Let us uphold the banner of Class struggle

Cherishing the Memory of the Great October Revolution: A.K. Padmanabhan

This Seventh November will once again renew a lot of discussions on the great October Revolution of 1917, led by the great revolutionary Com. V.I. Lenin. Pages of history teach us that the discussions, of various kinds, had started even before the Great Revolution itself. The question of working class of a country taking over political power was very critically approached by a section of the working class movement at that time itself.

Those who had a mechanical approach to the teachings of Marx and Engels had at that time itself argued the cause of a world wide revolution! It is reminded here only to point out that debates on various aspects of October Revolution had begun even before the success of the revolution and it is not surprising that those types of debates are still continuing! It can be surely expected that these debates will be never ending!

Without going into various theoretical aspects of the great October Revolution, let us only look into the impact that was created!

Soviet Union’s great achievements within a short period, in improving the lives of the working people had attracted attention of the toiling masses all over the period. As has been noted by many, “what could be achieved by the capitalist system in 300 years could be achieved within 30 years of revolution”. The capacity of Soviet Union was proved by the epoch making victory over fascism by the Red Army of the Socialist Soviet Union in the year 1945.

The beacon light of the revolutionary movement was literally strengthening the aspirations of all the enslaved and exploited people in various countries and its full impact was felt in later years, when Soviet Union extended various kinds of help to the newly liberated countries and also to those who were fighting for their freedom.

By the early 1960s USSR was front ranking in the rate of economic growth, income, production and consumption. Socialised production and ownership instead of privatised ownership and production created this big change. The great achievements in the fields of education, health and employment, which were also ensured as basic rights was something unknown to the world. That was the only country, at that point of time, that ensured peoples’ right to live, which was guaranteed through states intervention, instead of throwing them out to the claws of the competitive market. The advances in science, art, culture etc was ensured with people’s active involvement and participation.

The rights and the social security system ensured to the working people after the revolution created the impetus for world wide changes. This fact has been agreed upon even by many of the ardent critics of USSR and its policies!

The fact that more than 20 million people gave up their lives for the cause of defending the gains of Revolution and new pages of valour and sacrifices were added to the pages of history of humanity by ordinary men and women can never be forgotten!

It was their commitment to the cause of the Revolution – the political and ideological commitment of a whole country – that ensured the historic victory in the great Patriotic War!

These achievements and advances of the USSR and further strengthening of the Socialist System with victories in Eastern Europe, formation of the Peoples’ Republic of China added strength to the determination of the people’s movements in the enslaved countries!

The change in the correlation of forces at the world level forced the imperialist forces to come forward for peace talks and also reach certain understandings on regulating or reducing nuclear arms!

One irrefutable fact was that the world was saved from a repeat of nuclear holocausts like Hiroshima and Nagasaki as USSR could catch up with the war mongering U.S. on Nuclear arms!

But while all these were happening, at the political ideological level, many deviations were taking place. In the name of correcting the wrongs done earlier, many wrong conclusions were reached. The lead that U.S.S.R could attain up to very early 60s, led to many wrong assessments on the internal and international situation. These conclusions and assessments also led to minimising or fully giving up caution against the destabilising efforts of imperialist forces and their supporters all over the world.

Internally, strengthening democracy was an important task. That was a real necessity to strengthen the Socialist system. But in the name of democracy, the Socialist system was allowed to be decimated. All these are now part of history. The way the exploiters all over the world celebrated the fall of Soviet Union and East European Socialist Countries is well known. More than anything else, the concerted attack against the ideology of the working class - Scientific Socialism – is continuing.

The last 20 years of these concerted campaigns at the international and national level have created serious crisis among the toiling masses. The theme of these campaigns has been ‘Socialism is dead; Capitalism is the last word in history; and There Is No Alternative to capitalism’. `End of history’ – theorised by Fukuyama was taken up internationally by various forces for full throated campaign.

As the ideas about Socialism and also the ideological aspects of it, was taken to the working people on the basis of great achievements of Soviet Union, the collapse of Soviet Union created a serious crisis and anti-Socialist forces could sow seeds of confusion.

Another aspect of the fall of the Soviet Union is the increasing belligerence of U.S. imperialism and its military and political interventions, in the process of asserting a unipolar world. Several of those who had not understood the political impact of the collapse of USSR, had now started debating on the issue. Some of them have even wished - if USSR was there. There are many instances where the US was unilaterally able to impose its will on other countries. It is also heartening that there are some positive developments, challenging of the U.S. diktats and also developing trends of multipolarity.

The recent developments in the capitalist world, resulting in the biggest ever crisis in the system has brought out the real face of Capitalist System and its unsustainability. The importance of the analysis of the exploiting Capitalist System by Marx and Engels, which proclaimed the inevitability of a new Socialist System, has to be understood fully. This Seventh November reminds us the task of educating our class on the historical role that has to be played by the working class, learning from its past weaknesses and failures. We have to combat the erroneous ideologies that have been spread in the aftermath of the collapse of the Soviet Union. A counter offensive by our class is the necessity of the hour! Let us prepare ourselves and organise our class to take up these challenges effectively. Let us uphold the banner of class struggle and cherish the memory of the great October Revolution!