THOUSANDS of people took part in various programmes organised across the country on November 7 to mark the centenary of the Great October Socialist Revolution in Russia, a historic event which stimulates every struggle for the emancipation of humanity from all kinds of exploitation. On the call of the CPI(M) Central Committee, rallies, public meetings and exhibitions were organised in many state capitals and other areas.  

WEST BENGAL

Thousands marched in Kolkata to mark the centenary of the historic event. A public rally took place after the procession. Surjya Kanta Mishra, addressing the rally, asserted that CPI(M) would steadfastly march toward the establishment of socialism in India. Socialism in the 21st century will not be a carbon copy of earlier socialism. But the potential of a classless and exploitation-free society will be realised through struggles.

Biman Basu, presiding over the meeting, said the October Revolution has left indelible impact on human civilisation. CPI(M) Polit Bureau member Md Salim said that after the collapse of the USSR, the world has witnessed wars, terrorism and religious strife. Communists must advance towards a better future with renewed vigour. Rallies, public meetings and exhibitions organised in districts to mark the beginning of centenary of the October Revolution.  

KERALA

A fitting programme to kick-start the one-year long celebration to uphold the triumph and eternal relevance of the Great October Revolution on its 100^TH year was held in Thiruvananthapuram. Thousands of people thronged the central stadium to watch the red volunteers comprising 1,000 young men and women from 18 area committees march to celebrate the centenary of the October Revolution. CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury received the salute of the volunteers. The function was presided over by CPI(M) state secretary Kodiyeri Balakrishnan. The CPI(M) State Committee has decided to hold red volunteer march and massive rallies in every district headquarters in the coming days. The year-long celebrations will come to an end with a rally in Eranakulam. Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, former Chief Minister V S Achuthanandan, district secretary Anavoor Nagappan and state committee member V Shivan Kutti addressed the gathering.

HARYANA

A well-attended public meeting was held in Kaithal on October 6 to commemorate the centenary of the October Revolution. The meeting was held on the occasion of the organisational plenum of the state committee of the Party.

Speaking on the occasion, CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury said the October Revolution brought into existence the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, breaking the Tsarist monarchy. The new socialist State was first in world history to be headed by the working class. It showed to the world that it was possible to end the exploitation of man by man. The Soviet Union had several firsts in the world in the fields of science and space research. It faced the wrath of world capitalism which tried hard to finish the very idea of socialism and succeeded in pulling down the Soviet Union in 1991; still as a result of the tremendous achievements of the Soviet Union in the 74 years of its existence, the idea of socialism, of a world free of exploitation remains alive in the hearts of the people even as more than half the property and wealth of the world has passed into the hands of less than 1 per cent of the rich.

This is more so in the case of India where the number of billionaires has shot up from 54 to almost a hundred since the Modi government came into power – while more than 80 crore people live on Rs 20 a day.

Nilotpal Basu, Central Secretariat member of the Party, in his brief speech, said that we have to project the Party as a viable alternative to address the people’s problems. The Great October Revolution leading to the formation of a socialist Soviet Union offers a model of a credible government that can do this.

CPI(M) Haryana state secretary, Surender Malik said that inspired by the October Revolution, the Communist Party of India was formed in Soviet Union in 1920. The formation of the Party forced the Indian National Congress to change its approach and demand full independence rather than dominion status being demanded by them till then. The slogan of “land to the tiller” was also raised under the pressure created by the Party.

TAMIL NADU

The October Revolution was responsible for unleashing a wave against imperialism and setting in motion a new democratic system across the world, CPI(M) Polit Bureau member Prakash Karat said at Chennai on November 7.

Karat was addressing a massive gathering organised by South and North Chennai district committees of CPI(M) to mark the beginning of the centenary of the October Revolution. Karat also credited the revolution for equality of women and equal wages that are considered the cornerstone of the labour movement.

“In India too, we have seen the direct impact of the October Revolution. From 1918 onwards, you can see how the working class began to organise itself all over India, and the impact of the October Revolution was spread across all the major cities, including Chennai. Within six months of the October Revolution, the first trade union in India – the Madras Labour Union – was formed. It was the impact of the October Revolution which produced the first Communists in India, including the first Communist in South India, Singaravelar,” Karat said, adding that Subramania Bharati’s poem, within weeks of the Revolution, was the first poem in praise of the Revolution.

He announced that the Party would undertake a year-long exercise commemorating the centenary of the October Revolution.

“Despite the tremendous achievements and potential of the world’s first Socialist State, various defects came into being, various distortions (occurred) in the development of socialism in the Soviet Union. The fall of the Soviet Union was an end of the socialist experiment which had begun with October Revolution. We have to draw correct lessons from this failure. We have to draw lessons from that to see that we move towards a renewed, renovated form of socialism in the 21st century,” Karat pointed out.

He, however, asserted that the end of Soviet Union did not mean the “end to socialism”.

He appealed that in the centenary of the Russian revolution, all the progressive and Left-minded people in our country will be involved in the discussion regarding how can we advance towards a struggle for socialism in India?

“Millions of workers, peasants, and agricultural workers are still committed to a socialist vision. We shall use the centenary year to mobilise all the resources we have to see that we open the way towards advancing on the path of socialism in India,” Karat said.

Speaking on the occasion, G Ramakrishnan, state secretary of CPI(M), said that the failure of socialist governments in various countries was not the failure of the ideology itself; it was the failure of the party leadership in those countries.

Journalist and film director Raju Murugan said that his exposure to the Communist ideology came via a copy of Maxim Gorky’s The Mother, gifted by his elder brother. He credited the Left movement for keeping in check caste atrocities and honour killings in the state. Writer S Ramakrishnan said that literature of Russia took off in the 19th century, as writers wrote of the circumstances that led to the Revolution and after.

The meeting was addressed by veteran leaders N Sankariah and R Nallakannu and also by CPI(M) Central Committee members K Varadharajan and U Vasuki, P Selvasingh, N Gunasekaran, state secretariat members and A Backiyam and L Sunadararajan, district secretaries of the Party.

Across the state, in thousands and thousands of centres, Party committees and cadres raised the red flag and in various districts seminars and public meetings were organised to celebrate the centenary of the revolution. State and district leaders addressed.

TRIPURA

In Tripura, year long centenary  celebration of October Revolution started with great enthusiasm, on November 7. In the morning red flags were hoisted in all the Party offices. Pictures of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin were garlanded. 1.41 lakh copies of the special issue of Daily Desher Katha were sold. In the afternoon there were hall meetings and mass meetings in all the sub division committee, district committee offices and in the state office. In Agartala a mass meeting was organised in front of Rabindra Bhavan. It was addressed by Manik Sarkar, CPI(M) Polit Bureau member & chief minister of the state and Bijan Dhar, Central Committee member. Manik Sarkar said, mere meetings and discussions on the greatness of October Revolution will make the objective of this year long programme fruitless.
To change the present situation in India we need to build a Party bringing in the best sons and daughters from all the sections of the oppressed classes of the society. We must build up a revolutionary party with mass line and for that build live relations with masses. We must take this pledge today.  The meeting was presided over by Rama Das.

ANDHRA PRADESH

Socialism is the only alternative as capitalist society is not in a position to offer any solution to the problems being experienced by the contemporary society, remarked B V Raghavulu, CPI(M) Polit Bureau member, at a seminar held at Vijayawada on the occasion of centenary celebrations of the October Revolution.

The October Revolution changed the face of the then world. He exuded confidence that future generations will find the way towards socialism. Capitalist system cannot mitigate the growing economic inequalities in the society and it failed to overcome the crises, he opined. Socialism alone can obliterate all these ills plaguing the society and the October Revolution is a shining example for this, he exhorted. The success of October Revolution had provided impetus to people of colonial nations to wage struggles against colonial policies and the revolution had thrown away exploitative systems in many countries, he underlined. The October Revolution debunked the false propaganda that workers cannot rule the country successfully.

Socialism advocates world peace and inclusive growth where as capitalism will jeopardise environment leading to unbridgeable gap between man and nature. The ruling central and state governments have been implementing these capitalistic policies mindlessly much against the interests of the people. Therefore, the policies of socialism are the need of the hour. They are the real alternative to these discredited policies, he stated. He assailed the development model of the BJP-TDP government in alliance at the Centre and in the state as destructive of environment and biodiversity. The alarming air pollution levels reflected this. The pollution prone industries, which were discarded by capitalist countries, have been shifted to developing nations and such industries are coming in our country, he lamented.

A special issue of Prajasakti on the October Revolution was inaugurated by B V Raghavulu in the presence of S Venkata Rao, executive editor, and others.

DELHI

October Revolution Centenary Celebrations in Delhi began with a well-attended public meeting. This meeting began with a series of cultural programmes. These included poetry recitation by comrades from Jan Natya Manch; vigorous and inspiring songs in both Hindi and Malyalam by comrades from Jana Samskriti; songs by Rattan Gambhir a folk artist from Bulandshahar and by Surendra Singh Negi.

K M Tiwari, CPI(M) Delhi state secretary, presided over the meeting. In his introductory remarks he outlined the continued relevance of the October Revolution in the march towards socialism.

Brinda Karat, CPI(M) Polit Bureau member, was the main speaker in the public meeting. She began her speech by pointing to the fact that the October Revolution was the first instance of formation of a society that was not based on class exploitation – a society organised not for private profit but the good of the working class and other toilers. The Russian Revolution succeeded because it was based on a firm worker-peasant alliance under the leadership of the working class and the Bolshevik Party. This has object lessons for us in India as well.

Bourgeois nationalism had swept away many a working class party in Europe and led them to rally behind their own bourgeoisie in the First World War. In contrast, Lenin and the Bolsheviks opposed the imperialist war and called upon the soldiers, whom he described as peasants in uniform to turn their rifles against their own ruling classes. After victory of the socialist revolution, Lenin gave the slogan of ‘Peace, Bread and Land’.  Peace was established with Germany to prevent unnecessary bloodshed and to advance the interests of the working people. Unlike this clear vision of nationalism based on the people’s interests, the BJP-RSS rulers constantly fan national chauvinism and have no concern for the well-being of the toilers.

Brinda Karat outlined the remarkable economic and social achievements of the Soviet Union, which enabled it to catch up with the Western capitalist countries in just two decades. The main features of this included: qualitative improvement in the living standards of the people, full employment  (at a time when the capitalist world was in the throes of deep recession) eight hour working day, equal wages for men and women, voting rights to all- men and women alike, narrowing of gender disparities, family codes that attacked patriarchy, maternity leave, free milk for children up to five years, child and old age care, free medical care for all citizens and abrogation of unequal treaties of the Tsarist era that made Russia a prison house of nationalities.

PMS Grewal, CPI(M) Central Committee member, also spoke on the occasion. He pointed out that the Soviet Union, under the leadership of the indomitable Stalin, beat back the German invasion during the Second World War and played a vital role in the ultimate defeat of fascism.

Grewal also talked about the factors leading to the demise of socialism in the Soviet Union and underlined the role of revisionism in this. Further he stated that this has lessons for us as well, especially at a time when the bourgeoisie has launched an all-out ideological attack against us. He recalled Rosa Luxembourg’s statement that the choice before humanity is one between barbarism and socialism and said that this is relevant today as never before.