Preface

On November 7, 2017, Russia’s October Revolution will complete its 100 years. In the same year, as the
thunderbolt of spring, India’s Naxalbari farmers’ revolt, will complete its 50 years. Both these incidents
will be remembered together but there is a fundamental difference between the two. The Russian
Revolution emerged as a symbol of victory for the proletariat of the world and under its influence the
foundation of the communist movement was laid in many countries including India. But the Naxalbari
rebellion was suppressed and the party born from its womb scattered into pieces. Yet, in both events
there is a deep connection. CPI (ML), the party that emerged from the Naxalbari rebellion, emerged as
the heir to the political message of the Russian Revolution, whereas CPI and CPI(M) abandoned that
legacy and became followers of revisionism. Today Naxalite groups which are divided into pieces, leaving
aside their original heritage are rapidly moving towards revisionism. Therefore, to remember both these
historical events does not just mean remembering the past but to try to improve the future.

Human society has rarely been as dynamic as it was in the twentieth century. It is filled with the
chronicles of the rise of revolution as well as the decadency of counter-revolution.

The world saw two world wars during this period. In the interval of these world wars from Europe to
Asia we saw successful experiments at various stages of the proletarian revolution and even saw the
dark chapter of the destruction of socialism born out of these revolutions, as a result of internal strife.

After the completion of this cycle, today the working class of the world stands at the same crossroads
where it was prior to the revolution. Study and analysis of the Russian Revolution in this period of defeat
can become a source of inspiration and strength for the proletariat.

The British proletariat deserved the first historic opportunity for socialist revolution. But it could not take
advantage of this opportunity. French proletariat of the Paris Commune (1871), despite its
establishment, could not maintain its prestige as a ruling class. But the proletariat of a backward
capitalist country like Russia which not only achieved that stage of historical development. but it also
took it to new heights of development and expansion. How did this happen?

The victory of revolution is the truth of the first half of the twentieth century. The opposite is true of the
later half.. The decline began after Stalin’s death and by the 1960s, under the Khrushchev’s leadership
the state of the Soviet Union and a large share of the world communist movement was taken over by the
capitalist scoundrels sitting in the proletarian camp under the leadership of Khrushchev. However, it
already started during Stalin’s lifetime with the betrayal of Yugoslavia’s Tito. But Khrushchev’s betrayal
had reversed the situation. The communist parties of China and Albania certainly stood against
Khrushchev’s revisionist policies, but they couldn’t stop his advancing steps. In those days, the reins of
power were in the hands of communist parties of thirteen countries of the world (sometimes alone,
sometimes in alliance) in which eleven stood in favor of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union under
Khrushchev. What was the basis of this polarization?

Under Stalin’s leadership the Soviet Union achieved successes in national and international politics and
had made tremendous achievements. How could they turn against the same Stalin overnight?
The cycle of setbacks and defeats did not end there. By the 1980s, both the above mentioned
strongholds also collapsed and proletariat rule and socialism came to an end in the entire world. It
affected the communist parties of all the countries working under the aura of Soviet Union and China.
As a result, monopoly of revisionism on working class politics around the world was established. The
generations of workers who grew up in this period were exposed to revisionism and have become
accustomed of considering every kind of opportunism as Marxism. This is why a large section of workers
understood the disintegration of the Soviet Union in 1991 as the decline and disintegration of socialism,
while the parties influenced by the politics of China and Albania understood that socialism in the Soviet
Union degenerated into state capitalism as early as in the 1960s. What actually happened in 1991 was a
transition of state capitalism into private capitalism and social imperialism into imperialism. But these
parties were not successful in making their understanding as the common understanding of the working
class.

The politics of the working class once again stands at the crossroads. The questions of history that were
solved during the victory period revolution have again come to the fore today with equal confusion.

Capitalist thinkers have already declared Marxism irrelevant and the ideas of proletariat revolution
impractical. Some people who call themselves Marxists have also started raising questions on the
character of the Russian Revolution and the path of development of Marxist thinking.

After a long period of the defeat of the Trotskyists, Khrushchev and his followers started attacking
Marxism by condemned Stalin’s experiments with the dictatorship of the proletariat.

Now the matter has gone beyond this. The new incarnation of Trotskyists has started saying that Lenin
did not even think of the possibility of the victory of socialism in one country. Everything was done by
Stalin. This is a white lie and these people by creating artificial differences between the policies of Lenin
and Stalin want to mislead Marxism. Now even a group of such people has arisen, which raises doubts
about Lenin being a Marxist and considers Stalin and Mao to be the heir to Lenin’s wrong policies.

All this is neither happening suddenly nor without reason. Since the birth of Marxism, it has been
observed that whenever capitalism/imperialism has gone through a period of crisis, external and internal
attacks on Marxism have intensified. But there is a huge difference between the circumstances of then
and now. In the era of Marx-Engels, capitalist thinkers outrightly rejected the concept of socialism and
workers' rule as a flight of imagination. But after the Russian Revolution their mouths were shut. The
successful flight of socialism again kept everyone’s mouth shut. During that period there was an
understanding among the working class around the world that the attack on Bolshevik power is the
result of capitalist hatred of the working class.

Today the situation has reversed. Capitalist attacks due to failure of socialism have intensified. Anti-
socialist propaganda of capitalist thinkers and betrayal of revisionists have alienated the working class
from the concept of socialism.

They are trying hard to prove and are also succeeding in making people believe that socialism is not
possible and that it cannot be an alternative to imperialism/capitalism. This attack is more dangerous
than the attacks on Lenin and Stalin. All such attacks ultimately are on Marxism. Efforts should be made
to find the roots of these attacks in the policies of Bernstein, Kautsky, Trotsky, Khrushchov and Deng.
This investigation is a big challenge for us. But all is not well in the imperialist camp. There may not be
any external challenge for imperialism, but the internal crisis is so serious that it cannot find its be
solution. This is the first time in history that from oppressed countries to even in imperialist countries
public dissatisfaction and resistance is increasing. In Islamic countries from the Middle East to Asia
armed resistance has reached such heights that their suppression has become difficult for the imperialist
powers. Due to the long grip of opportunism, the revolutionary movement has been stuck in a state of
internal decay for a long time. In this situation, the pre-condition for the end of imperialism is to end
opportunism that hides within the revolutionary movement.

If the present is stuck in such confusion, then the way to move forward has to be found in history and it
also tells us. The role of history is twofold. For the reactionaries, it becomes an instrument for the
society to fall into the quagmire of revivalism, but in the hands of revolutionaries it becomes an
instrument to shape the future by learning from the past.

Keeping this in mind, we have taken resolution to understand the Russian Proletarian Revolution around
three questions:

The first question is : why the world’s first proletarian revolution succeed only in Russia.

The second question is : why this revolution generated so much energy in the Russian society (later
Soviet society). Where did this energy come from that it became invincible power in the Second World
War while creating new records of development?

And the third question is : what was the weak link in the socialist structure of the Soviet Union that
broke?

While pondering over these three questions, the fourth question came up : what lesson does this study
leave for the future revolution?

It is not that no work was done on this topic earlier. There has been much debate on this and a very
superficial conclusion was drawn that due to Stalin’s mistakes Khrushchev emerged in Soviet Union and
socialism converted into capitalist development.

We have neither reached nor can reach anywhere with this conclusion. Therefore in this booklet,
following Engels’s instructions, we will try to attribute the reasons for the victory of the Russian
Revolution not to Lenin's extraordinary personality but in the social situation of Russia and its existence.

Will try to find in the conditions. Lenin was the greatest among his contemporary leaders.

He was extraordinary and brilliant among his contemporary thinkers in the sense that he correctly
analyzed the situation at the right time, formulated it in political formula and to make it practical pressed
on the political formula and dared to give leadership to the Bolshevik Party.