October Revolution

“ Entirely different was the conception of the October revolution in the countries of the Allies. Here our exit from the war was considered an unheard of violation of all laws of god and man. They looked upon us almost as violators of a sworn promise, although you know we never gave any promises. ”

“ Most of these demands were entirely in keeping with anarchist ideas and were therefore entitled to our support. But while I hailed and honored the Bolsheviki as comrades in a common fight, I refused to credit them with what had been accomplished by the efforts of the entire Russian people. The October Revolution, like the February overthrow, was the achievement of the masses, their own glorious work. ”

“ If in our country the October Revolution unfolded in the struggle with a state apparatus which did not succeed in stabilizing itself after February, then in other countries the insurrection will be confronted with a state apparatus in a state of progressive disintegration.
It may be assumed as a general rule—we pointed this out as far back as the Fourth World Congress of the Comintern—that the force of the pre-October resistance of the bourgeoisie in old capitalist countries will generally be much greater than in our country; it will be more difficult for the proletariat to gain victory ”

“ During the months of September and October, when your Wide-Awakes on the one hand, and your conservative Democracy on the other, were parading the streets with banners and music, as they or their predecessors had done in so many previous contests, and believing that nothing worse could be involved than a possible party defeat and some bad feelings, we, who lived where revolutions were common, thought that we discovered the smouldering spark which would be blown to revolution here. ”

“ Those dark days of distress and crime are passed away forever. The splendors of an October sun, which then shed a radiance over the forests and the waters, beautiful as now, no longer light up the ambuscade of the red men, or the hiding-places of the pale-faces lurking for blood. From the bald eminence on which I stand, the land of Philip and Canonchet, of Witamo and Miantonômoh, and the broad waters where they sported in peace, are spread out to the eye beautiful as the "Happy Valley," and upon the whole domain rest the beneficent influences of love, harmony, righteousness, and peace. ”

“ By a symbolical caprice of chance, the overthrow of German Imperialism coincided with the first anniversary of the proletarian revolution of October, as if Fate had been pleased to render homage to the workers and peasants of Russia, the leaders of whom, during one whole year, had been shamefully overwhelmed with the most infamous and stupid calumny! ”

“ The transfer of the Government to Paris, which degraded and obscured the king, at once made the queen the foremost person in the State. Those days of October are an epoch in her character as well as in her life, and we must turn our thoughts to her, who had so much influence and so much sorrow, and who beyond all women in European history, excepting one, has charmed and saddened mankind. She had proved inferior to her position during the years of her prosperity, and had disgraced herself, even in her mother's eyes, by her share in the dismissal of Turgot. ”

“ In October 1917, the working class masses, or at least their leading section, had already come to the firm conviction on the basis of the experience of the April demonstration, the July days, and the Kornilov events—that neither isolated elemental protests nor reconnoitering operations were any longer on the agenda—but a decisive insurrection for the seizure of power. ”

“ The course and the out come of the October Revolution dealt a relentless blow to the scholastic parody of Marxism which was very widespread among the Russian social democrats, beginning in part with the Emancipation of Labor Group and finding its most finished expression among the Mensheviks. ”

“ Thus the October Revolution occurred and intrenched itself first of all in the proletarian Petrograd, instead of choosing such a region where the correlation between the workers and peasants would correspond to the average for the whole of Russia. ”

“ We believe that whether the world would have been happier or unhappier, better or worse, at any rate it would have been tremendously different; that future historians will consider the October Revolution as a turning point which opened a new era of weal and woe in the history of mankind; and that, on the available evidence, they will attribute to the event-making character of Nicolai Lenin the chief role in the achievement of that revolution. •⁠•⁠•⁠•⁠• The foregoing analysis of the event-making significance of Lenin in the Russian Revolution is still incomplete. ”

“ The October revolution made such a great change in the picture of the labor movement that it brought to the foreground the question of ending the war. As this was the central question for the labor movement of all countries, the end of the war brought in a certain change in the trade union organizations of all countries. ”

“ In October the workers rose against the bourgeoisie who had trodden upon their necks in March. In October the peasants supported the workers. It clearly follows that the bourgeoisie grew to hate the workers' revolution, and in its mad hatred behaved no better than the landowners. ”

“ We might, for example, observe the militant's organizing efforts on the day after a major meeting of the revolutionary organization, a meeting at which the guidelines of the current struggle were defined as moving from the February Revolution, which had established a Dual Power in society, to the October Revolution which would definitively establish the undisputed and uncontested rule of the Working Class. ”

“ The October Revolution was the result of a particular relation of class forces in Russia and in the whole world and their particular development in the process of the imperialist war. This general proposition is ABC to a Marxist. Nevertheless, there is no contradiction whatever between Marxism and posing, for instance, such a question as: would we have seized power in October had not Lenin arrived in Russia in time? There is much to indicate that we might not have been able to seize power. ”

“ These lines written on October 11 acquire an exceptional and most timely significance when we recall that the leading comrades in the German party, in their attempt to explain away their retreat last year without striking a blow, especially emphasized the reluctance of the masses to fight. But the very crux of the matter lies in the fact that a victorious insurrection becomes, generally speaking, most assured when the masses have had sufficient experience not to plunge headlong into the struggle but to wait and demand a resolute and capable fighting leadership. ”

“ Leaders of European Communist parties who fail to assimilate the history of October by means of a critical and closely detailed study would resemble a commander in chief preparing new wars under modern conditions, who fails to study the strategic, tactical, and technical experience of the last imperialist war. ”

“ At the beginning of October, Lenin wrote: “Delay is criminal. To wait for the Congress of Soviets would be a childish game of formalities, a disgraceful game of formalities, and a betrayal of the revolution" [CW, Vol.26, “Letter to the Central Committee, the Moscow and Petrograd Committees and the Bolshevik Members of the Petrograd and Moscow Soviets” (October 1, 1917) , p. 141] . ”

“ No better test of viewpoints concerning revolution exists than the verification of how they worked out during the revolution itself, just as a system of swimming is best tested when a swimmer jumps into the water. ”

“ Driven out of political and industrial control, the capitalists and other reactionaries promptly appealed to armed force. Immediately after the October revolution a series of bitter civil wars began which lasted over three years. ”

“ On the other hand, a party which carries on a protracted revolutionary agitation, tearing the masses away from the influence of the conciliationists, and then, after the confidence of the masses has been raised to the utmost, begins to vacillate, to split hairs, to hedge, and to temporize—such a party paralyzes the activity of the masses, sows disillusion and disintegration among them, and brings ruin to the revolution ”

“ Thus, those who had opposed the armed insurrection and the seizure of power as an adventure were demanding, after the victorious conclusion of the insurrection, that the power be restored to those parties against whom the proletariat had to struggle in order to conquer power. ”

“ With the liberal bourgeoisie. But an attempt at coalition with them had driven the revolution into a terrible morass. The revolt of the 25th of October was an act of self-preservation on the part of the masses after the period of impotence and treason of the leaders of coalition government. There remained for us only coalition in the ranks of so-called revolutionary democracy, that is, coalition of all the Soviet parties. ”

“ Excuse me, therefore, if I have dwelt too long on the atrocious spectacle of the 6th of October, 1789, or have given too much scope to the reflections which have arisen in my mind on occasion of the most important of all revolutions, which may be dated from that day -- I mean a revolution in sentiments, manners, and moral opinions. ”

“ The fundamental instrument of proletarian revolution is the party. On the basis of our experience—even taking only one year, from February 1917 to February 1918—and on the basis of the supplementary experience in Finland, Hungary, Italy, Bulgaria, and Germany, we can posit as almost an unalterable law that a party crisis is inevitable in the transition from preparatory revolutionary activity to the immediate struggle for power. Generally speaking, crises arise in the party at every serious turn in the party’s course, either as a prelude to the turn or as a consequence of it. ”

“ This party, owing to the clumsy electoral democratic machinery, received a majority in the Constituent Assembly, reflecting the pre-October epoch of the revolution. The result was a contradiction which was absolutely irreducible within the limits of formal democracy. And only political pedants who do not take into account the revolutionary logic of class relations, can, in the face of the post-October situation, deliver futile lectures to the proletariat on the benefits and advantages of democracy for the cause of the class struggle. ”

“ The events which followed the 22d of October have been frequently and accurately described; indeed, if we consider the small number of the troops engaged and the promptness with which a very limited body of men succeeded in quelling what at first appeared to be a formidable revolution, we are surprised at the amount of attention which has been accorded to the little campaign. ”

“ But the events have proved that without a party capable of directing the proletarian revolution, the revolution itself is rendered impossible. The proletariat cannot seize power by a spontaneous uprising. Even in highly industrialized and highly cultured Germany the spontaneous uprising of the toilers - in November 1918 - only succeeded in transferring power to the hands of the bourgeoisie. ”

“ If that policy had prevailed, the development of the revolution would have passed over the head of our party, and in the end the insurrection of the worker and peasant masses would have taken place without party leadership ”

“ At the present time our point of view is that we are fighting for the interests of the proletariat and the poor peasantry, while a handful of comrades consider that we are making a bourgeois revolution which must be crowned by the Constituent Assembly. ”

“ The most favorable conditions for an insurrection exist, obviously, when the maximum shift in our favor has occurred in the relationship of forces. We are, of course, referring to the relationship of forces in the domain of consciousness, i.e., in the domain of the political superstructure, and not in the domain of the economic foundation, which may be assumed to remain more or less unchanged throughout the entire revolutionary epoch. ”

“ Whatever remains in the party that is irresolute, skeptical, conciliationist, capitulatory—in short, Menshevik—all this rises to the surface in opposition to the insurrection, seeks theoretical formulas to justify its opposition, and finds them ready-made in the arsenal of the opportunist opponents of yesterday. ”

“ Hence the danger arises that if the turn is too abrupt or too sudden, and if in the preceding period too many elements of inertia and conservatism have accumulated in the leading organs of the party, then the party will prove itself unable to fulfill its leadership at that supreme and critical moment for which it has been preparing itself in the course of years or decades. The party is ravaged by a crisis, and the movement passes the party by and heads toward defeat. ”

“ The great leader was full of admiration, of awe, of apprehension. To Gouverneur Morris, then American minister to France, President Washington, as he now was, wrote on the 13th of October, 1789, in these prophetic terms: "The Revolution which has been effected in France is of so wonderful a nature that the mind can hardly realize the fact. If it ends as our last accounts to the 1st of August predict, that nation will be the most powerful and happy in Europe ”

“ As you have the best means of knowing, the King has not even dreamt of applying to Victoria.
As to danger, it was very great in September, on the occasion of the ouvrier riot—for a Paris mob fires at once, a thing which—Heaven be thanked!—English mobs rarely do. Towards the end of October, when Thiers withdrew, there was a possibility of a revolution, and it was only the fear of people of wealth that kept them together, and drew them towards Guizot.
A revolution, at once democratic and bellicose, could not but become most dangerous. ”