–Arindam Sen
Comrades,
I am writing these lines on the evening of the 24th ...
With all my might I urge comrades to realise that everything now hangs by a thread; that we are confronted by problems which are not to be solved by conferences or congresses (even congresses of Soviets) but exclusively by the masses, by the struggle of the armed people.
... All districts, all regiments, all forces must be mobilised at once and they must immediately send their delegations to the Military Revolutionary Committee and to the Central Committee of the Bolsheviks with the insistent demand that under no circumstances should power be left in the hands of Kerensky and Co. until the 25th—the matter must be settled without fail this very evening, or this very night. ...
It would be a disaster, or a sheer formality, to await the wavering vote of October 25. The people have the right and are in duty bound to decide such questions not by a vote, but by force; in critical moments of revolution, the people have the right and are in duty bound to give directions to their representatives, even their best representatives, and not to wait for them.
This is proved by the history of all revolutions; and it would be an infinite crime on the part of the revolutionaries were they to let the opportunity slip ...
The government is tottering. It must be given the deathblow at all costs.
To delay action is fatal.”
Thus read Lenin’s urgent message to Bolshevik Central Committee members assembled in the Smolny Institute, Petrograd. The dateline refers to the old Julien calendar; according to the modern international calendar that was adopted by the Soviet Government this becomes November 6, 1917. The repeated stress on immediate onslaught was warranted by the fact that the Kerensky Government had already started taking extreme counter-revolutionary measures, while even some Bolshevik leaders including Trotsky (then the chairman of the Petrograd Soviet) were hesitant and opined that the question of seizure of power should be considered at the Congress of Soviets opening the next day. Moreover, the non-Bolshevik delegates were likely to oppose immediate action. Hence the urgent message, which, let us note in passing, flies in the face of allegations of Lenin’s ‘elitist’ conception of revolution and revolutionary party.
After sending the message, Lenin left his secret shelter in the same city for the Smolny. On the way he was twice stopped by officer cadets, but who would recognise the clean-shaven man wearing a shabby coat and an old cap pulled over his eyes? As Nikolai Podvoisky later recalled, “It is hard to describe how excited, how overjoyed we were at seeing Lenin ... We immediately sent our people to all the factories and regiments to announce that Lenin had taken the leadership of the uprising and that he was in the Smolny Institute...”
Action started from midnight. By the next morning, most of the strategically important parts of the capital were in the hands of the insurgent workers, soldiers and sailors. In the evening (October 25) the Winter Palace was stormed; simultaneously the Second All-Russia Congress of Soviets opened in the Smolny Institute. The Winter Palace was seized and members of the bourgeois government arrested. The Soviet Congress proclaimed the transfer of state power to the Soviets of Workers’, Soldiers’ and Peasants’ Deputies and elected the Council of People’s Commissars headed by Lenin. The very next day the historic Decree on Peace (calling for immediate cessation of war) and Decree on Land (confiscation of all land held by landlords, churches etc. and its redistribution among the toiling peasantry) were adopted. A host of similar steps followed. The Soviet Government was in place.
The countdown to November, however, had begun much earlier. It was in February 1917 that workers, peasants and soldiers in Russia, fed up with two and half years of imperialist war and its devastating consequences, rose in revolt demanding peace, land and bread. The Tsar was forced to abdicate and a Provisional Government (PG) was formed by deputies of bourgeois parties in the Duma. Simultaneously the Petrograd Soviet of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies was formed; which was then replicated in other cities. Thus emerged the peculiar situation of dual power—the bourgeois PG contending for political hegemony with the Soviet power representing all toilers. Mensheviks in the Soviets, consistent with their pedantic understanding that the bourgeois-democratic revolution is to vest power in the bourgeoisie and that the proletariat should start the socialist revolution at a later stage, adopted a conciliatory attitude to the PG. The Bolsheviks, on the other hand, organised and led the masses in carrying the revolution forward to the socialist stage and in expanding the organs of people’s power. For example, at the instance of the Petrograd Soviet, a workers’ militia was formed, people’s courts chosen, and special elected soldiers’ committees created in every army unit to exercise control over commanding officers.
In April, Lenin returned to Russia and issued the appeal for peaceful transfer of power: “No support to the PG! All power to the Soviets!” Massive demonstrations with this slogan began to be taken out. In July, one such rally in Petrograd was fired upon by troops loyal to the PG. An openly counter-revolutionary bourgeois dictatorship was set up under the premiership of Kerensky; a witch-hunt for Bolsheviks began, and Lenin had to go underground again.
The people’s anger against the PG was rising by the day, and when it was learnt that it was contemplating the surrender of Petrograd to the German troops (with which Russia was then at war) to crush the revolution, the Bolsheviks called upon the masses to oust it by force. After meticulous preparations, this was carried out on October 25 (November 7), as outlined above.
The November revolution was made possible by certain exceptionally favourable circumstances (to name one, the fact that it started at a time when the inter-imperialist contradictions reached the extreme stage of world war), by the great revolutionary determination of the Russian people, and of course, by the advent of Leninism.
As Stalin pointed out in Foundations of Leninism, “It must not be forgotten that between Marx and Engels, on the one hand, and Lenin, on the other, there lies a whole period of undivided domination of the opportunism of the second International ...” During this period reformism, legalism and suchlike vices grew apace in the international labour movement in the backdrop of a relatively peaceful development of capitalism; and Leninism “grew and became strong” (ibid) in clashes with this opportunism. Moreover, Lenin had to fight relentlessly against the tendency of lifeless doctrinarism which reduces Marxism to a closed system of given formulae. Way back in 1899 he had remarked : “We do not regard Marx’s theory as something completed and inviolable; on the contrary, we are convinced that it has only laid the foundation stone of the science which socialists must develop in all directions if they wish to keep pace with life ...” (Our Programme, emphasis in the original). He devoted his life to this task and came up with highly original contributions like the thesis of democratic revolution under proletarian leadership as a transit point for uninterrupted progress towards socialist revolution; the incisive analysis of the political economy of imperialism as the highest and last stage of capitalism; the thesis of socialist revolution in a single country at a time, i.e., at the weakest link in the imperialist chain, and so on. In the process he discarded the “dead letter of Marxism” in order to uphold and develop its “living soul”, thereby saving it from ossification.
Without this epochal advance in revolutionary theory, there would indeed be no November revolution. Similarly, without November and the 20 years of movements preceding it (including the revolution of 1905), we would hardly get the theory of Marxism-Leninism. As the main architect of November observed later, “revolutionary theory assumes final shape only in close connection with the practical activity of a truly mass and truly revolutionary movement.” (‘Left-wing’ Communism).
As we proceed to observe the anniversary of November revolution in this the first year of the 21st century, the rapid accumulation of inflammable material in world politics (to borrow the title of an article penned by Lenin in 1907) is calling for—and also providing the basis for—a comparable progress in revolutionary theory and practice. The 3-4 years connecting the two centuries witnessed a series of economic blows to the globalized finance capital—such as the Mexican meltdown, the South East Asian crisis, the ‘dotcom’ bubble-burst turning into deep recession—as well as a great spurt in popular movements against Third World (TW) governments (in Mexico, Ecuador, the Philippines, Indonesia and so on) which act as national agencies of imperialistic globalisation. If these fall within the ‘normal’ range of problems capitalism has been facing from time to time, there are at least two major developments which have posed altogether new challenges to it.
The first, of course, is the onward march of the anti-globalisation movement from Seattle through Genoa. We must comprehend these as a typical 21st century form of class struggle in the imperialist countries. In terms of actual impact, this form has not yet surpassed the traditional weapons like strikes, but has certainly raised the level of class struggle to a higher political plane from the factory/industry/national level to the international level. It has been called globalisation from below, and with valid reason. More importantly perhaps, the new phenomenon has effectively united diverse classes, strata and political tendencies against the basic policies of neo-imperialism. In the heterogeneity of the forces assembled in this movement lies its strength, not weakness; for that is an authentic reflection of a certain degree of diffusion of class struggle which has actually been brought about by the emerging structural features of late capitalism and by the corresponding changes in the composition and culture of the manual and mental labour force. When in Genoa organised labour and NGOs, environmentalists and anarchists, Marxists and liberals, march in step towards the fenced “red zone” and protesters in the “Pink Silver Block” sing and dance with the slogan “dance down the G-8” even as the “Black Block” combatants break windows and fight the carabinieri, what do we get if not a splendidly colourful spectrum of multiple resistances? The killer-whales of capital has sensed the danger accurately enough : hence the increasingly savage repression (Gottenberg, Genoa).
So far there is no direct organisational link between this movement and the TW mass struggles against neo-liberal, pro-globalisation policies, but objectively the two hit the same target and thus strengthen each other. As Genoa stands witness, solidarity with toilers in poor countries has begun to be voiced by the marchers. For us in the TW, this opening of what Mao would have called “a new front behind enemy lines” is particularly encouraging.
The second major development, obviously, is the September 11 attack and its long-term ramifications. America has declared a global war against terrorism. Can it afford to succeed?
We all know that war is continuation of policy by other means. And that imperialism means war, as asserted by Lenin and borne out most convincingly by the two world wars. But in the nuclearised world today, such wars are no longer practicable; although the need remains for imperialist powers to fight each other for grabbing the control of natural resources (Mid-East oil, for example), for extending spheres of influence, and so on. So what predominates today is the continuation of (traditional) war by other means : proxy wars and state-sponsored terrorism being the two most important. Therefore it is not politically feasible for the top imperialist power to eliminate terrorism. Economically, too, imperialism cannot survive without the war-industries, the military-industrial complexes—but a major buyer of the products of these industries are the terrorist outfits funded by the US and other powers. If these groups are eliminated, the market for arms and ammunitions goes drastically down. Moreover, in addition to the coalescence of bank capital and industrial capital observed by Lenin, present-day imperialism is marked by a happy symbiosis of ‘white’ finance capital and ‘black’ terrorists’ funds. Reports of American, British and Swiss banks flush with such funds, of business relations between Bush and Laden families etc. are well-known. In a word, terrorism is an inalienable adjunct of imperialism today, and the “Terrible Tuesday” has thus dragged the US-led imperialist camp into a war against itself on many fronts.
Add to this the waves of anti-war demonstrations on American soil, which are expected to intensify manifold once the bodybags start coming in. And the sustained terrorisation through Anthraxophobia which is playing greater havoc with American arrogance and sense of stability than the sudden death of September 11. And the growing worldwide indictment of US foreign policy, with the masses in several TW countries in the van. ...
We are passing through interesting times, aren’t we? With all the major contradictions in the world getting intensified, the coming years will witness more rapid development of numerous fighting forces in multiple forms, and will demand of us more creative, more determined, more conscious work among the masses. Let us once again imbibe the daring spirit of November—the mother of all revolutions of our time—and dedicate ourselves to the great legacy of Marxism-Leninism.