On the Anniversary of the Russian Revolution

(Quote of the Week)

November 7 was the 99th anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution, a historic victory for working people and the oppressed internationally and the only successful proletarian revolution to date. Later undermined by nearly 70 years of Stalinist betrayal, the workers state that issued from the revolution was ultimately destroyed by capitalist counterrevolution in 1991-92. Trotskyist leader James P. Cannon emphasized that a critical element for the success of the revolution was that the Bolsheviks maintained a revolutionary program even during the most difficult conditions of the period.

The party that made the Russian revolution didn’t begin with victory. The Bolsheviks really began with the defeat of the 1905 revolution and persevered through the long years of the tsarist reaction from 1906 to 1917. It was precisely in that period, when all the fainthearted people, when all the disillusioned, ran for cover, when they all gave up the fight and renounced it as hopeless—it was precisely in that period that Bolshevism showed its caliber. In the depths of darkest reaction and defeat the Bolsheviks forged the party that was destined to lead the victorious revolution in 1917....

The Russian revolution of November 1917 showed the workers of the whole world the way to power, to the overthrow of the capitalist property system, to the reorganization of economy on a rational basis. There is no other way to save mankind on an international scale than the Russian way. From that point of view we salute the great revolution tonight, as the initiator and inspirer of greater things to come. Therein lies its greatest significance....

Just as the Russian Bolsheviks gave us the model of a victorious revolution, so also they gave us the model of a party fit to lead and organize the revolution. If we take the Russian Bolshevik party for our model—and there is no other model worth even talking about—this means a party that is orthodox Marxist in its theory, that is firm in principle, and strong in its unity and its discipline. Only such a party is fit to organize and lead a revolution.

—James P. Cannon, “The Russian Revolution—Twenty-eight Years After” (4 November 1945), reprinted in The Struggle for Socialism in the “American Century” (1977)