October Revolution

The socialist revolution in Russia led by Lenin and the Bolshevik Party of the Russian proletariat and working masses on October 25, 1917 (November 7 in the Russian Gregorian calendar).

Following the victory of the bourgeois-democratic revolution in February 1917, a situation of dual power emerged in Russia. One was the main, true and actual bourgeois provisional government that controlled all organs of political power; the other was the supplementary, additional, “supervisory” power, that is, the Petrograd Soviet of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies.

Although the Soviets did not control the organs of state power, they relied directly on the vast majority of the people and were supported by armed workers and soldiers. The coexistence of two regimes was essentially the interweaving of two type of dictatorships. One of them was the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, and the other was the dictatorship of the proletariat and peasants (the workers’ and soldiers’ representatives of the Soviets). This status quo reflected that the Russian revolution had gone beyond the scope of the common bourgeois-democratic revolution, but had not yet reached the stage of the “sole” dictatorship of the proletariat and peasantry, thus at this time, the Russian revolution was in a transitional and unstable moment. But this status quo could not be sustained for a long time, since it was impossible for a country to have two political powers at the same time for a long time, and one of them had to be overthrown. At that time, Russia’s bourgeoisie had tried every means to eliminate, weaken and eliminate the Soviets of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies in order to establish a single and sole bourgeoisie regime.

In April 1917, Lenin ended his life in exile abroad and returned to Russia, and as soon as he returned Russia from Switzerland, he immediately published The Task of the Proletariat in Our Revolution, which is commonly known as the “April Theses”, in which he formulated a clear path and specific plan for the transition from the bourgeois-democratic revolution to socialist revolution, which was accepted by the April Congress and the Sixth Congress of the Party held in August, and approved as the Party’s programme of action. After the bourgeois provisional government experienced three crises, namely, the April crisis, the June crisis and the July crisis, especially after the armed rebellion of General Kornilov was smashed in August 1917, the political consciousness of the masses had increased unprecedentedly, and the Bolsheviks gained majority in the Petrograd and Moscow Soviets by the way of elections, thus the Soviets entered the stage wherein Bolsheviks were able to lead the Soviet assemblies, which marked that the conditions for an armed uprising were becoming ripe.

In the mid-September Lenin wrote two letters addressed to the Party Central Committee, the Petrograd Committee and the Moscow Committee, namely, “Bolsheviks Must Assume Power”, “Marxism and Insurrection”, suggesting an immediate uprising, and at the enlarged meetings of the Central Committee held on October 10th and 16th, the resolution for an armed uprising was approved by a majority vote. Lenin warned the whole party that the national crisis had become quite mature and that the whole future of the Russian Revolution would be at one stroke, by saying that delaying the insurrection “would be tantamount to self-destruction” and “would be tantamount to betray the revolution”.

On the night of October 24 (Russian calendar), Lenin came to the Smolny Palace and led the insurrection personally. On October 25, taking the sound of gunfire from the cruiser “Aurora” anchored on the Neva River as a signal, the Workers’ Red Guards (about 40,000 people) and revolutionary soldiers (about 150,000 people) of Petrograd launched an attack to the Winter Palace where the provisional government was located, and they invaded the Winter Palace in the middle of the night, arrested the members of the provisional government, and controlled all the critical districts of the Petrograd city. That night, the Second All-Russia Congress of Soviets of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies was held at the Smolny Palace, which declared that the bourgeois provisional government was overthrown and that all the power used by the central and local governments were transferred to the All-Russia Soviets Workers’, Soldiers’ and Peasants’ Deputies. The next day, Lenin made a report at the Congress general, which adopted the “Decree on Peace” and the “Decree on Land”, and the first Soviet government was formed named, as the Council of People’s Commissars, with Lenin as its Chairman, and announced the birth of the first socialist state in the world. The victory of the armed insurrection in Petrograd laid the foundation for the successful continuation of the Soviet regime and the provisional government was dissolved. Between October 1917 to February 1918, the revolution spread to all regions of Russia.

The October Revolution has an epoch-making historical significance, since it established the dictatorship of the proletariat in one-sixth of the world, eliminated the old social system based on human exploitation and oppression, and led to the creation of a new socialist world. The victory of the October Revolution opened a new era in human history and pointed out the way forward for the proletarian revolution, and the national liberation movements in the colonies and semi-colonies all over the world. Guided by the scientific theory, with the leadership of the Party and the conscious participation of the masses, the October Revolution was a genuine socialist revolution, far greater in breadth and depth than the French Revolution and the Paris Commune Revolution. Following the Soviet revolution, some people both at home and abroad accused the October Revolution of being a coup by a few people, which is a slander against the October Revolution and typical expression of historical nihilism.