Russian socialist statement about 1917
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An October for us, for Russia and for the Whole World
(Appeal of 17 Russian Intellectuals and Artists)
It is no surprise that the imminent ninetieth anniversary of the October
Revolution in Russia has become the object of widespread attention. The events
of October 1917 were, indeed, an earthquake that shook the world, altering its
economic, social and cultural foundations.
Many media sources depict this world-historic phenomenon as a mere coup
d'état, carried out by a handful of conspirators and adventurists with the help
of Western security services. All sorts of things are circulated ? outright
lies, distortion of the facts, and malicious slanders about the participants in
and leaders of this mighty event. The old fables to the effect that the
"October coup" was provoked by the "German agent" Lenin and the "Anglo-American
spy" Trotsky are still being repeated, despite having been rejected by
distinguished scholars from various countries. Meanwhile, the Russian people
are portrayed as unwitting toys in the hands of "revolutionary extremists",
even though the revolution could neither have begun nor triumphed without the
population playing a decisive role.
Not a Conspiracy, but a Social Revolution
The October Revolution was not sparked by conspirators or by agents of
foreign powers. It was a social earthquake, a hurricane, a tsunami, which
no-one could ever have called forth by mere appeals. The revolution arose out
of the internal logic of events, when a multitude of sources of popular
discontent converged into a single, all-powerful stream. To interpret it as the
product of a conspiracy is strange, to say the least. If this were true, why
was a new governing authority set up in place of the old in a gigantic country
and in a short time, and why did the Russian people not only support this
government, but defend it with arms in hand during the Civil War?
For some reason, the critics of the "October coup" forget the profound
crisis into which Russia had been plunged by the tsarist monarchy and the
Provisional Government which succeeded it. Mesmerised by the slogan, "War until
Final Victory!", the authorities refused to take account of the real needs of
the population. Critics also forget the spontaneous disintegration of the
monarchy on the eve of the revolution, despite the direct evidence in the form
of the endless intrigues and conflicts within the tsar's court, the military
defeats at the front, and finally, the outright abdication of Nikolai II, the
autocrat and commander-in-chief of the Russian army. The bourgeois government
that replaced the monarchy also proved impotent, failing to meet the great
challenges of the time ? stopping the war and giving land to the peasants.
October 1917 marked the culmination of the great Russian social
revolution of the twentieth century. It was led by revolutionary social
democrats who earlier than others, had recognised the needs and hopes of
ordinary people ? the pressing problems to which the Russian society of the
time required solutions. Among the leaders, it was of course Vladimir
Ulyanov-Lenin and his closest collaborators who played the key roles.
None of the leaders of the October revolution were flawless, but it is
just as wrong to demonise as to idolise them. The calumnies that are heaped on
them nowadays have no real basis. They were not in the service of anyone, only
of their revolutionary ideals. None of the earthly temptations, such as money
or the other accompaniments of a philistine prosperity, had any meaning for
them. They measured their lives against the supreme standard of selfless
service to the freedom and happiness of the oppressed and dispossessed.
Revolutions Cannot be Reduced to Violence
The October Revolution is often termed a "violent overthrow". Yet the
actual "overthrow" in Petrograd passed off almost without human victims. While
we are not advocates of violence, we recognise that it is inevitable at
particular stages of historical development, when it is bound up with the
presence of class and national antagonisms. Revolution is indeed associated in
many respects with violence, as was clearly evident, for example, in the
bourgeois revolutions in the Netherlands, England, France and so forth. The
ending of slavery in the United States was accompanied by the bloodiest
conflict of the nineteenth century, the American Civil War. In Russia, the
ending of feudalism was also accompanied by wars and revolutions.
These developments, meanwhile, were not called forth by the machinations
of political intriguers, but by the crisis of the old system and by the
impossibility of solving age-old problems by evolutionary methods. People
resort to revolutionary violence in specific circumstances, when the ruling
classes, blinded by thirst for their own enrichment and for the maintenance of
their privileges, neglect the well-being of the population. The dispossessed
classes then have no choice except to take their fates in their own hands. This
is the main lesson of the Russian Revolution of the twentieth century.
At the same time, social revolution cannot be reduced to violence, and
especially armed violence. Its ultimate goal is to lay the basis for a new
world, to create better conditions of life for everyone, not just the social
elites. In this sense, such revolutions really are the locomotives of history,
accelerating its progress.
What the October Revolution Yielded
The history of different countries has always included numerous struggles
by workers against capitalism. Only in Russia, however, have these actions
taken on so far-reaching a character. This made twentieth-century Russia the
epicentre of world development, where all the main questions of the
contemporary world intersected, and where the fundamental sickness of
capitalism, the conflict between labour and capital, was resolved. It was only
the Russian workers who had the will and decisiveness to find a way out of this
conflict, not only overthrowing capitalism, but also beginning the transition
to a more progressive social system ? socialism.
Like the Paris Commune before it, the October Revolution placed power in
the hands of the lower orders of society ? the workers and peasants, and those
elements of the intelligentsia that reflected their interests. The revolution
affirmed the soviets as the most democratic form of political power, granting
the war-weary population the long-awaited peace and land, along with the
opportunity for national self-determination. By raising millions of workers to
the point where they could exercise social creativity, the revolution showed
clearly that it is not only the "elites" that are capable of being the subject
and demiurge of history.
As a result of the October Revolution two socially counterposed systems
appeared in the world, a circumstance which did much to determine the
subsequent development of humanity. Thanks to the influence of October,
national liberation movements arose, and reforms began to the capitalist system
itself. Under the impact of the Russian Revolution the colonial empires
disintegrated, while long-outdated monarchical regimes suffered total collapse.
The October Revolution set in motion a supra-national and
supra-confessional unifying idea, the idea of social liberation and justice. On
the basis of this idea, there arose for the first time in history a voluntary
union of peoples with equal rights, the USSR. The ideas and initiatives of
October were in accord with the goals and vital purpose of many titans of
science and the arts ? of Timiryazev and Vernadsky, Platonov and Mayakovsky,
Sholokhov and Eisenstein. The progress toward the socialist future that was
instigated by the October Revolution was actively supported by such outstanding
twentieth-century figures as George Bernard Shaw, Picasso, Einstein and
Tsiolkovsky.
Soviet History was Diverse
The October Revolution marked the beginning of Soviet history, which did
not take the form of advancing along a smooth Nevsky Prospekt. Soviet history
included both great achievements and appalling tragedies. We know very well
that after the peaceful transfer of power to the workers in most of the
provinces of Russia, a bloody civil war began, accompanied by foreign
intervention and by White and Red terror.
Lacking the relevant historical experience, the Soviet authorities
naturally made many mistakes. One particular error was the policy of "war
communism", a product of the general national crisis. To their credit, the
Bolsheviks decisively rejected it, and made a deliberate shift to the New
Economic Policy ? the first historical model in which the principles of
socialism and capitalism were successfully combined. Many features of NEP were
later reproduced in the context of the development of several European
countries and of modern China. NEP also allowed the wounds of war to be rapidly
healed, and production in the Russian economy to be raised to its pre-war level.
Relying on the experience of the New Economic Policy, Lenin worked out a
plan for the further development of the Soviet state, a plan which included
radical economic and political changes. These transformations were aimed above
all at achieving breakthroughs in the development of energy generation, culture
and education ? areas which were decisive in the twentieth century and which
remain so in the twenty-first. These changes presupposed democratising the
political system through drawing workers into running the state, and through
the renovation of the party. Here, one of the moves which Lenin projected was
removing Josef Stalin from the post of general secretary. Even then, Stalin was
manifesting his traits of disloyalty, boorishness and the abuse of power.
These plans, however, were fated to go unrealised. While declaring
socialism to be its goal, the authoritarian regime which consolidated itself
after Lenin's death did a great deal that was incompatible with socialism. The
political liberties of citizens that had been proclaimed by the revolution were
comprehensively violated. The price paid for industrialisation and forced
collectivisation was exorbitant. In sum, the popular power of the initial years
of the revolution degenerated into rule by the bureaucracy and its leader
Stalin. We consider the massive Stalinist repressions, along with the violation
of the rights of the individual and of whole nationalities in the USSR, to have
been a crime. All this discredited the ideals of the revolution and of
socialism.
While acknowledging these facts, we do not accept scholarly-sounding lies
and stupefyingly one-sided propaganda with regard to the whole of Soviet
history. This history was diverse; within it, democratic and bureaucratic
tendencies engaged in conflict with and replaced one another. Hence, the
freedoms of the NEP years were replaced by Stalinist totalitarianism, which in
turn gave way to the Khrushchev "thaw". Later, the Brezhnev authoritarianism
was replaced by perestroika, which proclaimed as its goal the creation of a
humane, democratic socialism.
The history of every country is subject to argument and debate. The
cruelties of the British and French colonial wars, and of slavery in the US,
were scarcely better than the Soviet gulag. However, this did not negate the
social and cultural achievements of these countries. Why then should such
achievements be denied in the case of the Soviet people, who achieved a great
victory over fascism, created an inimitable culture and literature, set up a
broadly accessible system of social welfare for the population, and were the
pioneers of space travel? It must not be forgotten that October unleashed an
unprecedented creative energy. It set in train the founding by masses of people
of a new society; it brought to realisation many of the ideas of
internationalism; and it acquainted the formerly most oppressed layers of
Russian society with the heights of national and world culture. Nor should one
strike out from Soviet history the enthusiasm of the masses that was
demonstrated in the mastering of the newest achievements of science and
technology. The revolutionary romanticism and heroism of millions of Soviet
citizens was clearly manifested here.
Why the Soviet Model Collapsed
It should be noted that we have a range of views on the nature of the
social system that existed in the USSR. We are agreed, however, that neglect or
rejection of the principles of popular power, internationalism, justice and
humanism that were born out of the October Revolution will sooner or later
result in catastrophe for a society that is building socialism. This is what
happened in the Soviet Union.
The fetters placed on the creative initiative of the population under the
totalitarian regime dramatically restricted the opportunities for the growth of
the Soviet economy. A shortage of consumer goods was one of its characteristic
features. As a result, we did not manage to raise the level of well-being of
the working people to that found in the world's developed countries, and this
served as one of the causes of the downfall of the Soviet system. Another vital
cause was the lack of real economic and political democracy, which became
especially intolerable when technological and information revolution was
unfolding in the world. One of the consequences of this was the complete
alienation of the bureaucratic authorities and the ruling party from the
workers. The attempt to overcome this alienation during perestroiks did not
yield the required result. In sum, the collapse of the USSR and of the Soviet
government became a reality. This was seized upon by the political forces which
dissolved the USSR and directed Russia along the road of installing a savage
oligarchic capitalism, marked by mass joblessness, falling living standards for
the population, profound social stratification, rampant nationalism and growing
crime.
The failure of the Soviet model of society does not signify that the
ideals of October were false. Just as the ideas of Christianity were not to
blame for the practices of the Inquisition, Stalinist totalitarianism could not
destroy the ideals of the revolution. Socialism as a historic cause cannot be
brought to realisation all at once. A new generation of young people is now
appearing, people who do not accept capitalism as a system. There is every
reason to hope that this generation will be able to breathe new life into the
ideals of the October Revolution.
What the Greatness of Modern Russia Depends on
The ideas of the October Revolution united not only proletarian
internationalists, but also supporters of strengthening and developing the
Russian state. These ideas opened the way for people who wanted to bring the
national culture of Russia to the country's borderlands and to other countries
? for people who shared in patriotic sentiments and who were prepared to defend
the Soviet homeland from potential aggressors. The strength of this feeling was
shown clearly during the Great Patriotic War, when the sovereignty of the USSR
and the conquests of October were defended.
The October Revolution showed the greatness of spirit of the Russian
people, who proposed an alternative, non-capitalist road to national
development. To view the revolution as a conspiracy by extremist forces is also
dangerous because it provides grist to the mill of the anti-Russian
interpretation of history according to which Russia, because of its
unpredictability, is said to pose a constant threat to the world. From Russia,
adherents of this view maintain, only unfavourable developments are to be
expected; hence, the country has to be kept under tight rein, and its natural
wealth, its energy potential and intellectual resources, have to be controlled
and exploited.
Modern-day Russia needs to soberly assess such provocative statements,
and to hold firmly to its own course. Russia's greatness does not lie in the
blind copying of foreign examples, still less in national conceit with regard
to other peoples, but in relying on the talents and creative strengths of its
own population, as well as in the thorough assimilation of the knowledge and
experience developed by world civilisation and culture.
Russia is capable of once again becoming a great power, whose adversaries
will be forced to take it into account. But this will only happen if the
country overcomes the poverty and deep social stratification of its population,
qualitatively improves the lives of its citizens, broadens their social and
democratic rights, and retains everything that is best from its historic past.
* * *
The historic importance of the October Revolution is difficult to
overestimate. Its positive consequences are obvious. A third of humanity
travelled part of the way along the road which the revolution opened up. Many
countries are continuing this progress today, drawing lessons from the defeats
and tragedies of the past. October proved that another, more just world is
possible. A range of social and political forces, countries and peoples, are
now striving for this new world. This is shown by a new wave of revolutionary
transformations, manifesting itself with particular force in a number of
countries of Latin America and Asia.
The October Revolution was and remains our fate, and we cannot reject
this crucially important part of Russian history. Always and everywhere there
have been mistakes, and the great revolutions of the past did not avoid them
either. Nevertheless, the anniversaries of these revolutions are celebrated in
all countries, including at the state level. Only in Russia is this not the
case. In Russia, the denigration of the country's revolutionary past continues.
On the eve of the ninetieth anniversary of the October Revolution, we
raise our voices against this practice. The people must have their
revolutionary holiday and the truth about October returned to them. It must not
be forgotten that we belong to a country whose history includes its own great
revolution. We can and should be proud of it.
Arslanov V., Dr. of art, professor, Russian Academy of Education
Bagaturiya G. Dr. of philosophy, professor, Lomonosov Moscow State University
Buzgalin A., Dr. of economics, professor, Lomonosov Moscow State University
Dzarasov S., Dr. of economics, Russian Academy of Science
Galkin A., Dr. of history, professor, Russian Academy of Science Istyagin L.,
Dr. of history, Russian Academy of Science
Kelle V. Dr. of philosophy, Russian Academy of Science
Kolganov A., Dr. of economics, Lomonosov Moscow State University
Loginov V., Dr. of history, professor, Russian Academy of Education
Medvedev R., Dr. of history
Rudyk E., Dr. of economics, Russian Academy of Labor
Serebrykova Z., Dr. of history
Shatrov M., writer
Slavin B., Dr. of philosophy, professor, Moscow State Pedagogical University
Smolin O., Dr. of philosophy, professor, MP
Voeikov M., Dr. of economics, Russian Academy of Science
Vorobiev A., academician, Russian Academy of Science
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