We stand on the eve of the anniversary of the Russian Workers’ October Revolution. Saturday, October 25, marks the anniversary of the Russian Workers’ Revolution. One hundred and eight years ago, on this very day, amid the chaos of World War I, the working class and the oppressed masses of Russia, after nearly two decades of hard and bloody struggle under the leadership and organization of the Bolshevik Party, overthrew the capitalist state and political apparatus of the Russian Empire and established the rule of workers and the toiling, oppressed people.
The revolution in Russia reached its conclusion in two stages. The first was in February 1917, when after a series of strikes, demonstrations, and clashes, Nicholas II, the last Tsar of Russia, was overthrown and a provisional government was formed. Most members of this government came from the Menshevik faction of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party. However, the provisional government was unable to consolidate power. As a result, a situation of dual power emerged: the provisional government ruled from above, while the soviets (workers’ councils) administered society from below.
In April of the same year, Vladimir Lenin, leader of the Bolshevik Party, returned from exile. Under Lenin’s leadership, the Bolsheviks called on soldiers to abandon the imperialist frontlines and join the revolution. They raised the slogans: “Immediate Peace,” “All Power to the Soviets,” and “Workers’ Control over Production.” They declared that “land belongs to those who work it.” The provisional government opposed these slogans, but they gradually spread throughout the country. The cities of Petrograd and Moscow became centers of revolutionary activity, while in the countryside, peasants seized lands from landlords and divided them among themselves. Thus, the social foundations were laid for a social revolution following the political revolution that had toppled the Tsarist regime.
Upon returning from exile, Lenin immediately published the “April Theses,” which became the most significant revolutionary program of the 20th century, outlining the Bolshevik strategy for the second phase of the revolution.
On November 6, on the eve of the Second Congress of Soviets, the Bolshevik Party, supported by the Petrograd and Moscow Soviets, launched an uprising of workers, soldiers, and sailors to overthrow the provisional government and transfer all power to the Soviets. In response, state institutions and the Winter Palace, the seat of the provisional government, were surrounded. The next day, November 7, the Winter Palace fell, the provisional government was overthrown, and that very night, the Second Congress of Soviets convened with over 400 delegates.
At 10 a.m., the congress issued its proclamation to the citizens of Russia: “The provisional government has been overthrown. Power has passed into the hands of the Soviets. Long live the revolution of workers, soldiers, and peasants!”
November 7, 1917 (October 25 in the old Russian calendar), thus became recorded in history as the day of victory of the workers’ revolution in Russia, an event that reshaped the course of the 20th century.
The October Revolution was a revolt of the exploited against the wage-slavery system of capitalism a revolution of the workers and toilers whose labor turned the wheels of society, yet who bore the weight of all its hardships. With the slogan “All Power to the Soviets,” the revolution placed the working class at the center of political power.
The new Soviet government immediately abolished private ownership of land, transferring the lands of landlords, the state, and the church into public ownership and distributing them among the working people. It legalized full equality between men and women in all social, economic, and family spheres, separated religion from the state, and removed the church’s influence over education and public life. The revolution also recognized the right of nations to self-determination within Russia.
This revolution struck a severe blow to the global capitalist system, provoking both the hatred and hostility of the world’s bourgeoisie and inspiring powerful waves of liberation and justice movements across the globe. Its impact was so profound that Western bourgeois governments, fearing its repetition, were forced to introduce reforms such as universal suffrage (including women’s right to vote), free public education, social insurance and pensions, and the eight-hour workday.
The 1917 Revolution profoundly influenced the national liberation struggles of oppressed peoples, demonstrating that the working class has no interest in preserving any form of oppression or inequality, and is the most determined force for liberation from all social and national injustices. Thus, in 1922, through the voluntary union of the nationalities living across the former Russian Empire, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) was founded.
Because of these achievements, even historians who have not sold their conscience or pen to capitalism acknowledge that the Revolution of 1917 was one of the greatest turning points in human history. There is no corner of the world that remained untouched by its social and political consequences.
The workers’ government in Russia, born from the struggle of millions who had been enslaved and humiliated, revived hope for liberation in the hearts of hundreds of millions of workers and the oppressed across the world. Guided by scientific socialism, and achieved through unprecedented courage and sacrifice, this early victory became a milestone in human history, regardless of what fate the workers’ state later met.
However, the victorious revolution soon faced immense challenges economic and political blockades, military interventions by 14 imperialist powers, civil war, famine, drought, and the resistance of wealthy peasants who refused to deliver their surplus produce to the state. These crises halted its progress, preventing it from fully developing into a socialist economic and social system.
In these conditions, the bourgeoisie, expelled from power, returned gradually under the name of socialism, taking control of the party, the state, and revolutionary institutions. The Communist Party of the Soviet Union abandoned the socialist goals of the revolution and instead focused on building a powerful industrial Russia a form of state capitalism, competing with other major capitalist powers. The pursuit of national prestige replaced the revolutionary ideals of abolishing wage labor, ensuring material welfare, and creating a society of free and equal human beings.
Yet, both the victory and the defeat of the Russian Workers’ Revolution provide valuable lessons that can guide the class struggle and revolutionary movements of workers in Iran and around the world today against the barbarism of global capitalism.
Today, global capitalism is mired in a deep structural crisis. The major capitalist powers, both East and West, are locked in deadly rivalries, producing wars such as those in Ukraine and Palestine, environmental destruction, growing economic and social inequality, rising poverty and hunger, the expansion of child labor, and countless other miseries.
Such a world demands a socialist revolution, one that learns from the lessons of 1917, builds on its achievements, and draws strength from the consciousness and organization of the working class to pave the path toward socialism and human liberation.
