Speech by A. Kyprianou, General Secretary of the C.C. of AKEL, at the meeting organized by the Communist Party of the Russian Federation
INTERNATIONAL FORUM OF LEFT FORCES “OCTOBER 1917: BREAKTHROUGH TOWARDS SOCIALISM”
6th November 2017, Moscow
“There are decades when nothing happens, and there are weeks where decades happen “.
Lenin couldn’t have described any better those days in October 1917. Those very days that shook the world, the days of the Great October Socialist Revolution. It was the revolution that changed history; the revolution that inaugurated the transition from capitalism to socialism and demonstrated in practice that another society with the working people at the forefront is feasible.
The Red October of Petrograd shook the world. It gave a new impetus to the class social struggle. It accelerated revolutionary processes and mobilized the national liberation movements of the enslaved peoples. The revolution’s impact was catalytic, especially as regards the establishment of new working-class parties. The messages transmitted by October fell like seeds in every corner of the land. They very quickly reached Cyprus too where they found a fertile ground and together with the maturing of the objective conditions, led to the founding of the Communist Party of Cyprus, the first cells of which began to be established early in the 1920’s.
Can anyone today imagine an economy with zero unemployment? A society with zero illiteracy? Imagine a society where everyone has a roof over their head? A society with full pensions and a social policy implemented for all those in need? A society where people with disabilities have all their basic needs fully met with free education and vocational training? A society where anyone without a family and who is constantly in need of assistance has full material support, specialized medical care and everyday needs satisfied, also with regards recreation and leisure time? Can one envisage a society where women have a pregnancy and childbirth allowance of 100% of their salary? A society where all women have full access to maternity and gynecological departments of hospitals with 22 000 maternity counseling stations at their disposal? Envisage a society where nurseries for large member or poor families are free of charge? Where the health system is comprehensive, exclusively state-owned and completely free of charge? Where people with disabilities can graduate from than two and a half thousand specialized schools? Imagine a society in which there are more than four thousand institutions for the all-round development of children’s and adolescent’s capabilities, channeling their social activity to enhance their interest for work, sciences, the arts and sports?
These are just a few of the Soviet people’s achievements, to which we must add the leaps made in science and culture. From 1981 to 1985, the Soviet Union sold three times more patents of its own technology to the US than it bought from them. It had more students per 10,000 inhabitants than the developed capitalist countries, while culture and sports were accessible to all. “Every cook has to learn how to govern the State”, said Lenin. This revolutionary change in the economic base was accompanied by a real cultural revolution: education and culture flourished in libraries, cultural and recreation clubs, symphonic orchestras, choirs, state opera and ballet houses.
The Soviet Union managed to become a great economic and military force on the eve of World War II. The consistent principled stand of the Soviet Union on peace and disarmament issues, which it staunchly defended from the podiums of the United Nations and all international bodies, is indisputable. In the 1960’s, the struggle of the peoples to shake off the colonial yoke and to win their national independence had a steadfast supporter and precious ally in the Soviet Union. The capitalist state’s imperialist designs confronted in the country of the Soviets the preventive force, opposing pole.
The Soviet Union’s position as regards the Cyprus problem too was steadfast and timeless, remaining a strong ally of Cyprus in all its difficult times. From all the international podiums, and especially after 1974, the Soviet Union was a firm and consistent supporter of the Cypriot people’s for peace and reunification.
With the dissolution of the Soviet Union, a historical crime was committed not only against the Soviet people, but against humanity too. We as AKEL were not among those who celebrated the dissolution of the Soviet Union. On the contrary, we had stressed that the peoples of the world would pay a heavy price for imperialism’s domination with their own blood. This is precisely what happened. We had underlined that rights and gains won by the peoples also under the pressure of the Soviet Union would be abolished one by one. Is this not happening today? Millions of working people in the modern metropolis of capitalism are working in conditions that go far back.
Against all this, the progressive democratic forces around the world, with the Communists at the forefront, have no choice but to rally and coordinate their forces in the struggle for peace, democracy, socialism and the salvation of human civilization.
The perspective of socialism is built through the small and big local and international struggles waged by progressive humanity for peace and true universal values, against imperialism and predatory expansive wars that it is triggering across the globe. It is built through the waging of small and big struggles against exploitation and for curbing the policy of big capital. For a fairer distribution of the wealth produced. For the defence and strengthening of working people’s rights and gains. For a dignified life and to ensure citizens’ access to Education, Health, Culture and Social Welfare. For more democracy and people’s participation in society, for more freedom. In addition, socialism’s perspective is cultivated by struggles against nationalism-chauvinism, racism, all forms of discrimination, social and political oppression. This is, of course, part of a strategic plan to overcome the existing system.
One hundred years after the Great October Socialist Revolution, our own task is to draw from its invaluable lessons and the history of socialism; to understand that socialism and democracy are identical concepts; that it isn’t enough for the leadership of the Communist Party in a socialist society to be enshrined in constitutions and proclaimed by law. It is imperative that this leadership role is won on a daily basis, through the struggle for the good of the working class, for the good of the common people.
Let us therefore stand at the forefront of the struggle with the optimism of the force that serves historical law and with the assurance in the belief in a future that confirms that we shall win!
