Pakistan: Bolshevik Revolution of 1917: the challenging legacy

BY LAL KHAN

In the present excruciating crisis that spells agony for the masses, nothing less than a revolution can emancipate the oppressed millions The financial and economic crash of 2008 and the ongoing organic crisis of world capitalism continues to destroy and debilitate humanity on the economic and social front. But since 2011, it has also given rise to a series of upheavals and movements around the globe. The rejection of capitalism has never been so far and wide and the search of an alternate so intense. In Pakistan, the ferocious crisis of capitalism and its resultant pillage and devastation has left society pulverised, distraught, traumatised, and up to the point of sudden explosions. The constant talk of a ‘French revolution’, and more importantly that this will be ‘a bloody revolution’ by some of the leaders of the ruling elite is a deliberate attempt to inculcate fear amongst the masses against a revolution, and it also reflects an impotent rage at the historical failure of their system to develop and run society. In this hue and cry about revolution, they conveniently avoid mentioning the Bolshevik Revolution because they are well aware of the real dangers it poses to this exploitative and oppressive system, and more importantly, the way forward it provides to the toiling classes to transform society. The Russian revolution was not only one of the greatest events in history but was the only successful revolution carried out on classic Marxist lines. The Bolshevik revolution triumphed on November 7 (October 26 according to the orthodox Byzantine calendar), 1917. With the exception of the heroic episode of the Paris Commune, this was for the first time millions of downtrodden workers and peasants took political power into their own hands, sweeping aside the despotic rule of capitalists and landlords, and set out to create a socialist world order. John Reed, the iconic American writer, described it in the following words in his celebrated work, Ten Days that Shook the World: “No matter what one thinks of Bolshevism, it is undeniable that the Russian Revolution is one of the greatest events in human history, and the rule of the Bolsheviks a phenomenon of worldwide importance.” For 73 years, the apologists of capitalism vented their spleen against the Soviet Union. There was an avalanche of slander unleashed to stain the image of the Bolshevik Revolution and the nationalised planned economy that emerged from it. They manoeuvred to identify socialism with the ‘bureaucratic totalitarian’ regime, which arose from the isolation of the revolution in a backward country. The regime established by the revolution was neither bureaucratic nor totalitarian but the most democratic regime yet seen on earth. For the first time in history, the success of a planned economy was demonstrated not on the pages of Das Kapital, but in an arena comprising a sixth of the planet’s surface, not in the language of dialectics, but in the language of steel, education, healthcare and electricity. In a gigantic and unprecedented experiment, it was proved that it was possible to develop and run society without capitalists, landlords, and moneylenders. Despite the aggression of 21 imperialist armies, tremendous difficulties and obstacles, the abolition of market mechanisms and the introduction of the planned economy revolutionised the productive forces and laid the basis for a modern economy. In the 50 years from 1913 (the height of pre-First World War production) to 1963, total industrial output of the USSR rose by more than 52 times. The corresponding figure for the US was less than six times. In a few decades, a backward agricultural economy was transformed into the second most powerful country. It developed a mighty industrial base, a high cultural level and more scientists than the US and Japan combined. Life expectancy more than doubled and child mortality fell by nine times. Such economic advances, in such a short time, have no parallel in the world. Rents were fixed at about six percent of the monthly income. A small flat in Moscow, up until the early1980s, cost $ 17 per month, which included gas, electricity, telephone and unlimited hot water. However, due to the defeat of revolutions in Germany (1918-23), China (1925-27), Britain (1926), Spain (1930s) and several other countries, the isolation of the revolution and primitiveness of technology led to the beginning of the degeneration of the revolution.

In his State and Revolution, Lenin had clearly set the conditions for Soviet power.

1. Free and democratic elections with the right of recall of all officials by the Soviets (committees of workers, peasants and soldiers).

2. No official must receive a salary higher than that of a skilled worker.

3. No standing army but an armed people.

4. Gradually all tasks of running the state would be performed by everyone in turn.

As the economy expanded, technology became advanced, and production multiplied manifold, it became more and more difficult to run it efficiently on a bureaucratic basis without workers’ democratic control and management as envisaged by Lenin. But under frightful conditions of economic, social and cultural backwardness, the workers democracy degenerated into a deformed caricature. With the death of Lenin and the rise of Stalin, a bureaucratic clique began to crystallise and monopolise power. The four conditions laid down by Lenin were obliterated. The leaders of the revolution predicted the degeneration and collapse of the Soviet Union in advance. In 1921, Lenin said: “Berlin is the heart of Germany and Germany is the heart of Europe. If there is no revolution in Germany the Russian Revolution is doomed.” Unlike the development of capitalism that relies on the market for allocation of resources, a nationalised economy requires conscious planning and direction. The workers democracy is for the planned economy what oxygen is for the human body. In his epic work, Revolution Betrayed, Trotsky wrote in 1936: “The fall of the present bureaucratic dictatorship, if it were not replaced by a new socialist power, would thus mean a return to capitalism with a catastrophic decline of industry and culture.” The apologists of capitalism, reformists, the former Stalinists, and ex-leftists try to argue that the collapse of the USSR signified the demise of socialism. Alan Woods wrote in 1997: “What failed in Russia was not socialism, but a false model, a caricature of socialism...The demagogic attacks on socialism/Marxism/communism have an increasingly hollow ring, because they are made against a background of the deepening crisis of capitalism.” In the present excruciating crisis that spells agony for the masses, nothing less than a revolution can emancipate the oppressed millions. The only revolution that can ensure an end to this pain, misery and deprivation is the socialist revolution. The legacy of the Bolsheviks still provides the general outlines and a comprehensive strategy to achieve a victorious revolutionary transformation.