Final reflections on the centennial year of the October Revolution
The commemoration of the centenary of the October Revolution reflected the political interests and outlooks of different class forces.
In October 1917, in the midst of the slaughter of World War I, the Russian working class, acting under the leadership of the Bolshevik Party led by Vladimir Lenin and Leon Trotsky, overthrew the capitalist provisional government headed by Alexander Kerensky and established the first workers’ state in world history. Less than nine months earlier, Russia had been ruled by a monarchical dynasty headed by Tsar Nicholas II. The revolution was the beginning of the end of the imperialist war.
The Russian Revolution marked a new stage in world history. The overthrow of the capitalist Provisional Government proved that an alternative to capitalism was not a utopian dream, but a real possibility that could be achieved through the conscious political struggle of the working class. Despite the ultimately tragic fate of the Soviet Union—which was destroyed by the betrayals and crimes of the Stalinist bureaucracy—no other event in the past century had such a far-reaching impact on the lives of hundreds of millions of people on every part of the planet.
On this page, readers will find many essays and lectures published over more than 20 years on the World Socialist Web Site examining the significance and lessons of the revolution and its impact around the world.
The Russian Revolution of 1917 ranks among the most significant events in world history. One hundred years after the coming to power of the Bolshevik Party, the bitter controversy that still surrounds discussion of the revolution testifies to its enduring impact and relevance.
The 1905 Revolution has entered into history as the “dress rehearsal” for the events of 1917. The lessons of 1905, the first great revolutionary upheaval of the 20th century, formed the basis for the elaboration of Leon Trotsky’s theory of permanent revolution.
The eruption of World War in August 1914 arose out of deep-rooted contradictions in the capitalist nation-state system. The opportunist leaders of the Second International repudiated the principles of international working class solidarity and endorsed the war.
The revolution was led, as Trotsky wrote, by “conscious and tempered workers educated for the most part by the party of Lenin.”
In April 1917, Lenin came out clearly for the establishment of a workers’ state, which would win and maintain the allegiance of the majority of the peasantry by implementing, to the fullest extent, land reform and democracy.
The State and Revolution was Lenin’s theoretical arming of the party and the working class as a whole for the overthrow of the Provisional Government and the transfer of power to the soviets.
The Bolshevik Party led a politically conscious mass movement. The impact of this movement across time and geography is without parallel. This was the most powerful and progressive movement in world history—so far. The international working class, as it rises to confront the challenges of the 21st century, can and must go further.
Examining the crisis that erupted in the Bolshevik Party on the eve of the October insurrection puts the vital question of the irreplaceable role of the revolutionary party under the microscope, and enables us to more fully understand the tasks faced by our party and its cadre today.
The program of world socialist revolution, advanced by Lenin and Trotsky, was the only viable strategic response to the systemic breakdown that began with the outbreak of the European war.
By David North
One of the staples of anti-Marxist literature is that the Russian Revolution was a putsch, or coup d’état, engineered by a handful of ruthless malcontents who were determined to impose a totalitarian dictatorship upon the people.
The commemoration of the centenary of the October Revolution reflected the political interests and outlooks of different class forces.
The October Revolution ranks among the greatest and most progressive events in world history.
This is the first part of a two-part review. The second part will be posted on Monday, April 13.
A specter is haunting world capitalism: the specter of the Russian Revolution. This year marks the centenary of the world-historical events of 1917, which began with the February Revolution in Russia and culminated in October with the conquest of political power by the Bolshevik Party, under the leadership of Lenin and Trotsky.
One hundred years ago today, the Proclamation on the Assumption of Soviet Power announced the overthrow of the Provisional Government and the establishment of a new government.
The Congress of Soviets of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies abolished landed proprietorship without compensation.
On the hundredth anniversary of the October Revolution we are publishing the proclamation issued on November 7 (October 25, O.S.), 1917 by the Military Revolutionary Committee of the Petrograd Soviet.
In “On Slogans,” written in July 1917, Lenin analyzes the shift in class and party relations following the counterrevolution against the July insurrection.
The year 1917 closes with the Russian Revolution in a precarious situation. The new Soviet government is menaced on all sides by hostile armies. Meanwhile, the imperialist war rages on, and the October insurrection catalyzes revolutionary struggles around the world.
Trotsky later writes, “The circumstances of history willed that the delegates of the most revolutionary regime ever known to humanity should sit at the same diplomatic table with the representatives of the most reactionary caste among all the ruling classes.”
As forces commanded by the counterrevolutionary General Kaledin occupy Rostov, a major industrial center in southern Russia, conflict continues to rage in the Bolshevik leadership over the question of the Constituent Assembly.
Soviet Russia and the Central Powers agree to a 10-day truce, subsequently extended to 28 days. “We have started a resolute struggle against the war brought on by the clash of robbers over their spoils,” Lenin declares in a speech December 5.
Leon Trotsky (1879-1940) led, together with Lenin, the Bolshevik Party and the Russian working class in the 1917 October Revolution. He was the greatest strategist of international socialist revolution of the 20th century. In 1923, he founded the Left Opposition to oppose the growth of a nationalist bureaucracy, headed by Joseph Stalin, as it usurped power in the Soviet Union. In 1933, following the coming to power of the Nazis in Germany, facilitated by the disastrous policies of the Stalinist Comintern that he had opposed, Trotsky called for the founding of the Fourth International.
Vladimir Lenin (1870-1924) was the founder of the Bolshevik Party in Russia, leader of the 1917 Russian Revolution and a towering political and intellectual figure in the 20th century.
With a greater depth and foresight than any other Marxist of his time, Lenin explained the objective significance and political implications of the belittling of Marxist theory for the building of a revolutionary party.
By Leon Trotsky
We are publishing here a portrait written by Leon Trotsky in 1925 of Yakov Sverdlov, the chief organizer of the Bolshevik Party in 1917 and first president of the Soviet Republic.
By Clara Weiss
Today almost forgotten, Ivar Tenisovich Smilga ranks among the most outstanding leaders of the October Revolution and the Civil War in Russia. At the age of just 24, he became one of Lenin’s closest confidants in the preparation for the seizure of power in 1917.
By Clara Weiss
It is difficult to think of a figure from the Russian Revolution for whom the description “working-class hero” would be more apt than Nikolai Muralov. An agrarian expert by training, Muralov led the Bolshevik forces in the seizure of power in Moscow, was one of the towering figures first of the Civil War and then of the inner-party struggle in the 1920s.
By David North and Vladimir Volkov
“The evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones.” This has been, to a great extent, the case with Plekhanov. This is not the result merely of the subjective caprice of historians, but arises from the contradictory character of his long revolutionary career.