Speech by Stefanos Stefanou, member of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of AKEL on the anniversary of the Great October Socialist Revolution

  

Thursday, 7th November 2013, Nicosia

 

Every year we commemorate the anniversary of the Great October Socialist Revolution (GOSR). This year 96 years will have passed since it took place and its messages remain to this day timely and retain their vibrancy over time.

 

And it could not have been otherwise, since the revolution of Lenin and the Bolsheviks shook the world to such a great extent, caused so many great social, political, ideological and economic changes that when assessing the 20th century one cannot bypass without referring to it. Even those who reject the universal and international significance of the Revolution and try every way to delete it from the pages of human history by promoting negative and nihilistic positions cannot ignore it. Their negativism with regards the October Revolution simply reveals their concern about the power and strength of its messages and this is precisely the reason why they seek to eliminate, downgrade or discredit it.

 

However, all their efforts are in vain, because the 1917 October Revolution lives on in the collective consciousness of progressive humanity which envisions and is struggling for a better world; a world of real democracy, real freedom, peace and equality.

 

The collective memory of the October Revolution is constantly being reinforced by the peoples’ struggles against predatory wars, exploitation, poverty, the destruction of the environment and discriminations.

 

It is being reinforced and reignited by the recurring and continuous affirmation of the inherent systemic inability of capitalism to overcome its problems and crises, the bloodshed it causes, the terrible inequalities that it increasingly creates and reproduces, the first and most visible being the enormous inequality in the distribution of wealth. The systemic global crisis capitalism has been going through for the past few years now is yet another visible confirmation that, no matter how much it develops its productive forces, no matter how much it adapts itself and discovers new areas for the accumulation of capital and maximization of profit, capitalism remains inhuman, exploitative and catastrophic for humanity.

 

The current situation humanity finds itself refers to what Marx highlighted very early on in his analyses: that it is imperative for the world to pass from capitalism to a new qualitative stage of development, that is to say, communism, with the socialization of the means of production and abolition of their private ownership. At this stage humanity, through its conscious action to resolve the contradictions of the evolving process in favour of the continuous and sustainable development of the planet. Otherwise, under capitalism these contradictions will be reproduced with greater intensity and the system will continue to destroy the two sources of wealth: people and the environment, with the future and humanity’s perspective uncertain.

 

The October Revolution is the first attempt to end the exploitation of man by man, the unfair distribution of wealth and alienation of man; to end the anarchy in the development of human society and through the conscious action of organized societies for humanity to pass gradually from the “realm of necessity” to the “kingdom of freedom”. Socialist construction in the Soviet Union gave humanity a lot and demonstrated the superiority of the path based on planning to move forward. The dissolution of the Soviet Union and countries of the socialist community, the mistakes and distortions that occurred in no way diminish the significance of the socialist experience and the great successes to humanity’s benefit.

 

The Bolshevik Revolution was not accident. It was not a coup d’état, as the former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher had called it, obviously influenced by the close personal friendship she had with one of the most brutal dictators and murderers of the 20th century, Augusto Pinochet  of Chile.

 

The Revolution came about due to a combination of objective and subjective factors that emerged in Europe during the 19th century. The Old Continent at that time was experiencing, in an admittedly controversial and bloody way, the winds of change which the period of Enlightenment had ideologically and spiritually prepared and which fuelled the Great French Bourgeois Revolution, the Paris Commune and the industrial revolution in England.

 

In 19th century Russia the capitalist relations of production in the major cities in the western part of the country had developed. The development of capitalism came into conflict with the feudal and communal forms of economy and the country was suffering from poverty, brutal exploitation, hunger and ignorance reinforced by bigotry and superstition. Serfdom in Russia was officially abolished in 1861, but its remnants were still visible at the turn of the 19th to the 20th century. The country was under the yoke of the absolute monarchy of an extremely harsh and oppressive Tsarist regime that made Russia known as the prison of peoples.

 

After Russia’s defeat in the war with Japan in 1904, revolutionary activity in Russia grew, leading to the outbreak of the first revolution of 1905-1907. During this revolution strikes and mass demonstrations break out, sections of the army and navy rebel and workers’ councils are established. Faced with this situation Tsarism rallies its forces and the establishment of an elected legislative and parliamentary assembly, the Duma, is announced. Russia becomes a constitutional monarchy. However, gradually the revolution is isolated and is subsequently brutally suppressed.

 

An even tougher period for Russia follows, but the seed of revolution and change had already been planted which at some time and with the proper preparation, could only grow. The Revolution of 1905-1907 left as a legacy to the people of Russia the first awakening from the slumber of oppression, contempt and fatalism. However, above all this revolution left samples of a new type of power, a more direct representative democracy which was to play a leading role in the 1917 revolutions. We are talking about the Soviets, the local councils of people’s representatives, which were always revocable and accountable, hence at any time could express the people’s will and dispositions.

 

From then on until the 1917 February Revolution a great agitation, intensive political and organizational work took place. In conditions of deep illegality, the Bolsheviks led by Lenin, were preparing the ground for revolution. Lenin during this period wages many theoretical and political battles to clarify various aspects of revolutionary action and Russia’s perspective. During this period, Lenin wrote the monumental work on imperialism in which he analyzes the development of capitalism in its monopoly stage. In this work, he highlights the new developments underway, with particular reference to the inter-imperialist contradictions fuelled by the unequal development of the imperialist countries and the creation of the weakest link in the chain of the global system that can, under certain conditions, erupt into a socialist revolution.

 

Besides theoretical issues, Lenin paid great attention and attached enormous importance to the day-to-day work and contact with the popular masses, especially the proletariat, without underestimating at all the poor peasantry, which he defined as a strategic ally of the proletariat, but also the petty-bourgeois strata of the city that in conditions of a revolutionary situation, become radicalized and can be an ally in the revolution or at least not oppose it.

 

Despite the fact that Lenin always valued the importance of theoretical and ideological education and enlightenment, nonetheless he underlined that the battle to the win people’s hearts and minds will be won in the field of struggle, precisely where the working people see the communist beside and with them. It is in the arena of the class struggle where the workers, farmers, the down-trodden and despised understand that the Communist Party represents, defends and fights for their rights and interests. Although very fond of philosophical and theoretical debates, indeed he willingly devoted time to engage in them, Lenin knew very well that the workers who were working hard night and day, the poor farmers with thousands of superstitions haunting them were not in a position to read, and even more so, to comprehend Marxism. In the class struggle however, in the arena of political, national, workers and trade union struggles working people can distinguish who is on their side and who is against them. Lenin writes characteristically that the Party of the revolutionary vanguard should “be connected with, approach and to some extent merge with the broader mass of workers, with the proletariat, but also even with the non- proletarian working masses.”

 

The Bolshevik party did this with great skill and efficiency in the period between the two revolutions of 1917, in February and October. Through the activity they developed inside the Soviets of workers, soldiers and peasants the Bolsheviks from a small group by summer grew into the largest group, because they gained the trust of workers, soldiers, and large numbers of poor farmers and even strata of the city. This was achieved through the daily work of the Bolsheviks both on the front line and in the rear, in factories, cities and villages, everywhere, feeling and grasping the people’s pulse who demanded peace, bread and land. The provisional government, despite the promises it made, did not fulfil them.

 

The First World War was a catalyst that accelerated the revolutionary process. The Tsarist regime’s aspiration to expand territorially the country proved an illusion, since Russia suffered successive defeats, lost territories and the war completely destroyed the economic base that was left in the country. The war deepened the crisis even further, exacerbated the contradictions leading to the Tsar being forced to hand over power to the representatives of mainly bourgeois parties, who formed a weak provisional government headed by Prime Minister Prince Lvov. Real power rested with the Soviets, but they had no plan and did not know how to manage it.

 

Lenin and the Bolsheviks however had a powerful organization, program and plan to manage the power. The Program delivered by Lenin in a text presented before the Bolshevik Party entitled “The Tasks of the Proletariat in the Present Revolution” has gone down in history as the famous “April Thesis”. In these positions, Lenin outlines a series of profound and radical reforms in policy and the economy, which must be made that are not socialist but, as he pointed out, are a necessary step towards achieving socialism. With this position, Lenin replied to comrades of his who insisted that the Bolshevik Party cannot and must not assume non-socialist tasks. Lenin points out that the Party not only can, but it is imperative that it tackles and implements transitional and democratic goals, because this improves the social and political situation and socialism comes closer. If the Communists do not undertake to implement these tasks others will and they will do so in a way that closes instead of opens up the prospect of socialism. The Communists will lose the chance to win the masses and events will overtake them.

 

The “April Thesis” is an extremely timely and useful theoretical – ideological tool on how to combine and about how democratic reforms, democratic tasks and intermediate goals can serve the perspective of socialism.

 

Lenin guiding dialectically the Party, created the conditions for the bourgeois-democratic revolution to evolve into a socialist revolution. The armed uprising wasn’t his choice. He believed in the peaceful transition to socialism. The first step for this was to get all power transferred to the Soviets, but developments with the bloody repression of the popular demonstrations and strikes in July 1917 and the Kornilov coup that followed made the armed uprising imperative. When the Bolsheviks with their allies took up arms and seized the Winter Palace on 25th October, this was done without great difficulties and without encountering great resistance. The conditions had matured so much, the masses had been revolutionized so much and the Bolsheviks and their allies worked so hard that the provisional government was so powerless and weak when it faced the first attack it subsequently collapsed.

 

Enormous difficulties surfaced immediately after the revolution. The Soviet government had to wage a tough internal bloody war against the reaction of the bourgeoisie, the kulaks and aristocracy. It had to combat an imperialist intervention by fourteen countries on the territory of Soviet Russia. It was forced to sign a painful agreement with Germany – the Brest/Litovsk Agreement – to save the revolution. The on-going war completely destroyed the economic and agricultural foundations of the country. Russia was faced with the spectrum of starvation and this, according to Lenin, “created much resentment not only among a significant section of farmers, but also workers.” The revolution risked losing the popular support it enjoyed.

 

Lenin’s dialectic genius led him to the conclusion that he had to temporarily take a step backwards in order to create the conditions and preconditions in order to take more steps forward. He proposed and adopted, admittedly after much discussion and reaction in March 1921, the New Economic Policy (NEP) which provided for a temporary return to some forms of capitalist economy, especially with regards trade and agriculture, in order to restore agricultural production and allow sufficient foods in the market.

 

In addition, the NEP helped towards the utilisation of capitalist expertise in the organization of production and channelling of technology which Russia lacked. In this way, the country acquired an economic and productive base, which it greatly needed. Under the NEP, partnerships with several foreign countries were restored and forged since restrictions on foreign trade were eased. As a result, the danger of isolation and economic suffocation which the country was threatened by was addressed, due to the fact that the proletarian revolutions that broke out in a number of countries had been defeated and Lenin’s expectation of more proletarian states breaking out that would help each other remained unfulfilled.

 

One year after the adoption of the NEP, the leader of the Revolution stated that it had “passed the test.” The NEP proved to be extremely important in Soviet power managing to survive in a hostile environment, maintain its popular support basis and to be able to lay the foundations for the country to move forward. The NEP was a compromise and an organised retreat, in order to serve the goal of socialist construction, which as Lenin noted Russia was “not sufficiently civilized” to immediately proceed on this path.

 

And indeed within the space of a few years Russia managed to move ahead, recover, makes enormous strides in its industrialisation, develop its agricultural production, electrify the country and feed its population. It managed to create in record time the necessary infrastructure to lift people out of ignorance and misery. The country which a few years before had unprecedented levels of backwardness,, deprivation and oppression, ended discrimination and exploitation, gave social, labour, national rights, established a national health system to which citizens had free access, as well as to education. The welfare state and culture had also developed to an unprecedented extent and growth rates reached new heights.

 

These and many other achievements directly affected in a positive way people’s living standards, exerted tremendous influence in Europe and in America. A series of massive strikes and demonstrations by working people erupted in the West, demanding rights similar to those enjoyed by workers in the Soviet Union. The international communist and workers movement, under the influence of the Great October Revolution, began making its first noteworthy steps. The Third International, which meanwhile Lenin had established, played a significant role in these developments.

 

The messages of October also arrived in colonized Cyprus. In the early 1920’s trade union organisations began to appear and promote the struggle for labour rights. The first communist cells were being formed which led to the foundation of the Communist Party of Cyprus in August 1926.

 

The powerful wave of the international workers and communist movement grew immediately after the Second World War and the Anti-fascist victory of the peoples. The decisive role of the Soviet Union in the anti-fascist victory, the formation of the community of socialist countries, the leading role the Communist Parties played in the fight against fascism gave it prestige and strength in the movement. This was enhanced even more wherever the Communist Parties led and were in the front line of the national liberation revolutions for the overthrow of colonialism. The historical experience shows that wherever the communists were in the forefront of the struggles of the peoples, wherever they managed to guide and lead these struggles and express the pulse and will of the popular masses without being left behind, they grew in power and strength. There are indeed quite a few examples.

 

One such example is the historical experience of our own Party, AKEL. Our Party was steeled, grew and became a mass Party precisely because of the strong relationship it had forged with the people, representing working people’s interests without ignoring the feelings, concerns and aspirations of the Cypriot people, without isolating itself from society. It gained the trust and confidence of the people because it convinced the people through its struggles and actions focused on people’s interests and needs which it combined dialectically with the revolutionary ideology that guides it, namely Marxism – Leninism and the visions it represents. The visions and ultimate goals of the Party are dialectically linked with the immediate tasks and problems of the country and its people. Subsequently AKEL without abandoning its class character becomes a leading force in the national political and social life of Cyprus.

 

 

 

Comrades,

 

Friends,

 

In honouring the Great October Socialist Revolution we cannot but study and learn from the historical experience of the victorious struggle of the Bolsheviks in order to draw useful conclusions about how the world communist movement can effectively meet the challenges of modern times.

 

We are living in the era of the neoliberal capitalist onslaught and the so- called New World Order; in an era when capitalism is revealing it’s most repugnant, cruel and the most aggressive face in all areas of life. The infamous New World Order signalled the imposition of cruel and selfish interests, mainly of U.S. imperialism, on an international scale, without any hesitation and without regard to any social costs and human life. Human life and dignity, the suffering of peoples and entire nations are of no value for the imperialists. This is confirmed daily by the blind bombardments and the infamous “surgical” strikes by unmanned aircraft spreading carnage of death among unarmed civilians.

 

This is confirmed daily by the “blind”, devastating blows of the Memoranda and harsh austerity measures imposed on the peoples by the otherwise termed civilized Europe, but also elsewhere; measures and policies which are impoverishing a growing and increasing number of people, driving them into poverty, social marginalization, contempt and misery.

 

Today’s world, although it has reached very high levels of technological and productive development, is in reality no different from the barbarism of the 19th century, for which Engels wrote so eloquently about setting forth the following challenge: “Socialism or barbarism”.

 

This challenge however is not just a slogan. It is a call for struggle so that the perspective of socialism is realised in practice. Towards this end, the world communist movement, the international Left, should be guided by the example of Lenin and the Bolsheviks who fought in the front line of the struggle for the realization of democratic goals. Lenin followed faithfully and with conviction the Marxist position that it is not enough to interpret the world. Interpretations assume value when actively supporting the cause of changing the world.

 

To change the world it is not enough to persuade the worker, the farmer, the scientist and the poor suffering from exploitation and oppression that the capitalist system is unjust and that it is unacceptable that a minority lives in luxury and riches whilst the majority are suffering. As Marx very pertinently wrote, it is not enough for the slave to understand he/she is a slave; the key is to persuade slaves that they can stop being slaves and fight to break their chains.

 

In the contemporary era where imperialism is pressing forward, either in the form of gunboats or the Troika and the Memoranda, the first great challenge is to convince the masses that another world is possible; that there is a perspective for the future and that it’s worth fighting for it.

 

The masses are not convinced just by analyses and theories, which of course are necessary and should be made ​​to expose the inhuman nature of capitalism, provide a compass and objectives and to elaborate strategies and plans. The masses are persuaded, and moreover, won through struggles, actions and mobilizations. The policies against war, against austerity, the destruction of the environment, discriminations, the restriction and curbing of democracy and freedom, against everything that corrupts human civilization are in essence policies against capitalism.

 

However, these are also policies which effectively serve the socialist perspective. Progressive ideology, Marx wrote, “Becomes a material force once it becomes the masses’ consciousness.” Lenin complements this position writing that “on its own the vanguard cannot win. Not only would it be simply absurd, but also a crime to launch the vanguard alone in the decisive battle, before the whole class, before the broader masses have taken a position either openly supporting or adopting a position of favourable neutrality towards it.”

 

Therefore, for the communist movement there is a lot of space to develop its work which it should confidently advance; forging alliances and cooperations; working among and together the masses; seeking on a national and international level joint action even in diversity to stem the capitalist attack.

 

Comrades,

 

The Brazilian Archbishop Dom Helder Camara once said: “When I feed the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why the poor are hungry, they call me a communist”. The Archbishop’s words highlight the universal ideals of socialism. Let’s make them the property of the people. Let’s water again the tree of hope for humanity through our struggles. Let us break the ice again to continue the path laid down by Lenin and the great October.