Russian Revolution – an Appreciation

 

Russian Revolution – an Appreciation 

by Cliff Slaughter 

(As part of an international celebration of the 50th anniversary of the October Revolution organized by the International Committee of the Fourth International some 1600 people visited an exhibition presented by the Socialist Labour League in London. This included a 250 foot long frieze designed and painted by the Young Socialists depicting revolutionary struggle from 1789 to today, a photographic display, reproductions of Bolshevik posters, a competition of paintings,  posters, poetry and sculptures, and a film show. Following the exhibition 1400 people attended a meeting. The following is the speech given at the meeting by Cliff Slaughter, Secretary of the International Committee.) 

The October Revolution of 1917 in Russia was the first great victory of the international working class. For the first time political power was placed firmly in the hands of the working class and kept by them. 

It was conclusively proved that the state power of the capitalist class can be broken and that the workers can rule and organize the building of a new society. 

Only eight months before the October insurrection, another revolution took place in Russia. A mass movement overthrew the most hated and brutal autocracy in the world- Tsarism. 

The Tsars had ruled with the lash, with exile, with torture and execution. Revolutionary socialists were forced to carry out their work, all their lives and right up to 1917, from emigration in isolated political circles. 

The Tsarist empire was known as ‘the prison house of nations’. Every reactionary in Europe leaned on the great policeman to the East. The workers in Russia seemed surrounded by an ocean of rural poverty and backwardness. 

And so the February Revolution, the setting up of a Provisional government and the springing up of the Workers’ Councils (Soviets), created an impression of liberation, of a great historical step forward. 

Socialists in Russia, including the majority leadership of the Bolshevik Party, were swamped by this feeling and they called for ‘conditional support’ for the new government. 

And yet by October the workers had overthrown this government and established their own rule. In that change are to be found the most valuable lessons in the history of the international workers’ movement. It is these lessons which we have to learn in commemorating the Russian Revolution and preparing the English Revolution. 

The essential element was the Marxist leadership of Lenin and the Bolsheviks. When Lenin stepped off the sealed train at the Finland Station in Petrograd he shocked the audience which turned up to greet him. Instead of welcoming the dawn of a new era after February he said; ‘Forward to the world socialist revolution! Down with the Provisional government!* 

Most of his comrades, at that time, took the existence of the Soviets, workers’ organizations, as the guarantee of a new democratic development. 

Lenin saw this ‘democratic’ breathing space as a situation of ‘dual power’, forced by the strength of the working class, and as a priceless opportunity for proletarian revolution. 

If it was missed, the counter-revolution would triumph because of the reactionary character of the bourgeoisie and petty-bourgeoisie. And so he launched the struggle: ‘All Power to the Soviets!’ which meant the bid for Bolshevik leadership in the Soviets. 

Trotsky joined the Bolsheviks in the middle of 1917 and, as Lenin said, ‘from that time there was no better Bolshevik’. 

Their leadership guided the alliance with the peasant and soldier masses which gave living strength and power to the slogan ‘Peace, Bread and Land.’ 

The intransigence of Bolshevism took workers and peasants through experiences which proved to them that these basic questions could be resolved only by a workers’ revolution. 

It is this type of leadership, centralism, and discipline, steeled in a thousand struggles, fighting for Marxism against all its enemies, which prepares for revolutionary struggles in Britain and all over the world through the Fourth International. 

Those in the Stalinist parties who talk of peaceful and parliamentary roads to socialism are only carrying forward the betrayals of Stalin. Stalin's faction in the 1920’s sacrificed the revolutionary and international interests of the Russian workers to the ‘peaceful’ enjoyment of privelege by the bureaucratic power. 

Only Trotskyism today, basing itself on Lenin's fight and on Trotsky’s continuation of it in the Left Opposition, continues the traditions of the Russian Revolution. 

Our preparation for workers’ revolutions, social revolutions, in every capitalist country, is indissolubly linked with the political revolution of the workers of Russia and Eastern Europe to settle accounts with the bureaucracy. 

We have always based ourselves on the defence of the conquests of the October Revolution, the nationalized property in Russia, Eastern Europe and China. 

Against imperialist attack we defend these unconditionally. 

But we defend the gains also against the Stalinist bureaucracy, whose betrayal of the revolution in every country, not only Russia, endangers these conquests. 

* Long live the heroic workers of Russia! 

* Long live October Revolution! 

* Long live the traditions of Lenin and Trotsky and the Bolsheviks! 

* Long live the Fourth International! 

* Forward to the world socialist revolution!