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.

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.