Russian Revolution

Today is the 90th anniversary of the October Revolution. In an attempt to bury the memory of that revolution, bourgeois writers and commentators have poured mountains of filth over it. The truth is that the world is pregnant with revolution and the bourgeoisie fears that the lessons of October 1917 can be used by the workers and youth of today to put an end to this rotten system once and for all.

The July days in Russia in 1917 were crucial. Without the Bolshevik Party the outcome could have been a devastating defeat. The reaction could have gained more ground. Thanks to the Bolsheviks the events after the July days illustrated the weakness of the reaction and the role of the reformists and prepared the ground for the events up to October

Four years after the death of Leon Trotsky, Ted Grant wrote the following: "Leon Trotsky has been more vilified and slandered by the hired pen men of Stalin than any man in the whole of history. But in spite of all the lies and perversions, in the long run the truth will make its way. The liars serve reactionary ends but those who died for the cause of the working class have always been restored to a position of honour in the memory of mankind."

Leon Trotsky's murder was no accident or spontaneous action by the dictator Stalin, but a monstrous preconceived act that was the culmination of a murder campaign against the whole of the old Bolshevik leadership of the revolution and those who stood by the genuine ideas of Marxism. We republish this article published in Militant in 1985.

The bourgeoisie and its ideological spokesmen and women (including the right wing Social Democrats and some so-called Left Socialists) have a vested interest in falsely identifying Bolshevism and Stalinism. It was to demolish this falsehood that Ted Grant and Alan Woods wrote Lenin and Trotsky, what they really stood for back in 1969. We are pleased to announce that this will shortly also be available in Danish.

In his article The significance of Lenin's April Theses 1917 Darrall Cozens explained how Lenin rearmed the Bolshevik Party in 1917. Continuing our series on the Russian Revolution, he tells how the revolutionaries developed from being a small group when the February Revolution broke out to become the main alternative to the new establishment by June of that year.

After Chavez refused to renew the licence for the RCTV channel a hue and cry has been raised throughout the bourgeois media about so-called "freedom of the press". Here we provide a quote from The ABC of Communism, Chapter Three, by N.I. Bukharin and E. Preobrazhensky which eloquently puts the Marxist case.

Trotsky's History of the Russian Revolution is a classic. Published originally in 1932, it was the first time that an in-depth history had been written of the Revolution by such a leading participant. It is not simply a dramatic narrative, but a profound analysis of the inner forces of the Revolution. It is fitting that Wellred has issued the book on the 90th anniversary of these world-shattering events. Buy volume 1, volume 2, and volume 3 from Wellred Publications.

This month marks 90 years since Lenin returned to Russia from exile. He immediately embarked on the task of convincing not only the mass of workers, but also the Bolshevik leadership, that the tasks of the revolution were socialist, that what was needed was for power to pass to the hands of the Soviets.

The year 1927 marked a decisive turning point in the struggle of Leon Trotsky and the Left Opposition to defend the ideas of Marx and Lenin inside the Russian Communist Party. On the Tenth anniversary of the October revolution, almost to the day, the co-leader of that most momentous event was expelled from the party. Soon after the creator of the Red Army was expelled from the country.

The revolt on the armoured cruiser "Potemkin" was but one of the links in the long chain of the development of the first Russian Revolution—the Revolution of 1905. This revolution was the first lesson, and a tremendous object lesson it was, in the study of the struggle, for the broad masses of workers and peasants.

On Thursday 7 September, Channel Four broadcast a fascinating programme as part of its series Secret History, entitled Mutiny - the true story of Red October. This remarkable documentary for the first time gave us the true story behind the 1990 Hollywood movie The Hunt for Red October a film version of a 1984 novel by Tom Clancy.