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p KURT FRITSCH

p MEMBER OF THE PRESIDIUM AND SECRETARIAT OF THE BOARD OF THE GERMAN COMMUNIST PARTY

p Dear comrades, as a Communist of the Federal Republic of Germany and member of the delegation of the GCP I should like to say first of all how impressed I am by the wonderful and inspiring celebration of the 60th anniversary of the Great October Socialist Revolution. In saying this, I think of the anniversary meeting, the speech of the General Secretary of the CC CPSU, Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, Comrade Leonid Brezhnev, the parade, and people’s demonstration in historic Red Square.

p I also think about the latest news from the FRG. In October, the number of jobless in our country increased by another 43,100 and is approaching the one million mark. The Conference of the Teachers’ and Scientific Workers’ Union, whose members include teachers in schools and specialised children’s establishments, came out once again in support of the main trade-union demand for the right to work for all citizens. In Frankfort on the Main thousands of school-leavers, young people, and representatives of jobless youth held a demonstration demanding employment as apprentices and the introduction of progressive vocational training.

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p Both these events-the demonstration of the working people in Moscow, in the socialist part of the world, and the demonstration of workers and youth in the capitalist FRG held virtually on the same day-lead up to the conclusion that the lasting service of the Great October Socialist Revolution is that it ushered in an era ending the contradictions between labour and capital, and defined the landmarks of and conclusions for the struggle to build a society free from exploitation of man by man. To bring this home to all men and women is one of the aims of the celebration of the 60th anniversary of the Great October Revolution and of the outstanding report made by Comrade Leonid Brezhnev.

p This report has given us a great deal-it has convincingly summed up the results of 60 years of constructive work in building socialism and changing the world balance of forces in favour of the forces of peace, democracy, and socialism. It has vividly demonstrated to us the lessons of the victorious October Revolution and generalised in concrete terms the experience of the three contingents of revolutionary forces on all continents-the world socialist system, the working-class movement in the capitalist countries, and the national liberation movement. It showed us the main content of the current world revolutionary process as it develops.

p We would like to express our gratitude for this, and also to thank Comrade Mikhail Suslov and Comrade Boris Ponomarev for their profound speeches. In our opinion, in the opinion of the GCP, the October Revolution and its lessons are of lasting relevance. They are a treasure-house of experience which should be applied concretely and creatively and which must not be rejected.

p The October Revolution appeals to our hearts and to our minds. As people with both feet on the ground, people whose goal is to change the world (which prevents us from being exclusively occupied with reminiscences) we Communists of the FRG define our attitude to the October 175 Revolution and thereby to the Soviet Union mainly on the basis of present-day reality, i.e., the continuing impact made by the October Revolution and the objective role played today by the Soviet Union, which continues consistently to implement Lenin’s policy. For us Communists the attitude to the Soviet Union has always been the main criterion. Friendship and fraternal alliance with the CPSU is the core of proletarian internationalism.

p That is so if only because the Soviet Union, the strongest power of the world socialist system, is simultaneously the key factor of social progress in the world, and the CPSU, the most experienced of Communist parties that has used every form of struggle and has been tested in the harshest trials of history, is making an inestimable and indispensable contribution to the emancipation of the exploited and oppressed.

p The significance of the October Revolution for us lies, therefore, not only in unique and concrete historical events like the gunshot fired from the cruiser Aurora as the signal for the storming of the Winter Palace. It lies also in the fact that the October Revolution is the beginning of the world socialist revolution, and this decisively determines the content and conditions of the struggle waged by Communists throughout the world. It lies in the universal significance of the lessons and objective laws Communists must take into account everywhere as they work out their policy of struggle for peace, social progress, and socialism if they want their struggle to succeed. The 60th anniversary of the Great October Socialist Revolution is an exciting event for us Communists in the FRG and a significant occasion to affirm our indissoluble friendship and solidarity with the Soviet Union.

p We shall go on steadily promoting friendship between our two peoples and above all the establishment of closer class contacts between the working class of our country and the Soviet Union and other socialist countries. In expressing the interests of the working people of our 176 country, the GCP will, as before, continue to strengthen constantly its fraternal ties with the CPSU.

p In laying emphasis on these great general lessons and the experience of the October Revolution, we simultaneously include here the great lessons and experience amassed by the GDR and other socialist countries in the field of socialist transformations and the building of socialism. When we say this we consider it to be self-understood that our Party, the GCP, is always guided by the needs of the specific urgent tasks that come up in our struggle, and which when fulfilled will pave the way to socialism.

p At the same time, we remember the historical truth that German imperialism twice in this century unleashed devastating wars. From the standpoint of our policy, views, moral standards, and theory, we Communists of the Federal Republic of Germany, find satisfaction in the fact that the 60th anniversary of the Great October Revolution confirms once again the fundamental conclusion that socialism needs peace and generates peace.

p All who cherish world peace have heard again that the Soviet Union has put forward new peace proposals. They are of far-reaching significance. They are good and sensible, consistent and clear. They are prompted by what is most important for the life of mankind-the cause of peace. As Comrade Leonid Brezhnev said, they constitute a " radical measure”.  [176•*  We Communists of the FRG will spread the new peace proposals of the Soviet Union in our country so that everybody will know that the Soviet Union has made proposals directed to eliminating the danger of mankind’s being plunged into the holocaust of atomic war. We shall act with determination in order to ensure that these fresh opportunities should be used in the interests of our country.

p And if I emphasise this several days after the celebration of the 60th anniversary of the October Revolution, at which major theoretical principles were set forth, I am 177 doing it because the appeal To the Peoples, Parliaments and Governments of All Countries has made us Communists of the FRG feel that a great responsibility also devolves on our Party during this great contention over the questions of war and peace.

p The development and establishment of the socialist way of life is the result of the pioneering activities of the Soviet Union. Its advance towards the communist future is a convincing answer to many vital issues of these times. The Soviet Union and other socialist states are moving along a path which leads to the future. They prove that work, housing, education, and culture may be put within reach of all men and women. The Soviet state of the whole people, the first state to build communism under the leadership of the Party of Lenin, is the embodiment of the highest level of socialist democracy. This is reflected in the new Constitution of the USSR which is, in the full sense, a charter of socialist humanism, democracy, and peace.

p It is this that so troubles the imperialist ideologists. The main purpose of the anti-communism they are stirring up is to conceal, camouflage, and misrepresent the evidence of the fundamental superiority of the socialist way of life. Clearly, if working people learn about the extensive freedoms of the working class and its allies in the socialist world, it will be impossible any longer to conceal the unworthy, ’existence people lead under the capitalist system. The humiliation of man has reached stupendous dimensions in the industrialised capitalist countries. Man is exposed to unemployment and starvation, deprived of the chance to get an education, or job training, to develop freely as a personality.

p Dear comrades, the draft Programme of the GCP is to be published soon. The Programme will reflect the national and international needs of the class struggle oriented on protecting the interests of the working class of our country, as well as the interest of the Party, whose duty it is to observe the principles of proletarian internationalism. 178 In this draft Programme, which speaks mainly of democratic changes, of the struggle for anti-monopoly democracy which will open the road to socialism, we say: our modern age has started with the Great October Socialist Revolution in Russia. This first victorious worker-peasant revolution was a turning point in the history of mankind. It turned socialism from a scientific doctrine into an actual reality. It confirmed the teachings of Marx, Engels, and Lenin on the world transforming force of the working class.

p Thanks to the Great October Socialist Revolution, the capitalist system has lost its undivided domination of the globe. A fundamentally new balance of forces has emerged. The struggle of the working class and the oppressed peoples for their national and social emancipation has gained powerful momentum.

p Socialism is the result of the development of history, of class battles, of the age-old desire of the oppressed and exploited to create a society of equality, justice, and freedom. Socialism has realised the ideals of the working-class movement in practical terms. It is being built successfully in the countries of the socialist community. And everywhere it was set in motion by consistent class struggle. And everywhere it manifests its general features stemming from the general laws discovered by Marx, Engels, and Lenin and given practical proof by the Great October Socialist Revolution and all subsequent socialist changes.

We are confident that in this way we shall be able to explain to the working class and all progressives in our country the significance of the Great October Socialist Revolution and utilise its experience in looking for a path to socialism. In this way, we shall simultaneously confirm the indisputable nature of the international truth about the universal significance of the experience of the Great October Socialist Revolution.