THE CENTENARY OF THE USSR AND THE NEW WORLD CAPITALIST CRISIS
First of all, we thank the organizers, the Party of Communists USA, for the opportunity to participate in the event celebrating the centenary of USSR formation.
The beginning of the 20th century is becoming more and more distinct and emphatic before us as a key historical period. After the proletariat of the Russian Empire, which Lenin aptly called the “prison of Nations”, made a socialist revolution and defeated the White Guards and the interventionists, something unprecedented appeared: a state in which the working people ruled, and the entire economy worked for the benefit of the workers and their well-being. This state — the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics — was able to emerge primarily because of the firmness and democratic organization of the Russian working class. The October Revolution and the founding of the USSR became a new starting point in the history. Soviet socialism set standards for the progress of the whole world. The resolution of the social issues in the USSR in the interests of the working people has become an excellent tool for the reformatting of the former world order.
The word “Soviet” was used in all names of the workers government institutions in our country. The October Revolution proclaimed Soviet power. What does this mean?
Back in 1905, in the midst of the First Russian Revolution, several strike committees were acting on the same territory at once in a number of industrial cities. The association of elected representatives from different strike committees was called the Soviets. From meetings of workers created to solve individual problems, the Soviets quickly turned into universal governing bodies, capable of both adopting decisions on a wide range of issues and organizing their implementation. Having left a serious mark on the revolution of 1905-1907, the Soviets reappeared in the first days of February, in 1917. The October Revolution established Soviet power.
The class essence of the Soviets created such conditions that all the fighting forces were compelled to reckon with the interests of the proletariat. This is one of the differences between the Soviets and Parliament. Despite the apparent democracy, in the bourgeois parliaments there is a clear tendency to reduce the number of delegates representing working people. There is not a single workers’ deputy in today’s Russian State Duma. Parliaments have historically been created as organs of domination by the exploiters, while the Soviets have the opposite basis.
The Soviets are perfectly suited to address all issues of the working class. Starting with the organization of supplies for the families of the strikers, the Soviets, as class organizations of the proletariat, were able to constantly improve the life of the workers of a huge country, carried out electrification and industrialization, organized the best system of mass education in the world, solved the issues of defense and the development of science. Soviet power became the basis for the creation of the USSR and the establishment of its socio-political system — socialism. Once the workers learned to form their own organizations for the purposes of the class struggle, they became a new force. This force surpassed everything that had previously been created under the rule of the exploiters.
What is the USSR? This is the world’s first experience in creating socialism. It is the breakthrough, the revolution in all fields, the huge tectonic shift that will excite the minds of the peoples of the world until true freedom is achieved.
Despite the fact that the USSR lasted only for the duration of the 20th century, the number of positive changes that were caused by its existence can hardly be accounted for in a simple calculation. The revolutionary charge of building the Soviet Union released the incredible creative potential of the people of the new country. Huge breakthroughs include:
– Industrial production, demonstrating unprecedented rates of industrial development,
– Mass education, in the shortest possible time having trained millions of people,
– Science, the symbol of which was the first manned flight into space,
– Architecture and design, pursuing the principle of functional beauty,
– Art, which made Moscow in the 30s the world capital of the avant-garde cinema,
– Other areas of everyday life and much more.
It is worth mentioning the right to work, free medicine and education, true equality between men and women, and all the countless achievements of the working class under the leadership of the Communist Party. The fight against obscurantism and nationalist remnants, and since the second half of the 20th century, the movement for peace and nuclear disarmament have become an invariable attribute of the communist policy of the Soviet country.
Socialism gave the country, where fathers and mothers could not read and write, children and grandchildren-cosmonauts, professors and scientists. Unprecedented technological progress has been achieved due to a large-scale planned economy, capable of building giant industries from scratch, working as a harmonious organism. It was all the above, multiplied by the principles of communist morality, that allowed the USSR to break the back of fascism in Europe and open the way for a number of revolutionary and national liberation movements around the world, primarily in the oppressed countries of the so-called “Third World”. The collapse of the Soviet Union revived the darkest reactionary forces of capitalism, nationalism and fascism, enabled the bourgeoisie to carry out a widespread attack on labor rights, which the workers of the whole world won thanks to the existence of the Soviet Union, a huge contributor to the development of labor relations and labor protection.
There is one more huge benefit of the socialist society, which is not so often spoken about — this is a complete different approach to human relations, to comradeship on a national scale. We, the members of the Revolutionary Komsomol, were lucky to be acquainted with such people who, even after the onset of capitalism in the country, remained true to these principles.
So was the USSR a kind of ideal society without flaws, a magic wand that suddenly resolves all pressing problems? Of course, there were problems in the USSR, although they were far from being as significant as they are represented by our ideological opponents and some ordinary people who are far from politics. A significant amount of the problems arose due to the fact that it was a very first attempt in creating a socialist society of this magnitude. Many problems of planning could be easily solved with today’s technical capabilities. An objective and impartial analysis of the problems of building socialism is an important research task for communists.
So, what does this significant date mean for the communists of the world?
Celebrating the centenary of the USSR, we, first of all, confirm our conviction in the correctness of the chosen path. The USSR is the most important experience for the world proletariat on the road to achieving full communism.
The October Revolution and the building of socialism in the USSR gave us the theory and practical experience of building a state of the dictatorship of the proletariat. Today it is important to attentively, and critically, study this experience and use it in our agitation and propaganda among the working people, primarily the proletariat.
The new world capitalist crisis continues to deepen. Its development will inevitably lead to the fact that the peoples will need to remember the experience of the Great October Revolution and the building of the USSR. And no bourgeois propaganda can stop the working people who will again raise the question of building a world without exploitation and alienation.
