By Chairwoman Elaine

On this day in 1917, the first socialist state in history was established in Russia in what is known as the October Revolution.¹ This revolutionary state, the Soviet Union, rapidly developed itself in order to radically transform the lives of millions of people. Housing, employment, healthcare, and childcare became basic rights afforded to all citizens. Women were granted the right to vote, and special policies were enacted to prevent discrimination against women, and to ensure their representation at every level of Soviet society. Homelessness and unemployment were eliminated. The Soviet Union went on to develop its economy faster than any country in history– going from one of the most backwards countries in Europe to the second largest economy in the world in just 40 years. The socialist state, together with the Soviet people, was able to rapidly develop the new social productive capabilities of the country, through the implementation of socialist relations of production achieved by its collectivization of agriculture, nationalization of industry, and consistent struggle against the remaining capitalist class. The new Soviet government prioritized revolutionary internationalism and national self-determination in their politics– all Soviet Socialist Republics had the right to secession, and special policies were implemented to prevent discrimination against national minorities and the rise of national chauvinism. All of this was achieved despite invasion from 14 countries (the “united states” included) in 1918, less than a full year after the Bolshevik victory in addition to being the main force responsible for the defeat of the fascist menace in World War II.

Ultimately, as we all know, the proletarian democracy established by the October Revolution was defeated. This should not be surprising, given the fact the Soviet Union was the first country in history to build such a society. It must be remembered that capitalism, too, had a rocky road when it was first struggling to be born out of the feudal system. When the first bourgeois revolution erupted in 1640s England, it too lost ground to the feudal class of old by 1660, and capitalism would not be fully consolidated in the country until 1688. Even then, it would not be until the French Revolution that capitalism would begin to sweep over the whole of Europe and later become a global system. 

We could fill multiple volumes of writing (and many authors already have!) about all the successes, the shortcomings, and lessons of the Soviet socialist experiment. However, for our commemoration this year, let us focus on some of the major lessons of the October Revolution that are most important to us at this stage of our development. We shall briefly review: 1) the role of the masses; 2) the role of the vanguard party; and 3) the importance of the industrial proletariat and organized labor. 

The Role of the Masses

Our old slogan, “the masses, and the masses alone, are the makers of history,” is perfectly encapsulated in the experience of the October Revolution. It must be remembered that neither Tsardom in Russia, nor the capitalist Provisional Government, were overthrown by a handful of Bolshevik organizers alone. When the Tsar was deposed in the February Revolution, it was the participation of hundreds of thousands of workers which made that success possible. The existence of Tsardom in Russia was only able to continue as long as the masses remained passive and unorganized– as long as the ideological hegemony of the Tsarist state remained intact, and the masses had not yet taken up the fight to end the oppressive system. It is true that, even while ideological hegemony reigned, there were political actors– particularly the Bolsheviks– who agitated against Tsardom’s continued existence, but they were all together incapable of affecting the political power of Russia without the support of the masses. Once the masses both realized the necessity of combatting Tsardom, and themselves took up this fight, not even the rifles of the Tsarist forces could prevent the destruction of the monarchy. When the masses initially rallied to the side of the opportunist leaders of the Provisional Government on the morrow of the February Revolution, the Bolsheviks correctly concluded that the project of socialist revolution could not be carried through to completion without the support of the masses. It was this that led to the adoption of the following as the Party’s task following the February Revolution, 

The masses must be made to see that the Soviets of Workers’ Deputies are the only possible form of revolutionary government, and that therefore our task is, as long as this government yields to the influence of the bourgeoisie, to present a patient, systematic, and persistent explanation of the errors of their tactics, an explanation especially adapted to the practical needs of the masses.

As long as we are in the minority we carry on the work of criticising and exposing errors and at the same time we preach the necessity of transferring the entire state power to the Soviets of Workers’ Deputies, so that the people may overcome their mistakes by experience.²

Months later, this would prove to have been correct. The opportunist maneuvering of the Provisional Government– it’s continued support for the war, it’s conniving attempts at deal-making with the Tsar, and it’s brutal repression of workers’ movements beginning in July– led to mass dissatisfaction with the Mensheviks and Essaires at its helm.³ Again, the masses came to fully understand the need to combat their oppressor– this time the capitalist forces of the Provisional Government– and actively took up this fight under the political leadership of the Bolshevik Party. 

We must come to fully understand the role of the masses in our own revolutionary context. Communists must keep this historical experience in mind, and must consistently guard against tailism, commandism, and adventurism. How disastrous it could have been if the Bolsheviks lagged behind the masses to side with the Provisional Government in supporting the war! Think of the setbacks that would have come if the commandist “left” opposition demanded immediate military action against the Provisional Government following the February Revolution, and went so far as to condemn and antagonize the masses who then supported the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries! We must learn to fully embody the policy of “from the masses, to the masses,” and how to utilize our connections to the masses to overcome difficulties and hardships in our work. 

Further, we must propagate this most basic lesson among the masses: it is you who will bring about the liberation of the working and oppressed people! It is you, the mass of people, who hold real power! It is only through the most widespread and enthusiastic participation of the the widest net of the people that history is changed! What is needed is only the political education and training to affect this change. For the accomplishment of this task, we must inspect the role of the vanguard party. 

The Vanguard Party

While, in the final instance, history is made by the masses themselves, it must be understood that the level of consciousness necessary to actually enact this historical fact will not develop spontaneously. The experience of oppression and exploitation, and even the experience of participating in a particular mass demonstration, campaign, strike, or uprising does not necessarily ensure that the masses involved will come to the revolutionary understanding that they alone make history, and that their liberation is only possible through socialism. That knowledge, that real power lies in the hands of the people– particularly in the hands of the working class– and that communism is the only political system which is in the interest of the worker, is knowledge that must be deliberately fostered and spread. This, still, is but the tip of the iceberg. It is one thing to acknowledge that the bourgeois system is harmful to the workers and masses, to know– broadly speaking– that socialism is our only alternative. It is quite another thing to understand the strategies and tactics which will bring us to socialism, and to have the political experience in order to put those strategies and tactics into practice. 

The masses, without the intervention of those trained in all important political and ideological matters, are able only to develop what is called “trade union consciousness.” 

We have said that there could not yet be [Communist] consciousness among the workers. It could only be brought about from without. The history of all countries shows that the working class exclusively by its own effort, is able to develop only trade union consciousness, i.e., the conviction that it is necessary to combine in unions, fight the employers, and strive to compel the government to pass necessary labor legislation, etc. The theory of Socialism, however, grew out of the philosophic, historical, and economic theories that were elaborated by the educated representatives of the propertied classes, the intellectuals. ⁴

In our context, we may consider a sort of trade union consciousness that is a bit broader and may include those who “unite in [all kinds of mass organizations], fight [against particular manifestations of oppression], and strive to compel the government to pass necessary [. . .] legislation,” but the essence of this is the same. What Communists refer to as trade union consciousness encompasses any sort of consciousness leading to unified action of the masses which addresses, by legalistic and reformist methods, various sites of oppression without addressing the root problem of class society from a Communist outlook. 

In order to raise the trade union consciousness of the masses to the level of Communist consciousness, and to bridge this gap between the intellectuals– where socialist theory finds its origins– and the masses of workers– who are the driving force of history– Lenin advocated the need for an “organization of revolutionaries,” i.e. a vanguard party. 

The political struggle of [Communism] is far more extensive and complex than the economic struggle of the workers against the employers and the government. Similarly (and indeed for that reason), the organization of a revolutionary [Communist] party must inevitably be of a different kind than the organizations of the workers designed for this struggle. A workers’ organization must in the first place be a trade organization; secondly, it must be as broad as possible; and thirdly, it must be as little clandestine as possible [. . .] On the other hand, the organization of revolutionaries must consist first, foremost, and mainly of people who make revolutionary activity their profession (this is why I speak of organization of revolutionaries, meaning revolutionary [Communists]). In view of this common feature of the members of sich an organization, all distinctions between workers and intellectuals, and certainly distinctions of trade and profession, must be utterly abolished. Such an organization must of necessity be not too extensive and as secret as possible.⁵

This is exactly the type of organization the Bolsheviks built. The October Revolution could not have come about simply by the spontaneous movement of the workers and unions. Enormous strikes which evolved into riots or uprisings occurred in Russia in the 1860s, 1870s, and 1890s (and, as Lenin notes, “even in the first half of the nineteenth century”), but despite representing “the class struggle in embryo,” these movements “remained a purely spontaneous movement.”⁶ It was the consistent and arduous work of the Bolshevik Party, which made deep connections with the masses, drew concrete analysis of concrete conditions, conducted agitation among all strata of society, and politically trained the workers for nearly two decades which provided the tools necessary for the masses themselves to fulfill their historical role. 

The constitution of such an organization here in the “united states” must be considered the most pressing task of our movement. Our work in the Revolutionary Maoist Coalition is done in order to develop the skills and experiences necessary for the most advanced of us to eventually aid in the creation of such a Party. However, much work still needs to be done in this regard. Firstly, deeper unity among the existing Maoist movement is needed. Our organization has worked day and night since our constitution to do our part in facilitating this unity, and progress has indeed been made. The publication of articles from groups like the Revolutionary Study Group, Southern New England Labor Council, and the Revolutionary Students Union in The Masses, as well as the pledge to anti-imperialist in the event of imperialist invasion of Niger which was cosigned by nearly all the major Maoist organization in the “united states” are considered by us to be great accomplishments. However, the need for deeper two-line struggle between all of our organizations is still deeply felt. Many major questions of our movement remain unanswered, and while some of these questions may remain unanswered until a Communist Party can be the one to address them, debating them among ourselves now can only serve to bring us closer to the level of unity needed for the formation of a party. Chief among these questions include a correct approach to the national question in our country, and the proper orientation of communists to the labor movement. We must make it a priority to produce position pieces, polemics (both between the various Maoist organizations, and against the revisionist parties such as CPUSA, PSL, etc), and summations of work on these issues to be published widely. 

The Importance of the Industrial Proletariat and Organized Labor

Although there remains debate to be had on the exact strategy to be employed in the u.s. labor movement, what all Maoist forces have come to agree on is the central importance of organized labor. 

We must first acknowledge that it is only the proletariat which can bring about the abolition of class society. This class which collectively labors upon the instruments of production, whose labor is exploited through private accumulation in the hands of the capitalists, is the only class capable of bringing the forces of production into harmony with the relations of producion, i.e., of bringing about socialized production combined with social ownership. The working class, then, cannot but be the main force of the revolutionary movement. The revolutionary experience of the Bolsheviks speaks directly to this fact. If it were not for the Bolsheviks’ deep ties to the industrial proletariat, it would never have been possible to transform the economic strikes into political strikes, and finally into political uprising during the February Revolution. If the Bolsheviks did not properly win over and recruit from the labor unions and Workers’ Soviets, they would not have been able to lead their charge against the bourgeois Provisional Government in the October Revolution. The basis among the industrial working class is the start point for work among all of society. This must be kept firmly in mind at all stages of our work, but it is especially important to keep in mind at this early juncture. 

Our work is primarily and mainly directed to the factory, urban workers. Russian Social-Democracy must not dissipate its forces; it must concentrate its activities on the industrial proletariat, who are most susceptible to Social-Democratic ideas, most developed intellectually and politically, and most important by virtue of their numbers and concentration in the country’s large political centres. The creation of a durable revolutionary organisation among the factory, urban workers is therefore the first and most urgent task confronting Social-Democracy, one from which it would be highly unwise to let ourselves be diverted at the present time. But, while recognising the necessity of concentrating our forces on the factory workers and opposing the dissipation of our forces, we do not in the least wish to suggest that the Russian Social-Democrats should ignore other strata of the Russian proletariat and working class. Nothing of the kind. The very conditions of life of the Russian factory workers very often compel them to enter into the closest relations with the handicraftsmen, the industrial proletariat scattered outside the factory in towns and villages, and whose conditions are infinitely worse. The Russian factory worker also comes into direct contact with the rural population (very often the factory worker’s family live in the country) and, consequently, he cannot but come into close contact with the rural proletariat, with the many millions of regular farm workers and day labourers, and also with those ruined peasants who, while clinging to their miserable plots of land, have to work off their debts and take on all sorts of “casual jobs,” i.e., are also wage-labourers. The Russian Social-Democrats think it inopportune to send their forces among the handicraftsmen and rural labourers, but they do not in the least intend to ignore them; they will try to enlighten the advanced workers also on questions affecting the lives of the handicraftsmen and rural labourers, so that when these workers come into contact with the more backward strata of the proletariat, they will imbue them with the ideas of the class struggle, socialism and the political tasks of Russian democracy in general and of the Russian proletariat in particular. It is impractical to send agitators among the handicraftsmen and rural labourers when there is still so much work to be done among the factory, urban workers, but in numerous cases the socialist worker comes willy-nilly into contact with these people and must be able to take advantage of these opportunities and understand the general tasks of Social-Democracy in Russia. Hence, those who accuse the Russian Social-Democrats of being narrow-minded, of trying to ignore the mass of the labouring population for the sake of the factory workers, are profoundly mistaken. On the contrary, agitation among the advanced sections of the proletariat is the surest and the only way to rouse (as the movement expands) the entire Russian proletariat. The dissemination of socialism and of the idea of the class struggle among the urban workers will inevitably cause these ideas to flow in the smaller and more scattered channels. This requires that these ideas take deeper root among the better prepared elements and spread throughout the vanguard of the Russian working-class movement and of the Russian revolution.⁷

^{​​​​​​​}It is critical that we do not dissipate our forces while we still have so few. Not only must these forces be concentrated, but they must be concentrated specifically among the industrial proletariat. For, as history has shown, this stratum is “most susceptible” to Communist ideas, is the most reliable, and is the most revolutionary section of society. Moreover, by virtue of their large numbers and basic condition, the industrial proletariat often “enters into the closest relations” with all strata of society, and is thus able to “imbue them with the ideas of the class struggle, socialism and the political tasks [. . .] of the proletariat. . .” 

Of course it is critical, too, that we do not devolve into simple trade union politics, or for too long limit our forces to only the industrial proletariat. We must go among all classes of the population “as theoreticians, as propagandists, as agitators and as organizers” once we have the forces to do so. 

Speaking to this issue, and in rebuttal to the Economists of his time, Lenin explained,

To proceed. Have we sufficient forces to direct our propaganda and agitation among all social classes? Most certainly. Our Economists, frequently inclined to deny this, lose sight of the gigantic progress our movement has made from 1894 (approximately) to 1901. Like real “tail-enders” they frequently live in the distant past when the movement was just beginning. At that time, indeed, we had astonishingly few forces, and it was perfectly natural and legitimate then to devote ourselves exclusively to activities among the workers and to condemn severely any deviation from this course. The whole task then was to consolidate our position in the working class. At the present time, however, gigantic forces have been attracted to the movement; the best representatives of the younger generation of the educated classes are coming over to us; all over the country there are people, compelled to live in the provinces, who have taken part in the movement in the past or who desire to do so now, who are gravitating towards Social-Democracy (whereas in 1894 one could count the Social-Democrats on your fingers). One of the principal political and organizational shortcomings of our movement is that we do not know how to utilize all these forces and give them appropriate work.⁸

The art we must master, then, is that of properly assessing our forces, how to utilize them, and how to give them appropriate work. We have already erred in this most important aspect of communist organizing for far too long. It is no secret that the Communist movement in the “united states” has long struggled with the deviations of red charity and movementism– which often both fell under the umbrella of localism– and has largely disregarded the labor struggle. This focus proved to be disastrous for a number of reasons. Firstly, the localism of old resulted in spreading our forces far too thin. Tenant organizing, squatting efforts, food and harm reduction distros, homeless unions are all very resource intensive, requiring a great deal of both manpower and finances to maintain. More than this, though, is the fact that this work has accomplished next to nothing for the development of the Communist movement! Often times this work is particularly focused on the lumpen/ and semi-proletariat who are in most immediate need of these basic services (hot food, clean needles and pipes, immediate housing). While we maintain that both the lumpen/proletariat and semi-proletariat must be important allies of the working class, it is a known historical fact that these classes are vacillating in their nature– they are not as susceptible to Communist ideas as the proletariat, and as a rule (especially at this moment when our movement is still weak, and provides them almost no reason for wanting to do so), are less willing to actively struggle for Communism. Not only this, but the basic conditions of life for these class strata make consistency and commitment to a political project all the more difficult. It is hard enough for fully employed and stably housed individuals to commit to being professional revolutionaries; if you take away housing, employment, access to healthcare, and then add in criminalization of someone’s basic existence, it is very easy to see why our work among these class forces has yielded so little recruits in this period. Once we are able to actually grow our forces among the industrial proletariat, following the correct concentration of our forces and assigning of appropriate work, it will be possible to come back into direct work with the lumpen/ and semi-proletariat (in addition to the petit-bourgeoisie and even the national bourgeoisie of the oppressed nations!) which will inevitably yield much greater results if, again, our forces are properly allocated and work properly assigned. 

Fortunately, it seems that all of us are presently realizing these errors and are attempting to rectify them. The fact that the Maoist Communist Union, For The People, the various post-CRCPUSA organizations, as well as ourselves in the Revolutionary Maoist Coalition have all within a year’s time drawn this conclusion and moved towards deeper involvement in organized labor– specifically among the industrial proletariat– represents the beginning of a great new phase of communist movement building here. However, several issues still present themselves. 

Firstly, an acknowledgment that we must pivot towards this work is not the same as actually doing it. The RMC has made some steps in organizing more seriously in organized labor, as demonstrated by an uptick in articles in our press discussing the matter. However, we are not nearly as deeply involved in this work as we need to be, as we are still largely held back by unfruitful programs/projects which we are still in the process of concluding and summarizing. Even in the work that has already been taken up in organized labor, we have mostly found ourselves working within the service industry unions. This has already proven to be more productive than the kind of neighborhood and tenant organizing we have done for most of our history, but there is significant reason to believe that work specifically among the industrial workers would provide even better results. As Lenin has clearly explained, the industrial working class, through their basic conditions, are most easily able to understand and embrace Marxism– for no where in society is the basic contradiction between socialized labor and private accumulation more stark than in their work. The large number of workers employed in the warehouses and factories also lends well to rapid growth in our movement. The benefits of organizing a factory with 300-100 workers compared to the benefits of organizing a coffee shop or restaurant with 30 should be obvious.

In addition, clear and unifying strategy on how to do this work remains undecided in the movement as a whole. Necessarily connected to this is the lack of a genuine vanguard party to lead our struggle. We must be aware that it will be the Party, and the Party alone, which is able to provide true leadership to the mass movement, to systematically convert trade union consciousness into Communist consciousness, and to make the final analysis regarding correct revolutionary strategy. 

Conclusion

As contemporary Communists, it is our paramount responsibility to meticulously delve into the lessons derived from the October Revolution, extracting invaluable insights from the Russian revolutionary experiment. Rigorous study must be made of Lenin, Stalin, and the whole of the Bolshevik Party. These foundational principles regarding the pivotal role of the masses, the party, and the industrial proletariat represent only the initial stepping stones toward comprehending the overarching and universal theories born from the profound legacy of the Bolshevik experience.

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1. Russia still officially used the Julian calendar rather than the Gregorian calendar in 1917. Thus, the October Revolution which happened on October 25 for Russia occured on November 7 according to our calendar. 
2. Lenin, April Theses, https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/apr/04.htm
3. “Essaires” refers to the Socialist Revolutionary Party, described by John Reed in Ten Days That Shook the World as follows, 
   “Originally the revolutionary party of the peasants, the party of the Fighting Organisations– the Terrorists. After the March Revolution, it was joined by many who had never been Socialists. At that time it stood for the abolition of private property in land only, the owners to be compensated in some fashion. Finally the increasing revolutionary feeling of peasants forced the Essaires to abandon the “compensation” clause, and led to the younger and more fiery intellectuals breaking off from the main party in the fall of 1917 and forming a new party, the Left Socialist Revolutionary party. The Essaires, who were afterward always called by the radical groups “Right Socialist Revolutionaries,” adopted the political attitude of the Mensheviki, and worked together with them. They finally came to represent the wealthier peasants, the intellectuals, and the politically uneducated populations of remote rural districts. Among them there was, however, a wider difference of shades of political and economic opinion than among the Mensheviki.”
4. Lenin, What Is to Be Done?, p.32-33
5. Ibid, p.113-114
6. Ibid. p.32
7. Lenin, The Tasks of the Russian Social-Democrats, https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1897/dec/31b.htm, our emphasis
8. Lenin, What Is to Be Done?, p.88, our emphasis