The victory of the Great October Revolution and the successful construction of socialism

Article scheduled to be published in "Unity & Struggle" issue 15

The victory of the Great October Revolution and the successful construction of socialism
– The greatest historical validation and confirmation of Marx’s scientific theory.

November of this year will mark the 90th anniversary of the Great October Socialist Revolution, the greatest event of the 20th century that resulted, for the first time, in the rise of the workers, peasants and soldiers and the establishment of the first proletarian state in human history. All generations in the 20th century solemnly honour the Great October Socialist Revolution.

The victorious outcome of the Proletarian Revolution in Russia marked the beginning of a new era in human history and constituted the greatest historical validation and confirmation of Marx’s scientific theory regarding three fundamental questions.

First, regarding the historical necessity and inevitability of the proletarian revolution and socialism; that “the class struggle leads to the communist Revolution (Marx). The historical necessity and inevitability of the proletarian revolution are rooted in the laws underlying the development of the material forces of production and their conflict with the obsolete relations of production of the last antagonistic socio-economic formation, capitalism. As Marx wrote: “Precisely as capitalism succeeded feudalism, socialism likewise will inevitably succeed capitalism”.

Second, regarding the possibility of the practical application of socialism, considered by the bourgeois theorists a utopia and impossible. Until the victory of the October Socialist Revolution, socialism was a scientific theory that hadn’t been applied yet. Through the construction of socialism in the Soviet Union of Lenin-Stalin, it was proved for the first time that socialism does not constitute merely a scientific theory but a social system that can be established and demonstrate its superiority over capitalism.

In this way, all claims made by the bourgeois theorists and economists that the socialist economy is allegedly an “irrational” one (due to the absence of private property, market and competition) and, therefore, unable to prevail and operate, are refuted. (N.G. Pierson, L.v. Mises, M. Weber, A. Weber, and others).

Third, regarding the fact that the construction of socialism-communism is possible only on the condition that the principles of revolutionary Marxism are steadfastly upheld and followed. The incorrect conduct of the class struggle against the counter-revolutionary and anti-socialist forces after Stalin’s murder resulted in the prevalence of the Khruschevian revisionist counter-revolution.

The victory of the October Socialist Revolution also confirmed all the tenants of the Leninist-Stalinist theory of Proletarian Revolution

Firstly, it confirmed that the revolutionary proletariat, being in close alliance with the poor peasantry, is the main, decisive and leading force of the Proletarian Revolution.

Secondly, it confirmed the necessity for a revolutionary party which is equipped with the theory of Marx-Engels-Lenin-Stalin in the role of organiser and leader of the revolution which doesn’t share its leadership with other parties.

Thirdly, it confirmed that the path of armed insurrection is the only path to the overthrow of capitalism.

Fourthly, it confirmed the necessity for the smashing of the bourgeois state machinery as an essential condition for the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat, “that will be led by a single party, the party of communists, which will not and should not share its leadership with other parties” (Stalin).

Fifthly, it confirmed that the dictatorship of the proletariat is necessary for the whole transitional period from capitalism to communism.
The legendary events that took place in Russia during the “10 days that shook the world”, in October of 1917, did not come out of the blue. After three years of engagement in the imperialist First World War, the situation in the Eastern Front was desperate. The ill-led, wretchedly equipped Russian Army had been cut to pieces by the Germans. Shaken by the impact of the war and rotted from within the feudal Tsarist regime tottered and fell. In March, thousands of exasperated soldiers poured from the front to the cities and together with workers forced Tsar Nicholas II to abdicate. A Provisional Government was established with Prime Minister Alexander Kerensky. But even after the collapse of the autocracy, the Revolution was only beginning.

The Provisional Government didn’t heed the cry for Peace, Bread and Land! that swept across the vast country summing up the immediate longings and the ancient aspirations of the war-weary, starved and dispossessed Russian millions. This brought the Mensheviks and the Socialist Revolutionaries in difficult position because while, Kerensky’s partners in the Provisional Government, they were at the same time the dominating forces in the Soviets; the elected bodies of the revolutionary workers, peasants and soldiers. On the other hand, the influence of the Bolsheviks in the Soviets and among the workers in general was constantly rising. Contrary to the bourgeois and socialist parties, the Bolsheviks were adhered to the unfulfilled aims of the February revolution. Moreover, at a time when the reactionary forces and the Provisional Government kept postponing the convention of the Constituent Assembly, the Bolsheviks went a step further demanding the transfer of all state power to the Soviets.

In September 1917 matters reached a crisis. Against the overwhelming sentiment of the country, Kerensky formed a Coalition Government with the propertied classes. As a result the Mensheviks and the Socialist Revolutionaries lost the confidence of the people forever. Around the same time the Tsarist General Kornilov, organised a revolt with the object of crushing the revolution and of restoring czarism. The Central Committee of the Bolshevik Party called upon the workers, soldiers and sailors to rise in defence of the revolution. All this speeded up the Revolution even more and put the armed insurrection on the order of the day. On Lenin’s proposal a Party Centre headed by Stalin was set up to direct the insurrection.

By the morning of 7th of November (25 October, Old Style), the telephone exchange, the chief telegraph office, the radio station, the bridges across the Neva, the railway stations and the most important government offices were in the hands of the insurgent proletariat. The Winter Palace, the seat of the Provisional Government, had also been captured. The signal for the storming of the Palace by detachments of Red Guards and sailors was a blank shot from the guns of the cruiser “Aurora”. The insurrection had succeeded. At 10 a.m. the Military Revolutionary Committee issued its historic manifesto drawn up by Lenin, addressed “To the Citizens of all Russia” proclaiming to the masses of the people the overthrow of the Provisional Government and the transfer of the state power to the Soviets. In the evening, the Second Congress of Soviets was opened in Smolny. The transfer of all power, central and local, to the Soviets was officially proclaimed.

Thanks to the heroism, faith and self-denial of the advanced working masses and the ardent guidance of the Bolsheviks, the flame of the October Revolution spread in almost a month to all cities and regions of Central Russia. In Moscow, Novgorod, Ekaterinenburg the bourgeois-capitalist rule was overthrown and the new proletarian rule was founded.

The great thinker Lenin, by creatively applying and further developing the Marxist theory in accordance to the conditions of his time, showed the way to the October Revolution that eliminated the vestiges of serfdom, liberated the people of tens of nationalities from the bondage of the bestial tsarist regime, socialised all the means of production and the natural resources of the country and established the workers-peasants power. The October Revolution, by far the most significant event of the 20th century, literally changed the course of human history. For the first time since the dawn of civilisation, the ancient dream of the exploited toiling masses came true; the exploitation of man by man was abolished. What’s more, the oppressed masses became masters of their own land, of their own destiny.

The October Revolution awakened millions of working masses all around the world and shook the foundations of the barbaric and brutal imperialism. It helped the people of the capitalist countries, primarily Britain, France and Germany, become even more aware of the utter futility of the imperialist war that served only the interests of the European ruling circles. In one country after another, communist parties were founded adhering to the Bolshevik revolutionary principles and tactics. The class struggle between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat become bitter. In some cases, socialist revolutions broke out like in Germany and Hungary where resulted in short lived Soviet Republics. The people in countries under colonial rule, China, India, Persia and elsewhere also rose against their rulers. The world colonial system entered a period of prolonged and deep crisis that would eventually bring its end after the Second World War.

The October Revolution proclaimed the advent of a new era in the history of all mankind, the era of proletarian revolution and proletarian dictatorship, the era of transition from capitalism to communism. The Russian workers by making their “leap to heavens” paved the way for their brothers in other countries to follow suit. As Lenin wrote: “We started this work. How long it will take and whose country’s proletarians are going to finish is not the main issue. The main issue is that the ice is broken, the road is open, and the course is set”. The October Revolution gave birth to the International Communist Movement and favoured its gradual development. It led to the establishment of the Third International (1919-1943) which replaced the bankrupt and treacherous Second International. Henceforth, the Third International became a force that imperialism had to reckon with in all its future plans. It was the headquarters of the International Proletarian Revolution. Being members of the Third International, the Communist Parties were able to draw from the long revolutionary experience of the Bolsheviks and play a leading role in the struggle of the workers in their own countries.
Leaders like Lenin and Stalin who perform such feats are born perhaps once in a millennium. “Leaders” are not the ones named by all kinds of adventurists, exploiters and mobsters. Leaders are those who have unshakable devotion to ideals that fully express the true interests and the wishes of the masses, wretched by the exploitation and oppression of the world tyrants. Together Lenin and Stalin annihilated the remnants of the tsarist armies and the hordes of intervention sent to the land of Soviets by the imperialist and other European countries, including Greece, in order to overthrow the proletarian power. After Lenin’s death, Stalin solemnly swore before the great leader’s coffin to continue his work. He kept this oath up to the last letter.

As the leader of CPSU and the people of the Soviet Union, Stalin successfully carried out the Leninist policy of industrialisation, and collectivisation of the country through the launch of the five-year plans and surpassing enormous difficulties and problems. But nothing would be possible without the monolithic unity of the Bolshevik Party. And this Stalin maintained, like “the apple of his eye”, by crushing ideologically and politically all the opportunistic factions that opposed the socialist construction; the groups of Trotsky, Zinoviev, Kamenev and Bukharin. All those who turned out to be nothing more than common criminals, saboteurs and murderers, paid agents of fascism and imperialism. Stalin led the party and the people of the Soviet Union in all fields scoring huge successes in economy, defence, education, health, culture, sciences, research, technology and generally, in social and cultural development. In a slightly more than a decade, the country was transformed into an industrial and military superpower. Stalin, CPSU and the Soviet Union became a legend and humanity’s star of hope and pride.

The industrial and military might acquired with the first second and third five plan allowed the Soviet people to achieve the greatest triumph of all centuries: the victory over the German Nazism, the Italian and Japanese fascism in the Great Patriotic War. Compared to its allies, the Soviet Union bore the greatest weight of the war and paid an extremely high price for it. This, historically well-established, fact is evident not only from the sheer size of the human losses – more than 20 million dead – but also from the devastation of the Soviet homeland which was of shocking scale.
Soon after the Great Victory, the heroic and proud people of the Soviet Union accomplished new feats of labour by almost completing the reconstruction of their vast country from 1945 to 1952. Alas, the internal class enemies, though defeated, had not been totally eliminated. As a matter of fact, throughout the whole period of the Great Patriotic War and the reconstruction of the devastated homeland, the dark reaction, the crypto-fascists and the revisionists in the ranks of the mass organisations, and especially CPSU, were undermining the work of CPSU and the Soviet state using all possible means, not excluding terrorist methods. They murdered Zhdanov, Schernbakov in 1948 and in 1953 I. V. Stalin himself. For this purpose, they employed a group of doctors that had been recruited in a US-based secret organisation whose mission was to eliminate the People’s Republics leaders, eminent scientists and state officials from all progressive countries. The victims of the doctor’s gang, that numbered about 70 members in the Soviet Union, were many. Although they were all arrested, they were acquitted and released later by Khrushchev apart from nine of them who had been already executed for the murder of Zhdanov and Stalin.

The murder of Stalin was followed by the murder of a whole series of party and state officials such as the Moscow and Kremlin Garrison Commanders, 29 top ranking cadres of State Security, many cadres from the Soviet Republics, and the leaders of almost all the People’s Republics; Wilhelm Pieck from Germany, Klement Gotvald from Czechoslovakia, Boleslaw Beirut from Poland, Ana Pauker from Romania, Vulko Chervenkov from Bulgaria, Matias Rakosi from Hungary and Nikos Zachariades from the Communist Party of Greece (KKE).

Behind all these crimes they were the counter-revolutionary group of N. Khrushchev, A. Mikoyan, L. Beria, Mikhail Suslov and others plotting against the Soviet power, socialism and aiming at the restoration of capitalism. But coming out openly with these goals, as early as 1953, would only amount to their suicide. They were compelled to proceed gradually, being cautious in every step. Most importantly, they had to find another target that would serve their sinister purpose indirectly. Of course that target was Stalin and his world-historical work. By condemning (that is slandering) Stalin and his alleged excesses and mistakes, the crypto-fascists revisionists condemned the man who incarnated the very triumph of socialism not only in USSR but in one-third of the world.

The next step was the official revision of Marxism-Leninism that started with the 20th Congress (“peaceful transition” etc.) and continued with the decisions of the 22nd Congress of CPSU (“state of all people” etc). Once revisionism seized political power, it moved on with its economical programme; a series of individual reforms carried out immediately after the 20th Congress (simultaneously with the overthrow of the dictatorship of the proletariat) that culminated in the so-called Kosygin reforms in 1964-65 resulting in the gradual but complete restoration of capitalism in the Soviet Union and transforming it from the centre of world revolution into the centre of revisionist counter-revolution.

Some of Khrushchev’s other despicable political actions include the following: 1) The purge of almost all CPSU cadres (c.a. 98%) 2) The discharge and replacement of elite officers of all ranks and fighting services 3) The replacement of the administrative machinery (c.a. 94%) in all branches of production, in educational and research institutes, in hospitals and cliniques 4) The liquidation of the World Peace Movement 5) The violent intervention and liquidation of the communist movement throughout the world 6) The establishment of a system of corruption, bribery, and embezzlement. 7) The encouragement of unlimited consumption of alcohol and the emergence of an increasing criminality in all socialist countries. 8) The formation of a capitalist caste of privileged officials – the “nomenclature” – in all fields. 9) The introduction of cosmopolitanism and the exhibition of the capitalist way of life and culture in socialist societies. 10) The blemish, the vulgar slandering of the work and history of CPSU, its leadership and the Soviet people. 11) The extortion of recantations (about 1000 a day published in Pravda) from party, science economy cadres. All this turned the country into a vast breeding-ground for the final figures of the treason, such that has never been witnessed by humanity throughout the centuries: M. Gorbachev, B.Yeltsin, A. Yakovlev, E. Sevardnadze and Co.

The prevalence of the Khruschevites in CPSU resulted in a new status quo in the communist movement and in the socialist camp. They tried to impose the new counter-revolutionary line adopted in the infamous 20th Congress to all communist parties in the world. In order to achieve this, they employed every possible means of intervention in the internal affairs of the fraternal parties, every kind of pressure and threat, political and economical blackmail. All the communist parties that adopted the ideological-political line of the 20th Congress degenerated into bourgeois, socialdemocratic parties. The case of our party, KKE, is worth mentioning briefly because it was the first party in the world that experienced a violent revisionist attack. The peculiar circumstances under which our party was working during that period were favourable to this intervention. In 1949, after the end of a heroic three-year armed struggle against the Greek royal-fascism and Anglo-American imperialism, the majority of the KKE members and cadres were forced to leave their country and settle in the Soviet Union and the other socialist countries.

Even before the 20th Congress, when the Khrushchevites realised that the KKE leadership headed by Nikos Zachariades is not going heed their calls to abandon the revolutionary Marxist-Leninist-Stalinist course and follow the anti-Stalinist revisionist course, they made a further step. They proceeded to form a right opportunist faction in the Tashkent Party Organisation (KOT), and to promote this faction right up to the Organisation’s leadership. KOT was the largest KKE Party Organisation in the socialist countries and the Khrushchevites knew that if they managed to subjugate it then it would be much easier to subjugate the whole Party. However, the revolutionary KKE leadership headed by Nikos Zachariades immediately took measures and removed fraction’s cadres from the leadership of KOT. This was just the pretext for the pre-planned open provocation that followed. On the 9th of September 1955, around 400 factionists, armed with knives and sticks, attempted to capture by force the offices of KOT, serving at that time as a temporary seat of some visiting members of the CC of KKE. This bloody pogrom failed thanks to the overwhelming resistance of the Greek communists in Tashkent many of whom suffered knife injuries in the clash with the factionists. The whole operation was under the guidance of Saakov, KGB Colonel Saakov who, in turn, was employed by Boris Panomariov, the member of the CC of CPSU entrusted with the KKE affairs.

The overwhelming majority of the Greek communists in Tashkent and other Party organisations wholeheartedly condemned this despicable act of violence and provocation and supported the lawful leadership of KKE headed by Nikos Zachariades. The Party’s unity was evidently expressed in the elections of representatives for the KOT Conference which would appoint a new KOT Bureau; the majority of the elected representatives were loyal to the lawful KKE leadership. It was evident that the KOT Conference would amount to the political death of the faction but following an order from CC of CPSU the Conference was cancelled.

In the 20th Congress of CPSU, the Khruschevites formed the so-called “International Committee of Fraternal Parties” consisting of cadres from the Soviet, Romanian, Hungarian, Polish, Czechoslovak and Bulgarian parties. However, their behaviour towards KKE was anything but fraternal. The International Committee openly and without pretexts intervened in KKE by arbitrarily summoning the infamous 6th Plenum (March 1956). This illicit body was convened by summoning a whole bunch of former, i.e. removed, KKE cadres but not the General Secretary of the Party Nikos Zachariades. The report was read by the Romanian opportunist Georgiu Dez. The 6th Plenum illegally and forcibly removed the lawfully elected revolutionary leadership of KKE, including the Party’s General Secretary Nikos Zachariades, who was arrested and isolated, and appointed a right opportunistic puppet leadership that consisted of individuals like K. Koligianis, K. Tsolakis (who participated in the bloody pogrom in Tashkent aiming at the murder of Zachariades), M. Partsalidis and others. The 6th Plenum adopted the counter-revolutionary social-democratic line promulgated in the 20th Congress of CPSU. What followed was the expulsion from the party of thousands of communists who were staunch Marixst-Leninists and loyal to the lawful KKE leadership.

The years that followed 1956 were years of fascist persecutions of all the Greek communists, who remained faithful to Stalin and Zachariades by the Soviet and Greek Khrushchevian revisionists. These persecutions took various forms: surveillance, spying, arrests, imprisonments, exile to Siberia, etc. Thousands party cadres were exiled to Siberia and among them the Party’s General Secretary, Nikos Zachariades, who, after 17 years of exile, was murdered in Sorgut by the treacherous Brezhnev-Florakis clique so that he wouldn’t return alive to Greece and upset their plans.

Essentially a new party emerged out of 6th Plenum. This new party shamelessly usurped the name “K”KE although it has been, from the very beginning, a bourgeois social democratic party which bears no political, ideological or organizational relation with the revolutionary KKE. The anti-Stalinism of this 6th Plenum abortion is evident even today not only from its everyday political tactics but also from its hypocritical statement for the 90th anniversary of the October Revolution.

We mention only a few: a) No reference is made to the vital and irreplaceable role of Stalin in the October Revolution, in the Civil War and, above all, in the construction of socialism during the whole period 1924-1953. b) The line promulgated by the 7th Congress of the Third International in 1935 that set as primary task for the Communist parties the anti-fascist struggle is considered mistaken. c) The absolutely right decision on the self-dissolution of the Third International in 1943 is said to have deprived the Communist Movement of the decision centre needed to devise a strategy against imperialism. At the same time, it is held that Comniform didn’t manage to fulfil this role after the war. d) The Stalinist leadership of CPSU is actually blamed for underestimating the intra-imperialist antagonisms and entertaining pacifistic illusions. e) Of course, the 20th Congress of CPSU and Khruschevian revisionism didn’t amount to the overthrow of the dictatorship of the proletariat and the restoration of capitalism. f) The line of peaceful co-existence is shamelessly attributed to Stalin and the 19th Congress of CPSU g) The anti-revisionist attitude of the Communist Parties of Albania and China is bluntly called “antisovietism”.

The perception of the 20th Congress, Khruschevian revisionism and the anti-stalinist slandering as the gravediggers of the great October Revolution is the dividing line between communism and anti-communism. The question that should be asked is then: How did the class enemy manage to commit treason of such scale and such dimensions? It is a fact that after the glorious victory over Nazism, Italian fascism and Japanese militarism, the peace finally prevailed around the world. The Soviet Union was seething with fruitful productive work. The living standards were constantly rising. Life was becoming again pleasant, happy and much comfortable. The public respect and esteem for the leaders of the country were beyond doubt and this is the reason why it was so difficult for the soviet citizen to perceive the treacherous and subversive intentions of some of the leaders who were in the spotlight? Who could think that somebody like Nikita Khruchev was working to sell out their country to the imperialists, to overthrow the social system??

Later, the treason was been fully completed by the all those “worthy” successors of crypto-fascist revisionism, the agents of imperialism that bear the names of M. Gorbachev, B. Yeltsin, A. Yakovlev, D. Medvedev, E. Sevardnadze and Co. These agents of the class enemy within the CPSU ranks, seized offices, offended against the toiling masses in every step they take, and they transformed the heavenly society of their country into the dark hell of Dante. The outcome of this despicable treason is wretchedness in every part of the country, terror and crime reaching their climax, despair and isolation for the majority of the citizens. This was the upshot of the capitalist restoration and the New Order. We believe that history, humanity as a whole will condemn and severely punish the unprecedented treachery of working people not only of the socialist camp but also of the whole world.
We believe that all proletarians, toilers, the socialist intellectuals and fighters will always honour the Great October Revolution, focus attention on the society created by the October Revolution and that the temporary prevalence of the counter-revolution cannot delay the society’s necessary progression to communism.

There are, of course, nowadays well-meaning people who shout and yell that we have reached the end of our dreams, that we have entered an era that marks the defeat of the worker’s and communist movement, an era of despair and disappointment, of demobilisation of the proletarian classes. But the communists, as all progressive people, are well aware that capitalism is a system plagued with unresolved class contradictions, a system that gives rise to phenomena of permanent crisis and instability and shows clear signs of decay and collapse. They realise the downfall and total annihilation of capitalism is inescapable and it will be facilitated by the working class. After the Great October Revolution, this change is not any more a mere vision but a historical necessity.

Movement for the Reorganization of the Communist Party of Greece 1918-55