A Revolution Summed Up: The Great Lessons of October 1917

by International Communist Party

An assessment of the impact of the Russian revolution, written 50 years later (in 1967-68), reasserting the international nature of the movement that made it possible and refuting the Stalinist doctrine, still prevalent at the time, that socialism can be built in one country. The study unpicks the various false interpretations of the revolution (conservative-liberal, social democratic, anarchist and Trotskyist). In the second half it analyses the evolution of the Soviet economy through war communism, the New Economic Policy, the debates within the Party after the death of Lenin and the triumph of the counter revolution under the influence of Ustryalovism; the horrors of "dekulakization" and forced industrialization, the sham socialism of the "collective farms", followed by the liberalization and steady adjustment to capitalist norms in the Khruschev era. Already, in 1967, the post-Stalinist reforms and the growth of foreign trade pointed to the so-called "fall of communism" in 1991, made inevitable by the USSR's inability to keep up with the USA. The Communist Left was the only current that made such a thorough materialist analysis of the degeneration of the USSR, starting with its intervention at the Enlarged Executive Committee of the Communist International in 1926.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Russia, Russian Revolution

249 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1968

Reviews

[CivilWar · Rating 5 out of 5]

Undeniably the greatest book on Soviet Russia yet written - simply a masterpiece.

This is not an ordinary history book, it is above everything an analysis. As such, it is actually made up of three writings by the ICP in the 60: the first one about the Russian revolution is about all the lessons of the October revolution, freed from Stalinist propaganda, from nationalism, showing that the Russian revolution was an international event, tied to the Chinese, German, etc revolutions and depended on the world proletariat, how Stalinism was not communism but rather a revolutionary capitalist economy of a backwards nation, tying this up with Marx and Engels' writings on the double revolution. The second one is a systematic debunking of every single false lesson of the revolution - the bourgeois lesson (which uses a short explanation of the history of capitalism, showing how what happened in Russia was what happened when the Western countries began industrializing too), and how the Russian revolution does not show Marxism does not work but indeed fully confirms it even more, the social-democratic "lesson", the anarchist "lesson", the self-management socialist "lesson" and most importantly the Trotskyist "lesson", showing how Trotsky too went through serious theoretical degeneration. The third and final part is an explanation of the Soviet economy after October, the difficulties of the double revolution amid a ruined nation that was already backwards to begin with and the state capitalism of capitalist Russia.

Being the only book to examine the USSR, the Russian revolution, its lessons in a truly materialist, Marxist way, it is thus also the only one you will ever get that is entirely correct on the topic. Considering that it is the greatest event in human history, it would do very well to read it. For a real correct analysis of the Russian revolution, I would recommend this above all else.

[Henry Garrety · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great read, exploring both the political and economic history of the USSR up to the date of writing in 1967-68. Much recommended for any Marxists who still subscribe to the falsifying notion that Stalin's USSR represented anything other than state capitalism, as well to those of reformist and other oppositionist tendencies such as Trotskyism.