One hundred and five years ago, November 7, 1917, marked the beginning of the single most important event of the 20th century, the Bolshevik Revolution, which directly inspired the Chinese Revolution and anti-imperialist struggles around the world from Vietnam to Africa to Latin America.

The working class seized power under the leadership of the Bolsheviks

Russia’s working class, headed by the revolutionary communists of the Bolshevik Party and its leader, Vladimir Lenin, freed one-sixth of the world’s surface from capitalism. They proved once and for all that it was possible to strive for a world without exploitation, where those who produce all value, the working class, can enjoy the fruits of their labor and not have it stolen by a few parasitical bosses and their lackeys.

The Bolshevik Revolution was the first serious attempt by workers and peasants to seize, hold and consolidate state power. Even though capitalism has returned to the former Soviet Union, workers will not forget that the Soviet working class defeated capitalism in 1917. They smashed the imperialist armies of 17 countries (including Japan, the U.S., Britain, France, among others) which invaded Russia in 1918 to try to crush the revolution. They freed the masses, especially women, from the yoke of capitalist, feudal and religious oppression. And then in 1945 the Soviet Red Army defeated the mightiest and most barbaric army the capitalists had ever organized: the Nazi Wehrmacht.

The revolution frightened the world’s bosses, who immediately sent armies from 17 countries to try—in Churchill’s words—to “strangle it in the cradle.” From 1918 to 1923, millions of workers led by the Red Army defeated the imperialists’ counter-revolution. Nearly five million died in that battle, many of whom were the most committed workers the revolution had produced. Lenin himself died because of injuries inflicted by a hired killer.

The masses showed great courage and determination to defend and build their revolution, under the leadership of their revolutionary party. They proved that revolutionary violence on the part of the working class and peasantry was vital to the seizure of state power.

Achievements of the Bolshevik Revolution

The Bolshevik Revolution brought the Soviet Union to heights of productive development that capitalism, given a similar time period and circumstances, could never have dreamed of. Bringing the working class to power, the Revolution coordinated their social-economic efforts for the production and exchange of the necessities, the comforts and even some luxuries of life, making them available to all. The Soviet system of production was for use, not for profit. This can only be accomplished by abolishing capitalist profits and the private ownership of property, with its exploitation, poverty, unemployment, racism, fascism and imperialist wars.

In the 1930s, when the entire capitalist world sank into depression, and tens of millions worldwide were left jobless and starving (much like today), the Soviet Union was forging ahead building a new society without unemployment. They created some measure of a decent life for workers in an incredibly short time, transforming a 90 percent illiteracy rate into one in which nearly everyone was literate.\

Around 1938, without any official declaration, the Soviet Union had achieved the era of free bread. One could enter a cafeteria, order little or nothing, and receive all the bread one wanted. You needed, you received. Even during a drive for heavy industry, living standards rose strikingly when the rest of the world was mired in the Great Depression.

The Soviet Union not only freed workers but also fought against racism and sexism. The battle against racism was particularly significant. As communist Paul Robeson said about his trips to the Soviet Union, he “felt like a human being for the first time since I grew up. Here I am not a Negro but a human being. Before I came I could hardly believe that such a thing could be…. Here, for the first time in my life, I walk in full human dignity.”

Heroic fight against the Nazis

In 1941, the bosses again tried to destroy the revolution. Hitler, using all of Europe’s resources and the largest military machine ever assembled, invaded the Soviet Union with four million troops. They discovered the Soviets were no pushover as had occurred in Western Europe. Hitler’s prediction — endorsed by western military “experts” — of capturing Moscow in six weeks went up in smoke.

Nazi troops found total destruction and desolation in every captured city or town — the “scorched earth” policy. As Soviet defenders retreated, they destroyed everything that the Nazi’s might use. The communists then organized armed resistance behind enemy lines: the Partisans.

Over 6,000 factories were dismantled and moved east of the Ural Mountains, re-assembled to produce weapons again, a feat requiring total unity and support of Soviet workers, unmatched by any country, before or since. Soviet soldiers and workers fought for Stalingrad block-by-block, house-by-house and room-by-room to halt the “unbeatable” Nazi invaders. Workers in arms factories produced weapons 24 hours a day for the Red Army, working 12-hour shifts. When Nazi troops captured factories, heroic Soviet workers and soldiers would re-take them.

The entire German Sixth Army and 24 of Hitler’s generals were surrounded and killed or captured in the battle of Stalingrad. Never again would the Nazis mount a successful offensive against the Red Army. Stalingrad was truly the turning point of the Second World War. Not until the Nazis were on the run following their defeats at Stalingrad and in the Battle of the Kursk — the biggest armored battle in world history, involving millions of soldiers and 6,000 tanks — did the U.S.-U.K. forces invade Western Europe.

It was the communist-led Soviet Union that smashed the Nazis, the largest and most powerful army ever mounted by a capitalist power.
All this was accomplished under the leadership of Josef Stalin. No wonder he is reviled to this day by world capitalism.

Lessons learned

Unfortunately, the Bolsheviks suffered from many political weaknesses, which led to the return of capitalism to the Soviet Union. From the beginning they believed that to achieve communism, first socialism had to be established, a belief Karl Marx had advanced. We have learned from that experience that socialism retained capitalism’s wage system and therefore failed to wipe out many aspects of the profit system.

Socialism put forward material incentives to the working class rather than political ones as the way to win workers to communism. We must win masses of workers to abolish capitalism’s entire wage system and fight directly for communism.

Today, no country is led by communists, but this is a temporary historical setback. While this long and volatile era of widening imperialist wars and fascist attacks on the working class is upon us, every dark night has its end.

The Progressive Labor Party is a product of both the old international communist movement and the struggle against its weaknesses. Pseudo-leftist groups have not learned history’s lessons and continue to fight for nationalist “sharing of power” with capitalists, a la Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez, not for the working-class seizure of power and the dictatorship of the proletariat.

Our movement is daily fighting to learn from the Soviet Union’s great battles and achievements as well as its deadly errors that led to its collapse, mainly that reformism, racism, nationalism and all forms of concessions to capitalism only lead workers to defeat. Give the ruling class an inch and they’ll grab a mile.

We honor the bold fight by the workers of the Bolshevik Revolution against capitalism and for a working-class communist world. Today, we must organize workers, students and soldiers to build a mass worldwide working class party that will turn this era of imperialist wars into a new, international communist revolution.

WASHINGTON, DC,  September 23 - “If we don’t get it, Shut it down!” Over 100 workers demanded that the DC government keep their promises to the Circulator bus operators in ATU Local 689. The DC government is closing the Circulator, and Progressive Labor Party (PLP) members and friends urged our fellow workers to fight back by relying on their power over production. Relying on vicious budget-slashing Mayor Muriel Bowser or the slimy complicit City Council is a losing strategy. Two City Council members—Charles Allen and Brianne Nadeau—had the nerve to speak to the workers offering fantasy promises they’ll never keep when the Circulator is shut down on September 30. They both voted to approve Bowser’s budget that wiped out the $40 million needed to pay for keeping Circulator routes! This racist attack will severely harm the Circulator's mainly Black workers and reduce transit access for D.C's majority Black worker population as well.

A PLP member, a past president of Local 689, roused the crowd when he detailed the politicians’ history of racist lies and callous disregard of workers’ lives. These politicians, as do all politicians, serve the capitalists. Their job is to fool us into believing that some of them serve the working class. It’s all part of their electoral charade. Instead PLP members discussed job actions, strikes, and the need for communist revolution as they distributed CHALLENGE newspapers to  protesters.

Mayor supports real estate profiteers as workers suffer

The history of the Circulator dates back to 2001 and  broken promises by then-mayor Anthony Williams, the gentrifying real estate developers’ best friend. Williams had advocated for downtown bus routes to be part of the public transit agency (WMATA, Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Association) but then contracted the routes out to his class brother First Transit, a private company, later replaced by another contractor, RAPT Dev. The transit workers struggled with low pay and horrid working conditions but were organized by a PLP-led campaign into ATU 1764 in 2005. Still, as a small union local, it had little leverage until it was brought into ATU 689, the larger regional union, three years ago. 

PLP has had the back of Circulator drivers in strikes and battles for a fair contract. Comrades active in the ATU helped organize pre-strike rallies and marches for the 2022 strike and have been leading strike efforts in the greater Metro transit system for decades (see CHALLENGE 5/18/22). Now the workers’ demand is that all the laid-off Circulator drivers be rehired by WMATA. The politicians are mouthing promises and offering a totally inadequate $8-9 million to keep some workers on the new routes as they phase out the system. 

Transit workers will win

As long as the capitalist bosses run society there is no such thing as a fair contract. We just have to keep fighting. But Metro workers do have the power to shut down the city as they did for six days in 1978 with communist leadership. The Circulator struggle shows, though, however much we win, the bosses stand ready to snatch it back at a moment’s notice, always taking their financial crises out of the hides of workers. The bosses have a contradiction to face: on one hand, they will cut transit jobs to preserve their stolen profits. On the other hand, they need transit workers to bring other workers to and from their jobs to have their labor exploited (though workers need transit for other uses as well). Therefore this is an attack on transit workers and the ridership!

It’s time for transit workers to help build a revolutionary force to end the reign of the bosses and their politicians. Join the tried and tested Progressive Labor Party!

Hudson Valley, NY—The growing anger of the 90-plus people at the Hudson Valley teach-in on Gaza was palpable as the audience listened to three organizers explain why the U.S. government unconditionally funds the Israel genocide in Gaza. Local organizers also inspired the audience with brief reports of their participation in demonstrations against local war manufacturers, a campaign to get a local city council to pass a ceasefire resolution, and student encampments at SUNY New Paltz and Rutgers University. After the formal program, the audience then met in small breakout groups to ask questions, share their own stories, and discuss how and what to do next.

Teaching importance of workers’ solidarity is key

Members and friends of the Progressive Labor Party who are active in Jewish Voice for Peace, Middle East Crisis Response, and others, helped plan and organize the teach-in. We felt it was important to focus on the economic motivations behind the U.S.’ unconditional support of Israel. Helping organize the teach-in gave us the opportunity to meet new people, a few of whom we were able to introduce to the Party as we emphasized the importance of building Jewish-Palestinian unity as a way to not just challenge the U.S. imperialist agenda in the region, but ultimately build more worker solidarity worldwide to smash genocidal bosses with communism.

“The reason for U.S. support goes back to resources, primarily fossil fuels, but also the need for trade routes, and economic and geopolitical control of the region,” said the first speaker, a retired doctor and organizer, who explained that “The U.S. is vying with China and its allies for world supremacy, and Israel is the only country in the region that the U.S. can count on as more Arab countries shift their allegiance away from the U.S.” This is why the U.S. is not going to back down in its support of the genocide, which has already killed more than 40,000 people, injured tens of thousands more, and turned Gaza into a wasteland.  

How do we stop the genocide?

After a second panelist spoke about the Israeli government propaganda apparatus, the final speaker spoke about the resistance movement that has involved tens of thousands of people in the U.S. and the extent to which retaliation against those resisting the occupation has largely been centered in “liberal” media like the New York Times and CNN, in liberal-led cities like New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago and at elite “liberal” universities like Columbia, NYU, and Harvard. The fact is that the “liberal” Biden/Harris administration has been the arms supplier to this genocidal war with the support of both political parties. 

In the break-out group discussions following the three presentations, the common theme among the participants – which included students, community members, and workers – was “how can we get involved” and “what can we do to stop the genocide?”

After the teach-in a group of about a dozen of us went out for dinner to continue the discussion, and in some cases, make new friends. As the war has expanded to Lebanon in the past few weeks and the U.S. shells Yemen, it is more important than ever that we are immersed in the anti-war movement to carry out the struggle for internationalism over nationalism and for communist revolution. Working with new people as angry and determined as we are to oppose the genocidal foreign policies of the United States not only led to new friendships but also helped build our confidence that a revolutionary communist movement to end capitalism is possible. What is needed is to funnel our rage and energy into building the ultimate fighting force—a communist Party.  Every worker, student, and solider won to communist ideas represents a nail in the genocidal bosses coffin. Join PLP today!

This is a follow up article to the 6/19 CHALLENGE article “Pushback on the Bosses’ Curriculum.” The struggle against the new, mandated curriculum in New York City (NYC) schools continues with the leadership of teachers in Progressive Labor Party (PLP). Mayor Eric Adams, currently facing federal charges of bribery, wire fraud, conspiracy, and accepting illegal campaign contributions, the Department of Education (DOE), and the United Federation of Teachers (UFT) are forcing this new curriculum as a way to control teachers and students. Under capitalism the education system is designed to indoctrinate students with capitalist ideas and mold them into obedient workers and soldiers. Standardized curriculums help them do that.

Mayor Adams was the dream of the liberal fascists, a Black kkkop who had no problem decrying being left out of education due to his dyslexia and then subsequently slamming the door shut on the next generation of dyslexic Black kids coming behind him by imposing a one size fits all curriculum. Unfortunately, he got too obviously greedy by accepting lavish gifts and campaign contributions from foreign countries and hooking up his friends and family with city positions. Though it is enjoyable to see him get investigated, as communists we must remember that this is more about the rulers disciplining one member of their class to better carry out the needs of capitalism.  It is not about making life better for the working class. 

Struggle spreads

As the struggle at our high school escalated, the UFT shifted its message from collaboration with the district bosses to struggling for teacher autonomy. News of our fight reached the Chancellor’s office. Even though we are just one out of over a thousand high schools, they are afraid of the struggle spreading further. The Assistant Principal (AP) lied to the Chancellor about how widespread dissent was amongst the teachers but our union leader shared a petition that showed how many teachers were united in this struggle.

This same AP is now asking teachers if there is any organizing going on against her in the department. Of course we are organizing. Communist leadership is being given at all levels of the struggle. In quick meetings in between periods and during shared lunches, the department has discussed the struggle and shaped goals. They have prioritized the needs of the students over the mandate. 
Racist education fails Black students

Due to the racism inherent in capitalism, Black and Latin students are not achieving at the same rate. In some areas where there is a struggle against the mandate, Black students are being left out of the conversation. Many of the white and Asian students have tutors and use school to apply what they have already learned. But for many students, school is where they learn the skills and not just apply prior learning with the help of parents and tutors. 

The Superintendent is trying to say that the mandated curriculum is going to help Black students to achieve higher on tests but this is a lie. No mandated curriculum can fix systemic inequality, especially when it alienates, oppresses, and kills the creativity of the teachers who plan directly for their students’ needs. These curricula are specifically designed by corporations in order to meet the needs of a capitalist education system.
This struggle not only affects our jobs as teachers but also as parents to students in NYC schools. In a Parent Teacher Association meeting in an elementary school, the struggle against the new curriculum was discussed. Less time will be spent teaching math in second grade and below so that the students can be taught typing skills. This is so they can succeed in the timed standardized tests in third grade that are given on computers.

An important part of the struggle has been sharing CHALLENGE with more teachers. This has shifted the conversations from simply complaining about being told what to do by administration to understanding the importance of fighting for our students' needs and the importance of uniting with parents and students. So far our parent and student outreach needs to be strengthened. A single spark can start a fire and a single struggle with communist leadership can shake up the bosses’ plans. We have a world to win and we need to be able to teach that to our students.