revolution behind the world proletarian revolution, the disintegration of colonialism, and the expansion of the world revolutionary movement. Lenin roundly condemned the “Left”-wing Communist efforts to “spur” revolutions; this he branded as completely at odds with Marxism, which had always rejected the “spurring” of revolutions which matured in step with the exacerbation of class contradictions. Lenin and the Communist Party of the Soviet Union have always most vigorously resisted any attempts to force the pace of revolutions by means of war, and adventurist theories of exporting revolution, which always find adherents among the petty bourgeoisie, especially at crucial moments in history. The socialist revolution is not a palace revolt, nor is it a putsch by a small band of heroes. It is a movement embracing the great mass of the working people.

Imperialist policy-makers, particularly those in the U.S.A. who consider it their duty to police the world and exploit it, resort to all manner of plots, adventures and export of counter-revolution in order to hamper social progress and underpin the tottering edifice of capitalism. However, none of these policies can modify historical necessity; in fact they merely serve to fortify it.