Achievements of the October

Revolution, problems of socialist

transition and future prospects
– Shashi Prakash
(This article was written in October last year for the 'October Revolution Centenary
Souvenir' published under the editorship of Nepal's senior writer and political activist,
Com. Ninu Chapagain, on the occasion of the centenary of the October Revolution. Due
to the problems of lockdown etc. This collection has just been published in Nepali.)

When the squads of revolutionary workers of Petrograd were moving towards the
Winter Palace at midnight on November 7, 1917 (according to the new calendar), they
probably did not realize that they were opening the page of a new chapter in the history
of humanity. Going to overturn. His guns illuminated the path of the Russian Revolution
as well as revolutions in other countries. The cannon blasts of the October Revolution
echoed throughout the world. With the organization of the working class and toiling
people all over the world, the formation of communist parties and the continuous
sequence of workers' revolutions, national liberation struggles also got a new impetus.
More or less, by the end of the 1980s, colonialism and neo-colonialism had been
definitively buried in the graveyard of history.

It was the effect of the October Revolution that within two-three years the Kautskyist
social democrats who had dominated the European labor movement were reduced to
factions in different countries and the majority of the working class of Europe joined the
constituent Leninist parties of the ' Communist International ' established in 1919. Got
organized under the leadership of. In the special circumstances of the last phase of the
First World War, the proletariat of Germany and Greece also made important efforts for
revolution and in Hungary it even took control of power for some time. Although all
these revolutions were crushed, the unbroken chain of proletarian struggles continued
under the leadership of the newly formed parties of Europe. After the October
Revolution, organized labor movements and communist parties came into existence in
the colonies, semi-colonies and neo-colonies of Asia, Latin America and Arab Africa
(and later in other African countries as well). Their role in national liberation struggles
was important everywhere and in some countries was leading.

1 . October Revolution: A World

Historical Perspective

Today, if we look back at the history of the world

proletarian revolution, it can be said that the period from
around 1848 to around 1871 was the first phase of the
world proletarian revolution and the highest peak
conquered during this period was the Paris Commune of
1871 when the people of Paris The brave Communards
captured power and presented the first model of
proletarian dictatorship, summarizing which Marx-Engels
provided new richness to the theory of Marxism. The
period from the Paris Commune to the October Revolution
(1871-1917) was the second phase of the world
proletarian revolution. Following the dissolution of the First
International in 1874, newly formed social democratic
parties in Europe formed the Second International in 1889.
This was the time when Plekhanov and some of his
colleagues, who were introduced to Marxism in Europe,
brought the light of this ideology to Russia. Marxism in
Russia developed to new heights in theory and practice
through intense ideological struggles. Under the
leadership of Lenin, the Bolsheviks, along with the
struggle against peasant socialism (Narodism), also fought
against every attempt to distort the basic Marxist
proposition of forced destruction of state power and the
concept of 'people's party' of the Mensheviks and
European social democrats. Against this, he presented the
Bolshevik concept of a militant 'cadre party' of communist
vanguards recruited from among the workers with
advanced consciousness, whose backbone would be
professional revolutionaries and which would operate on
the organizational principles of democratic centralism. This
concept of the Bolshevik Party was verified by the victory
of the October Revolution. Even after that, all the
successful proletarian revolutions that took place in the
world took place under the leadership of parties following
Bolshevik principles and patterns. Wherever the
Communists tried to distort or dilute the basic Bolshevik
principles of the Party by misidentifying and wrongly
solving the problems of the Party or socialism, the parties
either dissolved or went astray. Or it can also be said that
wherever the revisionists came to dominate the party, they
first of all changed the Bolshevik structure of the party. In
whatever socialist countries the capitalist pioneers came
to dominate the party and power and initiated capitalist
restoration, they were the first to change the Leninist
structure and functioning of the party.

During the First World War, when the majority of the social democratic parties of Europe
under the leadership of Karl Kautsky adopted an internationalist position, the Bolshevik
Party under the leadership of Lenin, swimming against the current, adopted a
proletarian internationalist position. While exposing Kautsky's betrayal, Lenin made it
clear that when the imperialists of the developed countries are engaged in mutual war
for the division of the world market, then the responsibility of the proletariat of these
countries should be on their own proletarian brothers by supporting the ruling class of
their respective countries. Not to open fire, but to wage a revolutionary war against the
ruling class of our respective countries. In these contexts, it can be said that the
October Revolution was the practical validation of Lenin's theoretical victory over
Kautskyism. At the end of the nineteenth century, the new scenario of world market and
global competition that emerged with the birth of financial capital, deepening
competition among monopolies and export of capital, was indicative of the transition of
capitalism towards imperialism. Lenin, refuting the imperialist-related positions of
Kautsky, Hilferding , Hobsonetc., presented his thesis of imperialism and said that the
contradictions and explosions of crises of world capitalism will continue to give rise to
wars and will continue to create favorable material opportunities for proletarian
revolutions. . That is, imperialism is the prelude to proletarian revolutions. The October
Revolution also verified this position of Lenin.

With the transition of capitalism to the stage of imperialism, the center of storms of
revolutions more or less started shifting from the West towards the East. Lenin also
underlined this phenomenon while studying imperialism. At the beginning of the
twentieth century, the situation in Tsarist Russia was more or less that of an 'East-West
Bridge', where the proletariat carried out its first revolution. After the October Revolution,
the wave of national liberation struggles that arose in the colonies-semi-colonies (and
later in the neo-colonies) continued till the eighth decade of the last century. In some of
these countries the Communist Party played a leading role in the struggle for national
democracy. It also had an important supporting role in most of the remaining countries.

In summarizing terms, it can be said that the German Social Democratic Movement,
which provided important teachings to the world labor movement, stood “on the
shoulders” (Fr. Engels) of the French Socialist Movement and the British Trade Union
Movement. The work of putting this teaching into practice was done by the French
workers in the Paris Commune. The October Revolution stood “on the shoulders”
(Lenin) of the Paris Commune. The failed Russian revolution of 1905-07 was its “dress
rehearsal” and the bourgeois democratic revolution of February 1917 was its “prologue”.
Learning from the experiences of the Paris Commune and the subsequent decades and
gaining education and maturity during the ideological struggles, the working class,
under the leadership of the Communist Party, seized state power for the second time
after the October Revolution. And this time the occupation was not just for 72 days, but
for 37 years (until Stalin's death in 1954). This was the first such state in the world which
was the dictatorship of the majority of the exploited over the minority of the exploiters.
This was the first such polity which had elements of “state as well as non-state ” and
which was to end not by forcible destruction but by gradual extinction. Under this
proletarian polity, for the first time it became possible that by abolishing private
ownership of all means of production, the system of common ownership was transferred
from idea to reality. Private land ownership, dating back more than four millennia,
ended. For the first time, when producers became collective owners of the means of
production and began to manage distribution, management and the entire socio-political
system themselves under the leadership of the Communist Party, the pace of progress
in science, technology and production led to the European Industrial Revolution.
Destroyed all the records of history including. And the remarkable thing was that all this
progress did not, like capitalist progress, increase the exploitation and inequality of the
working people, but along with making the society more and more just and humane.
After the revolution, the goals of free education, health and housing for all were
achieved in less than two decades. Unemployment and crime had ended. For the first
time in history, women had achieved this level of social equality and social freedom. It
can be said that to this extent, the socialist society built after the October Revolution
was the embodiment of the principle of scientific socialism, and that is why the October
Revolution was the second milestone of the world proletarian revolution after the Paris
Commune.
Now this is a separate question to be considered and we will also consider separately
why despite these revolutionary achievements, socialism was defeated and capitalist
restoration took place in the Soviet Union. With this, the question of the world-historical
importance of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution of China (1966-76) is also
linked, which we consider as the third great milestone in the historical journey of the
world proletarian revolution after the Paris Commune and the October Revolution. . Of
course , the Chinese New Democratic Revolution of 1949 was also a path-finding
and trend-setting revolution which determined and guided the general direction and path
of the proletarian revolution in all the colonies, semi-colonies and neo-colonies. But the
era of colonies, semi-colonies and neo-colonies was a phase of imperialism which has
now passed. The Proletarian Cultural Revolution represented the general direction of
the continuous revolution that continued throughout the centuries-long historical period
of socialist transition. He explained how classes and class conflict exist in socialist
society, how bourgeois rights and inequalities persist despite the end of the buying and
selling of labor power, private ownership of the means of production, and exploitation,
and how the new bourgeois classes The ground for the birth of capitalism remains
present and if the process of continuous revolutionization of production relations and
superstructure does not continue, then the restoration of capitalism is inevitable. But in
China it was too late for the Party to reach this conclusion and implement it, the balance
of class power in the country had changed, and new bourgeois elements had become
strong in the Party and the state. As a result, after 1976, capitalism was established
there also in the name of “market socialism”. But still the world historical importance of
the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution remains intact, because it identified the basic
problems of socialism and pointed out the general direction for their solution.

2.Epochal achievements of socialism in

the Soviet Union
The suffocating darkness of revival and reversal in which today's world is living is a time
of historical amnesia. The giant global network of bourgeois communication and
propaganda continues to tell us that in our “post-modern times” the grand narratives of
revolutions have vanished, that all projects of modernity, rationality and liberation have
proven to be utopias, that socialism too has turned into fascism and It was totalitarian
like other bourgeois autocratic systems…etc. The corrupt and autocratic bourgeois
power that existed in the Soviet Union from 1956 to 1990 under the leadership of the
Revisionist Party in the name of socialism (after 1976, similar power existed in China in
the name of “market socialism”), was called 'Social Fascist'. All the misdeeds of the
government are defamed by attributing them to socialism. Stalin , under whose
leadership the Soviet Union established unprecedented records of progress and
building a just society and saved the entire world from the ravages of fascism by
sacrificing 17 million of its citizens, is made the target of evil propaganda the most.
From the 1920s to the 1940s, H.G. Most of today's enlightened citizens are not even
aware of what dozens of top intellectuals, writers, scientists and bourgeois politicians
like Wells, Romain Rolland, Tagore, Nehru etc. had written in awe and wonder about
the progress of the Soviet Union. The bourgeois media, despite its best efforts, is
unable to hide the diseases and intractable crises of the bourgeois society, but it tries to
make us believe that now the world is without alternative, that socialism is a utopia and
hence it has ended, that capitalism itself can be reformed with some reforms. Have to
keep going. This is actually the hegemony of bourgeois ideology and politics. The
struggle for counter-hegemony has to be organized against this hegemony. It often
happens that some half-baked left intellectuals and social democratic parties call to
power some radical social democratic experiments with socialist names (like Lula's
party in Brazil, Sandinista in Nicaragua, Shavista in Venezuela, Syriza in Greece) etc.
as the “twenty-first century” of socialism. They start promoting themselves as “models of
the century” and then start beating their chests like harbingers of their disintegration or
decline.
In this era of despair and confusion, first of all it is important to understand that in the
past in world history, early versions of revolutions have been defeated and then in the
next era, their new versions have achieved decisive victory. And again, proletarian
revolutions are the most radical revolutions in human history, which attack the very
foundation of class society—property relations and private ownership. These are not
only against the capitalist society which is only a few centuries old but also against the
entire class society which is thousands of years old. Therefore, if seen from a world
historical perspective, the defeat of the proletarian revolutions of the early twentieth
century is not unexpected. It is certain that this defeat is not permanent, but temporary.
The first cycle of the world historical great war between the camps of labor and capital
continued through several stages from the middle of the nineteenth century till 1976.
Then this cycle ended in the defeat of the labor camp. Now the coming time will witness
the second cycle of this world-historical summer. In view of the intractable structural
crisis of world capitalism and the lessons learned from the defeat of the socialist
revolutions of the past, today it can be said with greater confidence that the beginning of
the next round of the world proletarian revolution, no matter how difficult and how late it
may be, will There is a high probability that the cycle will be decisive in favor of the labor
camp. The new versions of the October Revolution are more likely to be decisive in their
victory. The well-meaning people and mercenary intellectuals who call socialism a
utopia do not understand the simple fact that if an organ transplanted in the laboratory
works for some time, then the scientist's conclusion is that 'organ transplant' is possible.
This world has witnessed many decades of miraculous progress of socialist society.
Today there is no socialist country, but the science of socialist revolution exists.
Although scattered and weak, its carrying powers are also present. And there is also an
understanding of the reasons for the failure of socialism. Therefore, the creation of new
versions of the October Revolution is inevitable. Either this will happen, or war, fascist
barbarity and environmental destruction will destroy human civilization.
Today, for a new beginning, it is most important to understand the problems of socialist
transition and the reasons for capitalist restoration. But first, through some facts and
figures, we would like to present a picture of the astonishing progress that Soviet
socialism achieved after the October Revolution.

The October Revolution took place at a time when Russia's economy was in ruins due
to its entanglement in the First Imperialist War. People were living a life of terrible
destruction and misery. Between 1918 and 1921, the policies of “ war communism ”
were adopted to confront the nascent Soviet state against internationally organized
armed counter-revolution. These immediate and emergency policies included large-
scale nationalization of industries, compulsory expropriation of agricultural products and
centralization of trade in the hands of the state. These policies were generally not in
accordance with the economic tasks of the proletarian power in the initial phase of the
socialist revolution, but were forced to adopt them in the circumstances of war and
destruction.

Even after the external attack and internal attempts at counter-revolution were foiled,
there were no conditions for starting the work of socialist construction normally. Seven
stormy years of world war, revolution and counter-revolution had paralyzed the Russian
national economy. The imperialist encirclement of the Soviet Union was still continuing.
The situation was such that due to almost stagnation of capital investment between
1913-21, the gross national production of large industries in 1920 was only 14.4 percent
of the 1913 level. Cement production remained only one percent of its pre-war level.
Agricultural production was half of what it was before the war. There was a severe
shortage of consumer goods. In these circumstances, the Bolsheviks chose the path of
systematic retreat so that they could move forward in the direction of socialism. This
was the period of ' New Economic Policy ' which was a period of ' retreat towards the
policies of state capitalism ' in an organized and controlled manner by the proletarian
state. During this period, small and medium private industries and private internal trade
were temporarily restored, compulsory agricultural levy was replaced by light taxation,
and industries were given very profitable concessions in certain sectors. Nationalized
large-scale 'mass market' industries began to be run on a capitalist basis, although
under strict control. Arrangements were made for state industries to work on the basis
of profit. Factory managers were given autonomy in setting wages and were paid partly
on the basis of commission on profits.

The objective of the new economic policy was to give impetus to production again, but it
was not only this. It served as a great school for the Bolsheviks in the running of the
economy, enabling them to defeat the bourgeoisie that still existed among them and to
constantly, anew (in particular, small-scale capitalist production). Was also being born.
With this goal accomplished, the new economic policy evolved from a retreat toward
state capitalism to a move toward socialism. At the Eleventh Party Congress, Lenin
said, “ For a year we have been retreating,1 on behalf of the Party we must now stop it.”
,

Although the period of new economic policy continued till the implementation of the first
five-year plan in 1928, the “retreat” was already stopped as soon as the economic
situation became relatively stronger. Private enterprise and private trade began to be
dismantled in the mid-1920s, and by 1932 they were virtually eliminated without
disrupting production or trade. The autonomy of management of state enterprises was
gradually limited and socialist planning was gradually implemented in all branches of
industry.

Yet till the end of the 1920s the agricultural sector remained under the stranglehold of
capitalist relations. Kulaks continued to exist, openly defying the Soviet state, refusing to
pay taxes and selling grain, and practicing hoarding and black-marketing. On the other
hand, lakhs of small farmer families used to cultivate small unprofitable pieces of land
with primitive means and lived a hellish life. The deep hatred of these millions of poor
peasants (bednyaks) towards the kulaks and their eagerness to oust them also played
an important role in the rapid decentralization and collectivization. Started a campaign
of collectivization with the active role of poor farmers for the development of modern
agriculture and building the basis of socialism in villages. Strong resistance and
rebellions of the kulaks were also faced, but they were crushed. In this campaign to
suppress the kulaks, some atrocities were undoubtedly committed and in some places
the farmers were also forced to join cooperative farms. Stalin, while dealing harshly with
subversive elements, criticized these mistakes and stressed the need to win over the
middle peasants to his side. As a result, special emphasis was given to political work
among the farmers and strengthening the party apparatus. 17,000 party members,
selected from among the Old Bolsheviks, were sent to the countryside to set up political
departments at machine tractor stations. These machine tractor stations served as
important instruments of socialist construction for collective farms. In this process the
Party apparatus in the villages was strengthened and the rural membership of the Party
increased from four lakhs to eight lakhs between 1930 and 1934.

By the end of 1934, 75 percent of the peasant families and 90 percent of the cultivable
land were covered under 2,40,000 collective farms. By the end of 1934, 2,81,000
tractors and 32,000 harvester combines were working in agriculture, which was
completely untouched by mechanization until recently. Thanks to this mechanization, a
large amount of labor force was released from the villages which was necessary for the
rapidly growing industries. By the middle of the fourth decade, Soviet power had
reached such a stage that rationing of bread and most other basic necessities was
ended.

The Government Planning Commission (Gosplan) had already been established in

1921 to prepare a centralized economic plan for the entire country, but the first five-year
plan could be prepared only in 1928. The First Five Year Plan was the first attempt at
centralized planning in history. This was the first socialist step in economic construction,
when the priorities of planning were decided in accordance with the interests of the
broad masses of the people, and not with immediate material gains, but with the
creation of the material base necessary for the forward progress of a socialist society at
the center. Had gone. Stalin was also thinking on the same lines as Lenin, considering
the establishment of basic and infrastructure industries in the form of large socialist
enterprises as indispensable for socialism. Rapid industrialization was an essential
condition for strengthening socialism. But the biggest problem was primitive capital
accumulation for industrial development. Capitalism had raised the initial capital needed
for the Industrial Revolution by squeezing surplus from agriculture and massive plunder
of the colonies. During the long period of socialism, after the collectivization of
agriculture and nationalization of industries, industrialization could be carried out
through the initiative of the common people and increased productivity, moral
encouragement, advanced socialist culture and consciousness, and progress in science
and technology. But the world's first socialist state did not have that much time. The
imperialist siege was still largely ongoing and by the early 1930s the threat of fascism
and world war was looming. In such a situation, there was only one way before the
Soviet power, and that was to consciously make the surplus produce of agriculture the
basis of industrialization and use the surplus extracted from agriculture for the heavy
industries necessary for defense in the event of war. And, immediate consumption
should be sacrificed to some extent for the production of means of production. Although
one consequence of this imminent compulsion and necessity was to emerge in the form
of increasing interpersonal inequality between village and city, which was a serious
problem of socialism, there was no other option before the young socialist state
standing on the threshold of war. At the same time, Stalin did this with the belief that the
immediate losses in agriculture would have to be compensated later and that as
industrialization increased, farming would become more profitable through
mechanization, provided the socialist transformation of ownership in the villages was
carried out. By then it should be completed.
As mentioned earlier, the compulsion of being involved in the immediate solution of the
immediate crisis and the imminence of war did not allow the Bolsheviks much time to
work among the peasants and strengthen the worker-peasant alliance. As a result, the
rapid collectivization was opposed not only by the kulaks but also, to some extent, by
the middle peasants. Of course, this also affected production to some extent. But the
situation soon came under control and between 1933 and 1937 total agricultural output
again increased by 33 percent.

Due to widespread public initiative and enthusiasm, the first five-year plan was
completed nine months ahead of schedule. Despite a severe shortage of technicians,
huge industrial structures producing tractors, automobiles, ships, chemicals, agricultural
machinery, machine tools, engineering, munitions, etc. were built from scratch during
this period. Iron mineral and petroleum production increased rapidly. The western world
was stunned at the speed with which steel factories were built and almost the entire
country was electrified, and the bourgeois media also started talking about these
“miracles”. The standard of living of the people of the entire country, especially of the
workers in heavy industries, rose rapidly. Wages increased by 103.6 percent. At the
time when the Great Depression was wreaking havoc on the capitalist world and there
were 1.15 crore unemployed people in America, 56 lakh in Germany and 23 lakh in
Britain, i.e. by 1932, unemployment had been completely eradicated in the Soviet
Union. In November 1932, the American liberal magazine ' Nation ' wrote: " In the four
years of the Five-Year Plan, extraordinary progress has indeed been made. ... Russia is
fulfilling the creative task of building the physical and social patterns of the new life with
war-level speed." Is gathered together. The map of the country is indeed being changed
so much that it will be difficult to recognize it. ,

The second five-year plan was also completed 9 months ahead of schedule. According
to Morris Dobb ( ' Soviet Economic Development Since 1917 ') , the goal of this plan
was the technical restructuring of the entire economy. By the end of the plan, four-fifths
of the country's total industrial output was to be from "new industries created or
completely reorganized during the First and Second Five Year Plans". For this, it was
necessary to establish new industries, mastery of new technology, huge increase in
labor productivity, reduction in production costs and raising the level of production. The
plan was completely successful in achieving this goal. Industrial production increased
by 100 percent compared to 1932 and 500 percent compared to 1913. By the end of the
plan, 4500 new industrial enterprises were established, producing 80 percent of the total
industrial output. Electricity production increased to 2600 crore kilowatts, which was
double that of 1932 and thirteen times that of 1913. All infrastructure industries recorded
similar robust growth.

At the time of the end of the New Economic Policy, Russia was in fifth place among the
industrialized countries of the world, but at the end of the second five-year plan it had
come to second place. This can be seen in the following table:

The rate of industrial development of the Soviet Union was unmatched in all of modern
history. This can be seen in the following table:
According to British economic historian Angus Maddison , the rate of per capita
economic growth in the Soviet Union between 1913 and 1965 was higher than that
of all developed countries in the world. During this period, the economic growth rate
of the Soviet Union was 440 percent. Just below that was Japan (400 percent).
According to Morris Dobb, “ The quantitative growth of industries can be briefly known
through these indicators –
during the decade 1928-38, the productive capacity of iron and steel industry
quadrupled , that of coal three and a half times , that of oil also tripled.” and electricity
had increased nearly seven-fold , while during the same period a whole host of new
industries had been established, including aircraft , plastics and synthetic rubber,
various heavy chemicals , aluminium , copper , nickel and tin, etc. The Soviet Union
had become the world's largest producer of tractors and locomotives and the second
largest producer of oil , gold and phosphate " (ibid, p. 454).

It is obvious that the path of continuous development of the productive forces could be
made unobstructed only by continuously upgrading the socialist production relations
and for advanced socialist production relations, continuous progress of the productive
forces was necessary. Rapid progress of science and technology was necessary to
diversify production and increase the pace of its quantitative growth and make the lives
of the citizens of the socialist society fair, beautiful and cultured. Planning under
socialism needed science as much as science needed planning. The development of
science and technology was not only necessary to lay the foundation of big industries
and the progress of modern mechanized farming in collective farms, but the goal of
socialism was also to brighten the distant future of humanity through the theoretical
progress of science. The development of war technology was also necessary to survive
in a hostile world. The Soviet power started paying special attention to the development
of science and technology after the end of the civil war. From the time of the first five-
year plan, planned research studies started in all the fields of nuclear physics, quantum
physics, space physics, chemistry, bio-chemistry, zoology, geology etc. and in all
branches of engineering. An estimate of the scientific progress of the Soviet Union
during 1917–41 Review-report presented in 1945 at the celebration of the 220th
anniversary of the Russian Academy of Sciences (founded in 1725 by Tsarina
Catherine with funding of 15 academicians and their staff) Can be applied from. In 1917,
the Academy had 40 academicians, 212 scientists and technicians working in 5
laboratories, 5 museums, a research institute, two observatories and 15 commissions.
In 1941, there were 76 research institutes in the Soviet Union, of which 47 were central
and 29 were under various branches of the Academy. There were 11 independent
laboratories, 42 earthquake-study stations, biological stations and other stations, and 6
observatories, which employed 5000 scientists and technicians. The budget for science
and technology in 1917 was 5 lakh roubles. In 1941, their central budget was 135
million rubles and the republics' and local budgets were an additional 31 million rubles.
In addition to the Soviet Academy of Sciences, each republic had its own academy. By
the mid-1930s, British scientist J.D. According to Bernal 's assessment, the Soviet
Union was spending one percent of its national income on science and technology,
which was three times that of the United States and 10 times that of Britain. To prepare
the basis for this scientific progress, the Soviet power worked at the grassroots level of
the society through many institutions to popularize science. Also, a wide network of
higher education was created. In 1917, there were only 91 universities and colleges and
289 research institutes in Russia in which 4,340 scientists were employed. In 1941,
there were 700 universities and colleges and 908 research institutes in the Soviet Union
in which 26,246 scientists were working.

By 1941, much 'path breaking' research had taken place in the Soviet Union in areas
such as mathematics, quantum physics, nuclear physics, crystal physics, geology,
geology, physical chemistry, plant-breeding and aerodynamics, and this trend continued
further. . The foundation of the Soviet nuclear program and space program was also laid
at this time. In the 1950s, the Soviet Union was ahead of America in the space program.
He was also on par with him in the munitions industry and nuclear programme. The
whole world came to know after the end of the Second World War that in the face of
unexpected German attack, the Soviet Union hastily shut down its laboratories and
production units (such as the Stalingrad Tractor Factory, which manufactured the
famous T-34 tanks). It was shifted to the Ural Mountains in the Far East and even
during those difficult times, research and invention work continued along with
production.

“ Literacy paves the way for communism ” – a quote from a poster from the 1920s, was
put into practice by the Bolsheviks in such a way that the anti-illiterate campaign
continued even during the Civil War (1918-21) and during the Second World War for the
workers Special schools were established in factories, mines and along railway lines.
Between 1922 and 1940, five crore adults learned to read and write. The total number
of students in all educational institutions in 1914-15 was 99 lakhs. By 1956-57 it had
increased to 3 crore 55 lakhs. In line with the political priorities of socialism, greater
emphasis was placed on primary education and education coupled with work. The table
given below clearly shows the astonishing campaign of eradicating illiteracy of the
Soviet Union:

Now let us take a look at health services. Immediately after the Revolution, the Soviet
government implemented a system of free medical care for all citizens. The
government's commitment to this issue was so strong that work on building
infrastructure continued even during the civil war years, and from the 1920s it
progressed at a breakneck pace. In 1960, a bourgeois public health expert, Mark G.
Field wrote about the Soviet public health system: " Health care should be planned like
any other activity , it should be equitable , health care is a free social service financed
by the state , the health of the public is a responsibility of the government."
responsibility , and should promote the widest public participation , there should be
unity of theory and practice… The Soviet regime has during the last four decades
established a system of medical treatment and preventive medicine provided as a
public service The scope of which is wider than any effort made in this area on a
national scale ” ( Encyclopedia of Russia and the Soviet Union , ed. M.T. Florinsky ,
New York)
The all-round revolution in the field of health services can be understood through some
statistics. The number of hospital beds increased sixfold from 20,700 in 1913 to
1,36,000 in 1956. In 1913, there were 13 beds per ten thousand population, which
increased to 68 in 1956. The number of doctors was 23,000 in 1913, 1,42,000 in 1940
and 3,62,000 in 1958. That means there was a 15 times increase during this period. In
1958, the number of doctors per ten thousand inhabitants was 8.8 in Britain, 12 in
America and 17 in the Soviet Union. This was possible due to the training of a large
number of women. Before the revolution, 10 percent of the doctors were women. By
1940 they had reached 60 percent and by 1958 they had reached 75 percent. Even
before the Second World War, venereal diseases, malnutrition and unhealthy
environment-related diseases, and most infectious diseases had been virtually
eliminated from the Soviet Union. The great achievements of socialism in the health
sector can be understood from the following figures:
Obviously, the goal of socialism was not just to reach new heights of material progress,
but to achieve material progress along with justice, equality and spiritual liberation
(along with material liberation) of the entire population. For this, it was necessary that
along with the system of private ownership, it should also attack one of its most
important pillars, i.e. the patriarchal family structure, free women from the suffocating
and monotonous slavery of the hearth and the kitchen, and give them real equal status
with men. To prepare the material-ideological basis for participation in socially
productive activities and political-social spheres and for this to attack the roots of male
supremacist values-beliefs-institutions.
The most important material aspect of the long journey of women's liberation that began
after the October Revolution was their increasing participation in social labour. In 1914,
only 25 percent of the total labor force employed in factories were women. This number
increased to 28 percent in 1929, 41 percent in 1940, and 45 percent in 1950. This
achievement must be seen in the light of the fact that between 1913 and 1937 alone
there was an eightfold increase in industry and at the same time the total industrial labor
force apparently also increased. The proportion of women was particularly high in
communication services, public catering, public health and education, but their
percentage in metallurgy, machine building, mining and construction industries was less
than that of men, despite steadily increasing participation. But as long as socialism
prevailed in the Soviet Union, this situation was constantly changing rapidly. In 1957, 59
percent of the total technicians working in industries were women.

When the Soviet Revolution gave voting rights to women, at that time even the women
of the advanced bourgeois democratic countries of the world did not have this right.
British women gained this right only in 1928. Just a month after the revolution, two
decrees were issued to facilitate civil marriage and divorce. Then in October 1918, a
historic ' Marriage Code ' was ratified, covering all aspects of marriage, family and
guardianship of children. This code, as a new principle of gender equality and individual
rights, gave women rights for the first time which no bourgeois democratic country in the
world has been able to give till date. The interference of state, society and religion in
matters of marriage, co-habitation and divorce was completely abolished. There was no
interference from the state and society even in the matter of sexual relations, unless
there was a case of hurting someone, forcing or cheating someone. All previous laws
against homosexuality and consensual sexual activity were abolished. The communist
thinking behind this was that all kinds of deviant sexual behavior arising from the
deforming cultural-spiritual effects of class society could be eliminated not by the
external pressure of law but by the formation of a new social structure and ideological-
cultural work. Could. Similarly, the laws criminalizing prostitution were also repealed
under the communist thinking that after giving equal rights and independent socio-
economic status to women, this oldest evil of class society would also be completely
destroyed. The coming years proved this thinking correct. By the mid-1930s,
prostitution, venereal diseases, and sexual crimes had been completely eliminated from
the Soviet Union.

In the post-revolution period, that is, throughout the period of imperialist attack, siege
and civil war, women Bolsheviks played an important role on the fronts of war,
production, education and health, as well as in remote Russian villages and the Soviet
republics of the East, bound by Islamic religious orthodoxy. Facing all the dangers and
difficulties, she did the work of education and propaganda among women. If by 1920,
breaking all the shackles of stereotypes and taboos, more than 80,000 women joined
the Red Army, then the painstaking efforts of the women Bolsheviks also played an
important role in this. The sacrifices of these brave women can be estimated from the
mere fact that during the civil war and the two years that followed, when the entire
country (especially the southern and western parts) was suffering from famine,
starvation and diseases, thirteen Percentage of female Bolshevik workers died from
malnutrition and infectious diseases while working among the common people. This
was the time when 90 percent of children under three years of age died in the southern
and western areas of the country. In 1922, the number of orphan children in the country
was 75 lakh. The government had been providing free board and lodging for all children
under the age of 16 since 1918. The adoption of orphans was banned by a provision of
the ' Family Code ' of 1918 because there was a detestable practice among farmers to
adopt orphans and children from poor families to use them as a source of cheap labour.
Was taken. “ All children are children of the state , including orphans ” – this resolution
was passed by the All-Russian Congress held in 1919 on the question of childhood
protection.
To mobilize the masses during the Civil War, the Bolsheviks had adopted the policies of
'War Communism', which included provisions like state rationing, public restaurants,
free meals for children, taxes in the form of commodities, etc. In 1920, 93 percent of
Moscow's population ate in public cafeterias. One million people in Petrograd took
advantage of this service. Although these forms of advanced communalism were
adopted early in emergency situations, they had a tremendous social impact on social
life and the status of women. With the socialization of domestic work and child-rearing,
women were freed from domestic prison and the ground was prepared for their
participation in socio-economic-political activities on equal terms with men.

Immediately after the revolution, the government started providing socio-cultural

facilities and community services to women laborers as well as started education and
training programs for them. Under the ' Labor Code ' of 1918, women laborers who
were mothers of small children were given 30 minutes break every three hours to feed
their children, which was counted as working hours. Pregnant women and mothers of
small children did not have to work night shifts. He was also exempted from working
overtime. The Maternity Insurance Program was implemented in 1918, providing eight
weeks of fully paid maternity leave for female workers, child care and rest breaks during
factory work, and pre- and postnatal medical care. Arrangements for free facilities and
cash allowances were made. The construction of a nationwide network of worksite
crèches and nurseries, as well as maternity clinics, counseling centres, feeding stations
and neonatal centres, began during the critical days of the Civil War. The pace of this
work slowed down a bit during the years of the 'New Economic Policy'. Then after
collectivization and the beginning of the five-year plan, this campaign progressed at a
fast pace. When the 'New Economic Policy' was implemented in 1921 in order to bring
the economy devastated by the Civil War back on track and prepare the ground for
socialist construction and some relaxations were given to capitalism in a planned
manner for some time, it affected the welfare of Soviet women. There was some
immediate negative impact on the situation. The system of community restaurants and
crèches etc. came to an end. Unemployment among women increased and large
numbers of them were forced to work in exploitative conditions in textile and small
industries. But this deadlock and reversal was completely controlled by 1927-28 and the
campaign for women's social freedom moved forward at a faster pace. Now women
started being given paid leave during menopause. The Soviet Union was the first
country in the world to do so.

During the first five-year plan, when farming was collectivized in the entire country,
collective farms were mechanized at a rapid pace and the system of village soviets
spread across the country, along with a huge increase in agricultural production, there
was also a revolutionary change in the status of women in the villages. Come. Along
with driving tractors and harvesters, women also started taking equal part in the work of
Soviets. Education increased rapidly among village women. Apart from factories,
community restaurants, crèches, nurseries etc. also started opening in collective farms
and rural women also started being freed from the slavery of the kitchen.

We can easily understand this social progress of women through some statistics. In
1929, the total number of women workers in the Soviet Union was a little more than 3
million. It more than doubled in five years to 70 lakh in 1934. In 1929, women
constituted a little more than 25 percent of the total workers. In 1941 this increased to
45 percent. Between 1929 and 1941, women's participation in big industries increased
from 30 percent to 45 percent, in transportation from 10 percent to 38 percent, in
education from 55 percent to about 72 percent and in public health services from 65
percent to about 78 percent. . The number of crèches was 550 in 1927, which increased
to 7,23,651 in 1938. The number of kindergartens increased from 1,07,500 in 1927 to
10,56,800 in 1937-38. In 1940, the Soviet government issued a directive that 5 percent
of the land in every new community housing project would be reserved for nursery
facilities.
Women's liberation played an important role in the victory of the Soviet Union during the
Second World War. It was mainly thanks to them that production continued during the
difficult days of the war. Just before 1941, 45 percent of the total workforce in industries
were women, which increased to 53 percent by 1942. In 1942, 25 percent of the labor
force was engaged in railway transport, 58 percent in education and 83 percent in
medicine. And it seemed as if community farming rested on their shoulders. In
comparison to the pre-war years, during the war period, the number of women tractor
drivers increased 11 times, the number of women harvester operators increased 7 times
and the number of women working in machine tractor stations increased 10 times.
Along with the production front, young women also participated on a large scale in anti-
Nazi guerrilla squads. If the Soviet Union, despite having lost 27 million people in the
war and being badly devastated, destroyed fascism and if within a few years after the
war it stood up again after rebuilding at a rapid pace, then it would be responsible for
three main things. They were responsible for: first , the collective initiative of the
working class and toiling masses liberated by the revolution and the aspiration to save
socialism at all costs, second , the development of production, science and technology
with widespread public participation after the revolution, and third , by socialism. The
immense collective power and creativity of liberated women remained unrestricted.

Despite capitalist restoration in the Soviet Union after Stalin 's death, socialist
institutions and values long persisted at the grassroots level of society. From the
Khrushchev and Brezhnev eras to the 1980s, despite economic crisis, political
autocracy, corruption, and socio-cultural distortions, people-initiated Soviet institutions
remained at the lower levels of society, and women's oppression and gender inequality
persisted. Despite the coming into existence of new forms of women, the social
progress and freedom of women remained safe to some extent, which was a historical
achievement of the socialist era. During the 1960s and 1970s, the number of women
with university level education was greater in the Soviet Union than in the United States
and France. In 1971, 98 percent of the total working population in the paramedical field,
75 percent in medical and government schools and 90 percent in libraries were women.
The life expectancy of women had increased from 30 in 1927 to 74 in 1974.

Krupskaya once said that socialism does not just mean building giant factories and
collective farms, but above all it means building a new man. Only a few decades of
socialism had given concrete shape to this belief. As three years of civil war, famine and
starvation passed, cultural institutions and media began to expand on an
unprecedented scale in Russia and all the republics of the Soviet Union. Not only in
capitals and cities, theaters, cinema halls, libraries, auditoriums, training centers for
music-drama etc. started being established even in factories and collective farms. Never
before had free cultural resources been made available to the general public on such a
large scale. From publishing of books and magazines to films, music, art, etc., all
cultural productions were financed by the socialist state. Due to this common access to
knowledge, art and culture, not hundreds but thousands of writers and artists emerged
from among the common labourers. Literature-art-theatre-cinema-music etc. not only
expanded horizontally in the entire society, but there was also incomparable vertical
progress in all these areas. In the field of literature , Fadeyev , Fedin , Sholokhov ,
Alexei Tolstoy etc. further expanded Gorky 's tradition. After Lunacharsky, in the field
of literary theory, Mikhail Lifshitz , Mark Rosenthal , Voronsky , Vorovsky etc. and in
the field of linguistics, Voloshinovdid important work and many historical debates took
place. In the field of color theory, along with Stanislavski , Meyerhold and
Vakhtangov , who were at the other extreme , did important work. In the field of
cinema, the principle of montage was developed in different ways by Eisenstein and
Pudovkin . Dziga Vertov 's work is still considered a milestone in the field of
documentary cinema . Shostakovich and some others played a historic role in
developing popular forms of proletarian music as well as classical forms in the Soviet
Union. There is no doubt that from the late 1930s to the end of the 1940s, there were
some mechanical materialistic tendencies in the field of literature and art in the Soviet
Union (the condensed form of which was ' Zhdanov Doctrine – 1946 ' ).were
dominant, who at one time created some obstacles in the path of socialist experimental
creativity and this deviation also created serious problems for Eisenstein, Meyerhold,
Vakhtangov, Shostakovich etc. This fact is used by the hired intellectuals of the
bourgeoisie in various ways to defame socialism. Of course, this was an aspect of the
basic problem of socialism, but it is certainly not the main aspect of the entire literary-
artistic scenario, nor does it in any way diminish the historical importance of the cultural
achievements and artistic experiments of socialism.

After discussing the epoch-making, unprecedented and astonishing achievements of

the October Revolution and the subsequent socialist revolution, this question becomes
even more difficult and stands before any common scholar that then due to which
internal contradictions, due to which weaknesses and mistakes did such a great
revolution take place? , Due to not being able to find answers to which questions, or
rather, due to which latent and objective reasons did it become victim of deadlock,
disintegration and defeat? The socialist power which had thwarted the civil war and the
invasion of fourteen imperialist countries, which had single-handedly crushed the Nazis
who were trampling the whole of Europe, and within a few years, rose like a phoenix
bird from the ashes of destruction and again Had started climbing new steps of progress
since then, how did it get destroyed without any strategic attack?

Along with the success of revolutions in history, the failure or defeat of revolutions can
also be understood only through the dialectical materialist approach and method. Earlier
we have discussed that the path of historical progress does not go straight ahead. Its
path of progress is annular and its motion moves back and forth in relatively small
periods of history. Revolution has a dialectical relationship with counter-revolution and
counter-revolution and before its decisive victory, there have often been periods of
victory of the forces of counter-revolution and counter-revolution. It is also noteworthy
that since the socialist revolution is not targeted only against the bourgeois society but
against the entire class society for thousands of years, it is the most radical and long-
term revolution. It is a world revolution continuing during a long transition period
between a class society and a classless society. The ongoing proletarian revolutions in
different countries are a link to this world revolution. In this journey of world revolution,
there are bound to be reversals and reversals. The defeat of the first versions of the
proletarian revolution against the bourgeois society, which was equipped with the
experience of thousands of years of exploitation and rule by the class society, is not
surprising from the historical point of view. But by talking only about this, we cannot
know the concrete reasons for the defeat of socialism and cannot reach concrete
conclusions as to what will be the way to build a new version of the October Revolution
and which mistakes should be avoided and which line of action should be adopted.
Socialism can be taken forward in the direction of communism. Due to incomplete
understanding of Marxist tools of analysis, ignorance of the nature and political
economy of socialist society or ignorance of historical facts, these days many budding
communist organizations and individuals and various types of academics are giving
various types of theses on the defeat of Marxist socialism. And throwing aside the
Marxist classics, they are doing speculative “free thinking” and suggesting all kinds of
quack remedies. Someone is thinking like Khrushchev and Gorbachev and
misrepresenting historical facts, blaming Stalin's “autocracy” for all the troubles.
Someone is saying that there should not be a Leninist or Bolshevik type party, such a
party imposes the dictatorship of the party instead of the class. Overall, by rejecting the
principles of Marx-Engels-Lenin-Stalin-Mao on which socialist experiments continued for
decades, those pulp principles are being taken out from the dustbin of history and
presented, which are hardly applicable in practice. Couldn't. Someone is cooking an
anarchist-syndicalist concoction ranging from Axelrod and 'Workers' Opposition' to
'Council Communism', while someone else is mixing dozens of old and new forms of
social democracy and revisionism. Therefore, it becomes even more important to
understand the nature and contradictions of the socialist society and try to understand
the problems of socialism and the reasons for capitalist restoration. So let's do this!

3. Problems of socialism and the

fundamental reasons for capitalist
restoration in the Soviet Union
A clear and proper understanding of the basic causes of capitalist restoration in the
Soviet Union and the current world-historical reversal can be achieved only when we
know what the socio-economic structure of a socialist society is like, what are its basic
characteristics and its What are the laws of development?

The first thing that should be clear is that socialism is not a permanent and integrated
socio-economic structure. Marx-Engels, Lenin and Mao have repeatedly made it clear
that this is a long transition period between capitalism and a classless society during
which classes continue to exist in society, class struggle continues and for a long time
There remains a danger of the current of history being reversed. Even in a socialist
society, the struggle between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat continues in various
forms. The difference is that in a bourgeois society this struggle continues under
bourgeois dictatorship, whereas in a socialist society it continues under the dictatorship
of the proletariat. Proletarian revolutions are the first such revolutions in human history
whose aim is to create a classless and exploitation-free society by eliminating class and
state through the process of annihilation. The struggle of the proletariat is not only
against the bourgeoisie and its culture, but against all exploiting classes, all class
tendencies and all class habits and culture that have persisted for thousands of years.
The goal of socialism is to eliminate the class structure of the society and transition to
the state of communism. If this thing is understood deeply, then the continuity of class
struggle, the need for continuous revolution and the possibilities of ups and downs of
victory and defeat during the long term period of socialism can be easily understood.

As early as 1850, Marx had made it clear in his classic work ' Class Struggle in France
1848-50 ' that, " This socialism is a declaration of the permanence of the revolution , it
generally means the abolition of class differences and the production relations on which
they are based. " The class-based differences are based on the class dictatorship of the
proletariat as the necessary transition point for their abolition and abolition of all social
relations corresponding to these production relations and the revolutionization of all
ideas arising from these social relations . ” Again in 1875, in ‘ Critique of the Gotha
Programme ’ , he wrote: “ Between capitalist and communist societies there exists a
period of revolutionary transformation from one to the other , during which the state can
only be the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat. “ The existence of the
dictatorship of the proletariat means that if the enemy class exists, then it is obvious that
it will continue its efforts for capitalist restoration. If the class struggle continues then the
possibility of defeat of the proletarian side cannot be ruled out. Lenin writes clearly: “
The dictatorship of the proletariat is not the end of the class struggle , but its
continuation in new forms. The dictatorship of the proletariat is a class struggle waged
by a proletariat that has emerged victorious and has taken political power against a
capitalist class that has been defeated but not destroyed, a bourgeoisie that has not
become extinct. This has happened , which has not stopped resisting , but has
intensified its resistance. ” ( Preface to the published speech entitled ‘ Deceiving the
Public by Slogans of Liberty and Equality ’ ). Elsewhere on the same subject Lenin
has written, “ The transition from capitalism to communism represents an entire
historical era. Until this era comes to an end , the exploiters remain hopeful of
rehabilitation and this hope gets transformed into rehabilitation efforts. He further writes,
“ The abolition of classes demands a long , difficult and unyielding class struggle which
will not end after the overthrow of the power of capital , the destruction of the bourgeois
state and the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat. ” does not go away (as
the vulgar representatives of the old socialism and the old social democracy imagine) ,
but only changes its form and in many ways becomes more violent. ,Lenin had clearly
stated that the period of transition from capitalism to communism is “ inevitably a period
of unprecedented violent class struggle continuing in unprecedentedly violent forms ” (“
State and Revolution ” ) .

Based on an in-depth study of the causes and conditions of capitalist restoration in the
Soviet Union and the experiences of the two lines of continuous struggle with the
capitalist pioneers present in the party and the state in post-revolution China, Mao in
1962 postulated the existence of class struggle in the socialist society and the
existence of class struggle in the capitalist society. He spoke clearly about the dangers
of restoration: “ Socialist society has a very long historical period. Throughout this
historical period of socialism, classes , class contradictions and class struggles continue
to exist , the class struggle between the socialist path and the capitalist path continues
and the threat of capitalist restoration remains. We must recognize the long-term and
complex nature of this conflict. We must increase our vigilance. We must correctly
understand and conduct class contradictions and class struggle , we must distinguish
between the contradictions between ourselves and the enemy and the contradictions
among the masses, and resolve them correctly. Otherwise , a socialist country like ours
will turn into its opposite , degenerate , and capitalism will be reestablished. ,

To understand in depth the reasons for the restoration of capitalism, it is necessary that
we have a clear understanding of those elements and processes present in the internal
structure of the basic economic structure of the socialist society, that is, the production
relations and superstructure, which are the basis of class struggle in this period. There
are factors of long term nature.

There are three aspects to production relations: first , the form of ownership; Second ,
the role of people and their mutual relations in production; And thirdly , the form of
distribution of the product. First of all let us consider the system of ownership. As soon
as power comes into the hands of the proletariat, private ownership does not disappear
completely. Small forms of private ownership continue to exist for a long time alongside
the socialist system of public ownership, exploitation continues to exist despite a ban on
the direct purchase and sale of labour, small ownership persists in industry and
agriculture Yes, cooperative farming is also capitalist in essence and even after the
abolition of well-defined bourgeois interests, vestiges of individual economy persist in
villages and cities. That is why Lenin had repeatedly stated that the danger of capitalist
restoration comes not only from the old exploiting classes striving to regain their lost
“paradise”, from the international relations of the bourgeoisie and not only from the
power of international capital. but also on behalf of those bourgeois elements and that
capitalism which is produced daily, hourly, continuously and spontaneously by small-
scale capitalist production (in particular, Lenin: ' Left communism is a childish
disease ', ' Immediate Tasks of the Soviet Government ', ' Economics and Politics
in the Era of Dictatorship of the Proletariat ') . Lenin in 1921 had mentioned the
simultaneous existence of five socio-economic formations under the dictatorship of the
proletariat. When discussing the question of ownership, it is also important to be clear
that collectively owned economic units (such as collective forms) are not the property of
the entire public, they are the property only of the members of that collective
undertaking and they exchange goods, Whereas state-owned economic units are the
property of the entire public and exchange goods. Thus, despite being controlled and
limited, goods continue to exist for a long time in the era of socialism. An essential
condition for the continuation of the socialist transition is that the small-scale socialist
collective ownership of the working people should continuously develop towards its
transformation into large-scale socialist collective ownership and then into socialist state
ownership.

Even if the form of ownership in a socialist society becomes completely state socialist
ownership, the remaining two aspects of the production relation (i.e. the role of people
in production and their mutual relations and the form of distribution of the product) are
simultaneously transformed. If this does not happen then there will be land for
capitalism to flourish. Mere changes in the legal forms of ownership do not change the
relations of production, unless there is a change in the forms of the social process of
appropriation, and the conditions which this process creates for the agents of
production. Even after socialist public ownership has been decisively established, the
commodity economy remains, interpersonal inequalities and bourgeois rights remain,
the laws of value remain, the ground for the birth of new bourgeois elements remains,
the class struggle continues. remains and thus the objective basis of capitalist
restoration remains present. Mere nationalization or collectivization of property cannot
be sufficient to eliminate capitalist production relations and the hostile presence of the
capitalist and the proletariat. Even after this, the capitalist class may continue to exist in
different forms and may especially arise in the form of a state capitalist class. The
historical role of the dictatorship of the proletariat is not only to bring about changes in
the forms of property but also to bring about a complex and long-term transformation of
the social process of appropriation and thereby to destroy the old production relations
and create new production relations and thus, to transform the capitalist production
system into a communist production system. To ensure infection.

It is also very important to understand that nationalization of property does not mean
socialization of property. The nationalization of property prohibits private ownership but
does not prohibit the entire system of ownership. Even after the process of politicization
is complete, interpersonal inequality and bourgeois rights persist and the state
continues to play a role in the distribution of consumer goods. Socialization is the next
stage when the role of the state in regulating production and distribution of consumer
goods ceases to exist. The state of socialization obviously demands a definite,
advanced development of the productive forces and this development also includes a
greatly improved social consciousness and culture.
With the transition to an advanced stage of socialism and greater socialization of
property, the existence of goods becomes limited and controlled and moves towards
extinction. But as long as goods continue to exist, the laws of market and price continue
to operate in some form or the other. In the context of interpersonal relations in socialist
production, inequalities between peasant and worker, between village and city, and
between intellectual labor and physical labor also persist for a long time, and these
inequalities are reflected in the existence of bourgeois rights. In a socialist society, the
distribution of consumer goods according to labor is also a bourgeois right which exists
until the productive forces are developed to the level of overproduction and the relations
of production to a highly advanced level. In ' Critique of the Gotha Programme ' ,
Marx has termed bourgeois rights as the right to inequality. Engels has also discussed it
in detail in ' Rebuttal to Duhring's Doctrine ' . Lenin has stated in ' State and
Revolution ' that the existence of bourgeois rights in the context of distribution of
consumer goods in a socialist society means the existence of a bourgeois state without
a bourgeois class. Further, in his famous essay titled ' A Great Beginning ' (1919),
Lenin writes: To completely annihilate the classes, it is not enough to overthrow the
power of the exploiters , landowners and capitalists , it is not enough to destroy their
rights of ownership. It is also necessary that all private ownership of the means of
production be abolished and the distinction between village and town , and between
manual and intellectual labour , should also be abolished. This requires a very long
time. ” While discussing the problems of socialism in China, Mao also referred to Lenin's
ideas about bourgeois rights and wrote: “ We ourselves have created a state which is
not much different from the old state. There are ranks and grades , eight grades of pay ,
distribution according to work and exchange of equal values. Obviously, these
bourgeois rights serve as the basis for the flourishing of the new bourgeoisie during the
socialist transition .

After discussing the complexities of the socialist transformation of the relations of

production, we now come to the question of superstructure. It is a clear proposition of
Marxism that the superstructure of any society as a whole is in accordance with the
economic foundation, but there is no complete uniformity or proportionality between the
two. There are contradictions between the two and with the change in economic
fundamentals the old superstructure does not change. It continues to exist in conflict
with the new economic fundamentals for a long time and can also play an important role
in the restoration of the old economic fundamentals. In a socialist society, bourgeois
ideology is present on various levels from politics to culture, bourgeois culture and
values-beliefs are present, the habits and tendencies of the old class society are
present among the people, in the organization of the state the influence of the bourgeois
class is present. Representatives exist and various forms of bureaucratic functioning
exist. The existence of classes, class contradictions and class struggle in society
continues to influence the party and the state of the proletariat, and bourgeois elements,
bourgeois ideology and bourgeois lines continue to emerge in various subtle and hidden
forms in the Party and the state machinery of socialism. They remain present in India,
and from time to time create situations of decisive conflict. Bourgeois headquarters
continue to be established within the party and if ideological class struggle is not waged
against them, then there remains a strong possibility of the party of the proletariat
becoming a party of the bourgeoisie, and the dictatorship of the proletariat turning into
the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie. Overall, while providing support to the old ruling
classes striving to regain their lost “paradise,” the bourgeois elements present in the
superstructure during the socialist transition are forming the new bourgeoisie from
among party workers, state employees, and the working class. They continue to
prepare the ground and environment for birth and continue to provide strength to the
capitalist production system existing during this transition period. That is why Karl Marx
had described the revolutionization of all existing ideas in accordance with capitalist
social relations as a characteristic of socialism. Lenin talked about a continuous struggle
in a socialist society against all the ideas and old habits that corrupt the working class
and the common people, and Mao talked about changing the relations of production by
imposing total dictatorship of the proletariat, as well as the areas of superstructure. It
was also said that it was absolutely necessary to carry on the revolution continuously.
Mao Tse-tung, based on his study and analysis of the socialist experiment in the Soviet
Union and then the capitalist restoration under the leadership of the revisionist
Khrushchev, and the experiences of the socialist transition in China, offered a clear
formulation that despite the difference in nature and form from the bourgeois society,
The contradiction between the productive forces and production relations, and the
contradiction between the base and the superstructure are also the basic contradictions
of socialist society and these contradictions continue to be expressed in the form of
contradiction and struggle between the proletariat class and the bourgeoisie. Proletariat
dictatorship bourgeoisie, Bourgeois rights continuously control and limit bourgeois
production relations and wage a continuous struggle against bourgeois ideas, values,
culture and institutions. In the socialist society, the political representatives of the
bourgeois class, in the form of disguised communist elements, continuously create
'bourgeois headquarters' within the party and carry on the struggle against the right line
in order to reverse the socialist transition. They want to stop the forward continuation of
the class struggle in the socialist society, transform the dictatorship of the proletariat into
the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie and restore capitalism.

After this brief discussion of the nature of socialist society and the class contradictions,
this historical tragedy can be easily understood that why despite such great
achievements of such a great revolution in history, a historical reversal took place in the
Soviet Union! Certainly, the abolition of private ownership of the means of production
during the Stalin period was an unprecedented step in the entire history of class society.
The practical form of socialist planning also appeared for the first time in history in the
Soviet Union. These initial steps of socialism harnessed the immense energy, initiative
and creativity of the common people and this was the fundamental reason for the
miraculous progress of the Soviet Union. But Stalin's most serious ideological mistake
was that he considered the abolition of private ownership as decisively the end of
capitalist production relations and the establishment of socialist production relations. We
have discussed above that there are three aspects of production relations: the form of
ownership, the role of people in production and their mutual relations and the form of
distribution of the product. Even after the abolition of private ownership, if the proletarian
power does not pay conscious attention to the continuous transformation of the other
two aspects, then bourgeois rights and interpersonal inequalities in society will not only
continue, but will also continue to get strengthened in various forms. We have made it
clear above that mere change in the legal forms of ownership does not eliminate the
conditions for the existence of classes and class struggle and these conditions are
linked to the relations of production – to the forms of the social process of appropriation.
In the 1930s, Stalin and the Soviet Party understood that with the abolition of private
ownership, socialist production relations had largely been established and with the
development of the productive forces, socialism would continue to move forward. This
kind of economistic or “productivist” thinking had in fact been present in the international
labor movement since the nineteenth century (Marx-Engels and Lenin were the
exceptions), and this deviation was virtually inherited by Stalin. This deviation looked at
the interrelationships of productive forces and production relations in a fundamentalist
manner rather than in a dialectical manner. In his report on the draft Constitution of the
Soviet Union, presented at the Seventh Congress of Soviets in November 1936, Stalin
presented the formulation that the abolition of legal private ownership and socialist
ownership in the spheres of industry, trade and agriculture in the Soviet Union during
1924–36 After the establishment of the economic and political contradictions between
the classes are now "reducing and disappearing", the hostile contradictions have now
ended and only the friendly contradictions between the classes of the people now exist,
and the advanced The contradiction between socialist production relations and
backward productive forces is now the main contradiction of Soviet society.

It is a fact that even after 1936, Stalin used the dictatorship of the proletariat not only
against external threats but also against internal anti-socialist forces, that is, on a
practical and empirical level he continued the class struggle, but did not attempt to
achieve socialist transition. In the absence of a coherent understanding of nature and
law, they considered anti-socialist elements to be mere relics of the past or agents of
imperialism. They could not understand that such bourgeois elements would
continuously arise from within the socio-economic structure of socialism and that
instead of carrying out a sustained revolution, suppression or elimination of such
elements could only be a temporary action. Due to the fundamentalist alienation of his
approach, Stalin also failed to understand the dialectics of the interrelationships of the
base and superstructure in the socialist society. They could not see the dangers of
capitalist restoration present in the superstructure in addition to the foundation. Although
the socialist foundation in the Soviet society gave birth to a new socialist superstructure
at its own independent pace and the party and the proletarian power did important work
at the level of values-beliefs, art-literature-culture, but from the party and the state to the
Trinamool level in the society, Stalin did not understand the necessity of carrying on a
continuous revolution at the level of all institutions and at the level of ideas and values.
A logical consequence of giving extra emphasis on the development of productive
forces and considering it as the basic driving force of socialism was that Stalin's
emphasis was more on technology and less on humans. Due to the hegemonic
alienation of his approach and method, Stalin could not see the struggle between the
two lines within the party as a form, extension and reflection of the class struggle going
on in the society; the protection of the proletarian character of the party in the era of
socialism. In order to maintain its lively contact with the masses, the Party could not
develop coherent forms of learning from the masses, and with the advancement of
socialist consciousness in the work of state system and management, the working class
and the toiling masses were gradually becoming more and more involved. Could not
find clear methods of ensuring participation, the adverse effect of which was the
strengthening of bureaucracy at various levels of the party and the state. If some people
in this new bureaucracy were genuine communists, victims of system defects, some
were also 'capitalist pioneers'. Essentially and primarily, this was the reason that while
eliminating alien elements from the Party and State machinery, during the Stalin period,
especially in the latter half of the 1930s, the circle of enemies expanded slightly and
also included within its ambit many genuine elements who or So some were victims of
hallucinations or minor deviations, or were completely innocent.

While discussing Stalin's ideological mistakes, it is important to underline some points.

Firstly,the creation of socialism in the Soviet Union was the first such experiment in
world history. There was no such experiment of the past before him to learn from. In any
great experiment that seeks to find a new historical path, it is inevitable that there will be
some mistakes, some incompleteness and some inaccuracy. Secondly, for the first
time this work of socialist construction was being carried out in a country with backward
productive forces standing alone in the midst of imperialist siege and it had already
become clear in the mid-1930s that sooner or later the ravages of fascism would be
combated and The Soviet Union will have to defend socialism on its own. The fact
should never be forgotten that Stalin had to work under the constant pressure of
immediate crises, due to which he did not get sufficient opportunity to think deeply about
the fundamental and far-reaching problems of socialism. Thirdly, after the Second
World War, when the Soviet Union reemerged with astonishing speed and socialist
construction advanced rapidly in every field, despite the existence of various
international and national problems, Stalin needed to sum up the experiments of the
past and Got some opportunity to think and brainstorm on the basic problems of
socialism. During the last years of his life he began to think about and correct his
original doctrinal error. In his book 'Economic Problems of Socialism in the Soviet
Union' published in 1952, he clearly mentioned that the system of commodity
production is still alive in the Soviet Union and the laws of value are also working in
various forms. Obviously, this thinking of Stalin was moving in the direction of negating
his formulation of 1936 and thinking afresh on the problem of class struggle in the
socialist society. But history did not allow this process to move forward. After Stalin's
death in 1954, Khrushchev, who was in power, abandoned socialist policies and
principles and started implementing revisionist policies and principles. Having
established decisive control over the party and the state by 1956, Khrushchev rapidly
advanced the process of capitalist restoration.

This Khrushchev-gang was representative of the same new bourgeoisie, which had
taken advantage of the stagnation caused by the inability to make the transition to
further stages of socialism, expanding its social base, strengthening its position within
the party and state apparatus. He had gone and as soon as he got a favorable
opportunity, he had taken control of the controlling heights of the party and the state.
Like every revisionist, Khrushchev was also a bourgeois masquerading as a communist.
The Khrushchev era in the Soviet Union was the beginning of state monopoly capitalism
with a socialist facade. This was the initial phase of a new type of autocratic dictatorship
of the state monopoly capitalist class. During the Brezhnev period, the process of
building the structure of this state monopoly capitalism and its superstructure was
completed, capitalist relations became firmly established in the society, the Soviet Union
started competing with America for world dominance as a social imperialist superpower
and The social fascist dictatorship of the new Soviet bourgeoisie became more and
more autocratic. But with the passage of thirty-thirty-five years, the contradictions
between the base and the superstructure within the bourgeois society of the Soviet
Union gradually became more acute and reached the point of being irreconcilable. To
get rid of the stagnation of the economy and the resulting socio-economic crises,
restructuring of the foundation and its entire superstructural structure was necessary.
Gorbachev, a representative of the new Soviet bourgeoisie, took some steps in this
direction in the 1980s. But the relative lack of competition inherent in the state monopoly
capitalist structure had become a shackle to the feet of the productive forces within the
bourgeois circle and to get rid of this crisis, it was necessary to resort to privatization
and liberalization, or rather, to convert capitalism into its classical form. It had become
mandatory to establish in. As a logical outcome of these movements, the Soviet Union
disintegrated in 1991 and a more or less Western-style bourgeois democratic
parliamentary system was established in all its constituent republics, including Russia.
The same process took place with more speed and shock in the countries of Eastern
Europe, but their discussion does not fall within the scope of our topic here.

After summarizing the successes and failures of history's first socialist experiment in the
Soviet Union and all its positive and negative experiences, and in the same perspective,
on the basis of the experiments of socialist transition in China and the results of the
struggles during this period, Mao Tse-Tung Socialist Was successful in identifying the
class contradictions of the society and finding a way to resolve them. He identified the
capitalist pathologists present within the Party, from the lower ranks up to the Politburo,
and the capitalist elements present and thriving within the state machinery, within the
various economic units and in the fields of education and culture, and opposed them.
Called for a continuous revolution under the all-round dictatorship of the proletariat.
Through the 'Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution' (1966–76), Mao introduced the
proletariat to the 'General Line' to ensure the transition towards communism by
achieving continuous victory over the bourgeoisie. But by the time Mao reached this
definite conclusion through study, experiment and compilation, seventeen years had
passed in China too, and the 'capitalist pioneers' within the party and the state had
strengthened their base. It also has to be kept in mind that in a very backward Chinese
society (where at the time of the revolution, industry, industrial proletariat, education and
intellectual community were very limited and capitalist relations were not developed in
the villages) after the democratic revolution, socialist Moving forward in the direction of
construction was anyway quite difficult and challenging. The extremely hostile attitude of
the Khrushchev and Brezhnev leadership of the Soviet Union towards Mao-era China,
which was already facing the economic-political siege of the imperialist world, also
served to make the situation more difficult. Since the 1950s, Mao had to constantly
contend with revisionist factions within the party. It should also not be ignored that the
Chinese Party made some serious ideological mistakes (e.g., seven years' delay in
opening the struggle against Khrushchev's revisionism) and some serious economic
policy mistakes (e.g., delaying the beginning of the socialist transition). Even after this,
giving some special concessions to the national bourgeoisie from 1952 to 1966) also
indirectly benefited the capitalist pioneers and had a serious adverse impact on the
balance of class power. Despite this, it can be said with confidence that the 'Great
Proletarian Cultural Revolution' introduced the world proletariat to the nature of the
problems of socialism and the general direction of its solution, clarified the reasons for
capitalist restoration and showed the way to stop it and completely The ideological
arsenal of the world communist movement was enriched by the teaching of continuous
class struggle during the long historical period of socialist transition.

4. Today's world and future possibilities

The working class began its assault on the strongholds of capital in the middle of the
nineteenth century. From then till today, I don't know how many times workers' struggles
have been drowned in the swamp of blood, I don't know how many revolutions have
been crushed, I don't know how many times the wave of counter-revolution and reverse
has prevailed over the wave of revolution, but The situation of long-term and profound
world historical reversal, stagnation, confusion and disintegration that the proletariat and
its vanguard forces are facing today has perhaps never happened before. During the
last 180 years, the wave of counter-revolution has never continued to dominate the
wave of revolution for so long. This 'dark age' of reversal and stagnation began more or
less in the 1980s and reached its peak in the 1990s. Even today history is passing
through this darkness.

When Khrushchev laid the foundation of capitalist restoration in the Soviet Union in
1956 after Stalin's death, the proletarian revolution in China was still moving forward
making great leaps forward. At the same time, rising waves of national liberation
struggles against colonialism and neo-colonialism were rising all over the world. The
beginning of capitalist restoration in China in 1976 was a major historical shock, but
even at that time, national liberation struggles in many countries on the Asian, African
and South American continents were achieving one success after another. During this
entire period, there was a fierce competition going on between the two superpowers –
America and the Soviet Union, which to some extent was benefiting the liberation forces
of the world. Although Soviet social imperialism tried to create divisions in the liberation
struggles of the world, but due to competition with American imperialism, it also helped
the liberation struggles and the newly independent countries.

Conditions began to change in the 1980s. The era of national liberation struggles was
now coming to an end. By this time, the ruling bourgeoisie of the newly independent
countries of Asia-Africa-Latin America had started organizing itself as the 'junior partner'
of the imperialists in the world capitalist system. This was the period of Gorbachev 's
'Glasnost' and 'Perestroika' in the Soviet Union when the Soviet state monopoly
capitalist system, crumbling due to its own internal contradictions, was moving towards
disintegration. Now it was neither in a position to compete with Western imperialism, nor
could it provide any help to the third world countries. During 1989 to '91, the
disintegration of the Soviet Union and the collapse of state capitalist systems with
socialist masks in its constituent republics and Eastern European countries led to the
restoration of Western-style private monopoly capitalist systems. Soon Vietnam and
Korea also followed the path of “market socialism” like China. By the beginning of the
second decade of the new century, Cuba also took up the flag of “market socialism”.

By the 1990s, the era of national liberation struggles had passed and inter-imperialist
competition had receded into the background to such an extent that the world began to
appear unipolar to many intellectuals and empiricist observers with a limited
understanding of Marxist science. During this period, the western imperialist countries
under the leadership of America imposed the policies of privatization-liberalization on all
the third world countries and the bourgeois rulers of the Eastern European countries
through the prescriptions of 'Fund-Bank-GATT'. This new era of imperialism was named
“Globalization”. During this period, all obstacles in the way of global movement of
imperialist finance capital were removed and new methods of capital export were
invented. This was the period of “final victory” and decisive dominance of financial
capital over industrial capital, when unprecedented hyperfinancialization of the world
economy took place. A significant change in production patterns was the fragmentation
of the 'Fordist assembly line' into a number of small enterprises and domestic industries
through a series of contracting processes. By classifying a large part of the labor force
as informal, casual, contract and daily wage workers, the bargaining power of the
workers was taken away and more and more surplus started being squeezed out of
them. The organized industrial working class under the leadership of the revisionist and
bourgeois parties could not oppose it effectively and kept disintegrating into pieces.

One specialty of this era of globalization is that in most of the countries of Asia, Africa
and Latin America (with the exception of some very backward countries), the historical
tasks of national democracy have been completed. The ruling bourgeoisie in these
countries has settled in the new world order as the 'junior partner' of the imperialists. In
these countries, though distorted, fragmented and disabled, bourgeois democracy has
been established and if pre-capitalist land relations survive anywhere, they are left in
the form of vestiges. That is, the countries which were in the stage of national
democratic revolution two, three or four decades ago, have now entered the stage of a
new type of socialist revolution and the main contradiction there is – imperialism and
native capitalism along with three classes of people. (Contradiction of urban middle
class/middle peasant, urban-rural semi-proletariat/poor peasant and urban-rural
proletariat). That is, the main contradiction now in most of the backward countries
of the world is between labor and capital. The second fundamental contradiction of
today's world is inter-imperialist competition.

During the last two decades of the last century, when the period of world-historical
reversal was beginning and the wave of counter-revolution was dominating the wave of
revolution, slogans like ' end of history ', ' death of socialism ' etc. were raised in the
bourgeois intellectual world. The noise was echoing far and wide. All the post-
modernists, post-Marxists etc. were never tired of saying that ' the great stories of
revolutions ' have been immersed. It was being said again and again, in different ways,
that liberal capitalist democracy is the most advanced socio-political system, whose
internal dynamics are such that it will remain forever, correcting its shortcomings and
weaknesses. But by the end of the century, all this self-satisfaction and triumph was lost
in the panic, outcry and chaos created by the earthquakes of global recession and
economic collapse. The faster the capital, running freely all over the earth, squeezed
out more and more surplus, the more severe the eternal crisis of the falling rate of profit
became in the very next period. The ghosts of overproduction and overaccumulation
began to haunt us even more. If we look back, after the golden glorious days of the
fifties and sixties after the Second World War, with the beginning of the 1970s, the world
capitalist economy got trapped in the whirlpool of a long-term recession, from which it
never recovered. The global recession continued continuously, sometimes becoming
mild and sometimes deep, sometimes taking the form of vicious despair and sometimes
economic collapse. Every attempt to overcome the crisis gave rise to a more serious
crisis in the next phase. Today, most of the bourgeois economists are also calling the
ongoing economic crisis of world capitalism as an incurable structural crisis.

On the political level, one result of the over-financialization of the world economy and
the ongoing structural crisis in the form of prolonged economic recessions and
intermittent collapses has emerged that in all societies from the advanced to the
backward countries, from East to West, the bourgeoisie The space of democracy has
narrowed, the bourgeois powers have taken on an autocratic and repressive character
to varying degrees, and the wave of fascism has gained renewed strength as an
extreme reactionary social movement in societies ranging from advanced to backward
countries. Is. Today, fascist, semi-fascist or extreme reactionary forces are ruling in
many countries like India, Turkey, Ukraine, Philippines etc. The character of Putin's rule
in Russia is also autocratic and repressive, and in view of the repressive behavior of the
fake red flag-flying rulers of the new imperialist country China with the broad working
population, they can undoubtedly be called 'social fascists'.

In the last decade of the last century, there was a proliferation of bourgeois and Marxist
academicians making such claims and declaring the world in the era of globalization as
'unipolar'. However, inter-imperialist competition in various forms like currency war and
trade war continued even during that period. Over the past fifteen years, Russia has
reorganized its capitalist economy under Putin's leadership and has again begun to use
natural energy reserves and the trade in advanced weapons as a strength. On the other
hand, China has rapidly emerged as a new imperialist power with global ambitions.
Today, the China-Russia axis is effectively challenging the US-led Western camp at the
economic, political and strategic levels, from Africa and Latin America to Asia. There are
many more levels of contradictions. For example, the European Union countries have
deep contradictions with the Anglo-American axis. The bourgeois rulers of Asia, Africa
and Latin American countries are taking advantage of the inter-imperialist competition
and are conveniently taking the side of the Russia-China axis or the Western imperialist
bloc. Russia and China, along with Cuba, North Korea, the populist radical bourgeois
regimes of Latin America, Syria, Iran and most of the constituent countries of the former
Soviet Union, have begun to effectively challenge the American camp. But today, just as
all the imperialist countries are invested in each other's capital and just as the capital of
all the imperialist countries is invested in all the countries of the whole world (i.e., like
the colonies and neo-colonies), today the imperialists do not have their own protected
markets. Are); In view of this, there is very little possibility that inter-imperialist
competition would erupt into a world war in its most extreme form. Most of the decisions
will be taken on the basis of economic power and from time to time, imperialist gangs
will keep trying each other in the form of regional wars in some part of the world. For
example, the entire Arab region has today become a land where the mutual
contradictions of the bourgeois rulers of different Arab countries, the mutual
contradictions of the imperialist countries and the contradictions of the ruling classes
and the wider masses are coming together to form a junction or a knot. Are. Such
situations can arise in different forms elsewhere also. We can say that 'imperialism
means war' - this formulation is true even today and Mao's formulation is also true that
'either wars will give rise to revolutions or revolutions will stop wars', but the possibility
of world war is not clear in today's world. I have very little. Yes, the crises and cut-throat
competition in the capitalist world will definitely give rise to wars as long as capitalism
exists.

The problem is that capitalism cannot collapse on its own even with the explosion of its
intractable and deepest crises and socialist society cannot come into existence on its
own. Proletarian revolutions are consciously organized, they do not happen
spontaneously. Unless the proletariat is organized under the leadership of its vanguard
squad (revolutionary party) equipped with the understanding of the science and
program of revolution, the proletarian state cannot be established by destroying the
bourgeois state, and without this, socialism cannot be built. There cannot be any other
path like peaceful transition. Unless the process of building revolutionary parties of the
proletariat in different countries of the world moves forward and the new cycle of class
struggle under their leadership does not gain momentum, the capitalists will continue to
drag on and on, oppressing the masses. It will continue to wreak havoc through barbaric
oppression, wars and fascist massacres, and by squeezing and destroying nature in the
blind lust for profit, it will even create such a crisis of environmental destruction that the
very existence of humanity will be in danger. The burning question of our century is:
either socialism, or the destruction of the human race. No matter how deep the
darkness may be today, it is more likely that the human race, equipped with thousands
of years of experience of class struggle and revolutions, will ultimately choose the first
option. This is what our faith in history tells us.
In the world and historical period in which we are living today, the world proletariat
neither has proven revolutionary parties like the Communist parties of Russia and
China, nor a tested and authoritative leadership like Marx-Engels-Lenin-Stalin-Mao. Nor
does any international organization like ' Communist International ' exist. The first cycle
of the world-historical great war between labor and capital, which began in the middle of
the nineteenth century, has ended by passing through the historical milestones of the
Paris Commune, the October Revolution and the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution
of China. This first cycle ended with the defeat of the labor camp. Today the proletariat
does not have a state, but it certainly has a historical lesson as to what would be the
general direction of carrying on the class struggle in a socialist society and the way to
stop capitalist restoration! The second round of the world-historical war between labor
and capital, which will begin on a higher ground, is still a matter of the future. Right now
only sporadic clashes are taking place here and there. We are passing through a deeply
dark, transitional period between the two cycles of this world-historical great war and no
one can say with certainty how long this period will be. All we can do is to keep on
reducing this period to the maximum extent through stubborn, rigorous and continuous
efforts.

Only those proletarian revolutionaries can be successful in this endeavor who deeply
study the science of proletarian revolution and the experiments of proletarian
revolutions and socialist transition of the twentieth century and draw from them the
necessary results for the future. Cheap, cheap solutions like casually attributing the
failure of socialism to a particular leader, or to the so-called party bureaucracy, or to the
so-called lack of democracy in the socialist society, or to “establishment of party
dictatorship in place of class” without studying historical facts. Nothing will be achieved
by cheap, populist statements! All these formulations are either influenced by bourgeois
propaganda or the air flights of chair-breaking “fundamental” intellectuals! Genuine
communist revolutionaries hate these tendencies.
The second thing that is important is that the vanguard force of the new versions of the
October Revolution can only be that party which is a party molded in a true Bolshevik
mould. Today, some of the Marxist-Leninist organizations and groups all over the world
are working in a dogmatic manner and are drowning in the quagmire of ultra-leftist
sectarianism and adventurism. On the other hand, there are some other organizations
which, while talking about 'tactical' use of the bourgeois parliamentary democratic
system, have in fact gone beyond it and have become victims of right-wing opportunistic
deviation. There are also many such organizations which are victims of the distraction of
“free thinking”, ignoring the leadership role of the Party in the relationship of the Party
organization with the mass organizations and in different forms, Axelrod , ' Workers'
Opposition ' and ' Councilists ' They are clumsily repeating the historical mistakes of
the communists . Only those communist revolutionaries who can fight
uncompromisingly against all these abolitionist tendencies and establish a Bolshevik
Party with a steel structure will prove capable of fulfilling the task assigned to them by
history. All other dogmatist, revisionist and anarchist tendencies, victims of Sangh-
hegemonic deviations, will become victims of disintegration and immersion in time.

To create a new version of the October Revolution, we will have to deeply study all the
revolutionary experiments of the past, we will have to understand the basic reasons for
the restoration of capitalism and we will have to assimilate the basic content of
Marxism-Leninism-Maoism. But this will not be enough. The historical time in which we
are talking about preparations for the creation of a new version of the October
Revolution is quite different from the time of the October Revolution. We are still living in
the state of imperialism, but the structure and functioning of world capitalism has
changed significantly compared to the times of Lenin and the October Revolution. This
will inevitably have an impact on the general direction, strategy and tactics of today's
world proletarian revolution. The countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America are still the
weak links of world capitalism and the centers of storms of revolutions. But these
countries are no longer colonies or neo-colonies but are backward capitalist countries,
where their ruling classes have become organized in the world capitalist system as
'junior partners' of the imperialists. Barring exceptions, all such countries in today's
world have moved from the stage of national democratic revolution to the stage of
socialist revolution. Those dogmatic communist revolutionaries who are talking about
implementing the strategy and common tactics of the October Revolution of 1917 or the
Chinese New Democratic Revolution of 1949 with slight changes in the second decade
of the twenty-first century, are pretending to repeat the past. Are doomed to become
irrelevant and then fade away. Those who are eager to etch their names in history after
some immediate successes, meet the same fate as the leadership of the Maoist parties
of Peru and Nepal. The party which linked ' Gonzalo Chintan ' with Maoism was
dissolved and ' Prachand Path ' of Nepal's Maoist Party achieved nirvana by entering
the Parliament. When such experiments immediately generate some heat and hope and
then get dissolved in the next phase, the disappointment of the common people aspiring
for revolution becomes deeper. True, false hope is more dangerous than immediate
disappointment.

Finally, we want to emphasize once again that this is not the 'end of history'. Humanity
will eventually come out of this long dark tunnel and a new cycle of the world-historical
war between the camps of capital and labor will surely begin, even if it may take a few
more decades. Our optimism is not fatalistic, but transitive optimism. We believe that
the more painstaking and tireless efforts the occult forces make, the closer the time of
new beginnings will be. This revolutionary optimistic spirit of ours is most accurately
expressed by the following lines from Lenin's only poem which he wrote after the
Russian Revolution of 1905-07 was crushed:

The flowers of freedom were trampled underfoot

are destroyed today

lord of darkness

Happy to see the horror of the world of light

But the fruit of that flower

Have taken shelter in the soil that gave birth

in mother's womb

hidden from sight in deep mystery

that strange particle

kept myself alive

the soil will give it strength

the soil will warm it

he will rise and take a new birth

He will bring the seeds of a new freedom

That huge tree will tear the ice sheet

He will rise spreading red leaves

will light up the world

To the whole world, to the public

Will gather under his shadow.

•••

— Shashi Prakash

(October, 2019)