You’re listening to Back in the USSR on CFRU 93.3 FM, I am Siegfried and I want to thank you all for tuning in. Given the time of year and everything that’s been going on, you might be expecting me to do another anti-war Remembrance Day show or talk about the results of the US election. But tonight, I want to focus on something that happened two days and 103 years ago on November 7 1917. I’m speaking, of course, about the Bolshevik Revolution, perhaps the most earthshaking and epoch-changing event of the last century, setting the stage for further revolutions, labor struggles and anti-colonial revolts all around the world. Through its radical example, the revolution that brought down the Tsarist Russian Empire and forged a new socialist state also sounded the death knell for every single one of the centuries old colonial empires that still dominated the globe in 1917.
The words of John Reed, author of 'Ten Days That Shook the World', provide a glimpse into the cataclysmic events that took place in November 1917 and that would follow the birth of the young USSR:
“I suddenly realised that the devout Russian people no longer needed priests to pray them into heaven. On earth they were building a kingdom brighter than any heaven had to offer, and for which it was a glory to die….”
The diverse peoples of the Russian Empire in 1917 rejected the old order, they rejected war, they rejected empire, and they rejected capitalism. The simple Bolshevik Party slogan of “peace, land, and bread” was what carried the day in a devastated country that had lost millions of people to WW1, an imperialist war of aggression. This is why they supported the message of Vladimir Lenin and what was to become the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. They had had enough. They had already overthrown the Tsar in February 1917 and now they were going to overthrow the entire system that had so victimized and exploited them.
To many in the West, the October Revolution is described in a few bland buzzwords in our history books. "Stalinist", "Dictatorial", "Authoritarian". None of which are inaccurate.
The October Revolution was dictatorial to the people who exploited the masses, and it suppressed them by organising the small farmers, peasants and industrial workers together.
The October Revolution was authoritarian, to the rich merchants, the nobility, the financiers, the factory-owners and agribusiness profiteers. It divided their wealth and used it to rebuild a new society, one where the wealth that was produced would benefit the people.
Within the space of a few decades, the USSR went from an impoverished semi-feudal society, to a highly advanced and modern society, surpassing its Western counterparts in many areas, including space exploration. In the fields of science, education, health, literature, sport and more, the USSR exploded in every direction, routinely making much 'wealthier' Western countries look worse off.
The pioneering achievements of the Soviet Union began almost immediately. Right after the Revolution of 1917, Lenin as leader of the world’s first socialist state wasn't just confronted with a civil war fomented by 17 foreign armies, but also with a disease pandemic of catastrophic proportions: the Spanish Flu.
The Spanish flu spread throughout the war-torn country during the Russian Civil War, infecting nearly half of the population. The pandemic led to the deaths of up to 2.7 million people in just 18 months and even claimed the life of one of Lenin's closest allies, Yakov Sverdlov of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee.
In the wake of the Spanish flu, Lenin was one of the driving forces behind the adoption of universal healthcare in the Soviet Union and with it the world. No country had a notable public healthcare system until then. Most doctors either worked for themselves or were funded by charities or churches and most people had no access to them at all. You might recall me talking in the past about how my granddad, who was born in 1918, grew up in a coal mining town in northern England without electricity, running water, sanitation or healthcare – and that was in one of the wealthiest countries on the planet, then as now. And people in towns like that had to wait until after WW2 to get healthcare access, whereas the people of the USSR, a much poorer country, got public healthcare access in the 20s and 30s due to the pioneering efforts of socialism.
In 1920, the Soviet Union became the first country to put in place a centralized public healthcare system, funded via a state-run insurance plan, which Western countries were ultimately forced to emulate largely due to rising working class unrest and fear of revolution. And it’s worth pointing out that one of the main reasons why Western elites have been so brazen about cutting healthcare services over the last thirty years is because, after the fall of the USSR, they’re no longer afraid of a socialist revolution breaking out in their own countries. The same is true for women’s rights, labor rights, civil rights and others. Fear of socialism forced capitalist governments to make concessions in the 20th Century, but now that fear is gone and the concessions are being rolled back.
The combination of the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 and the Treaty of Versailles in 1919 had the effect of radicalizing millions of colonized and oppressed peoples worldwide: from Vietnam to the American South. W.E.B Du Bois, the US civil-rights icon and unapologetic communist, and Ho Chi Minh, who would ultimately lead the socialist revolution in Vietnam, were as inspired by the new Soviet Union as they were angered by the betrayal of colonized peoples by the victorious allies in WW1. The May 4th Movement of Chinese students, angered by how the Versailles Treaty sold out the Chinese people to continued imperialism and colonial domination by Europeans and Japan, would ultimately take inspiration from the Bolshevik Revolution too, giving rise to the Chinese communist movement, which would emerge victorious in 1949.
And that’s not evening mentioning the Cuban Revolution, the anti-Apartheid struggle in South Africa, the resistance to the Vietnam War, the downfall of European colonization in Africa, the rise of the so-called “Pink Tide” of left-wing governments in Latin America, and dozens and dozens of other historical events that would probably not have happened without the Bolshevik Revolution and the political forces set into motion by it. Even the defeat of Nazi Germany in May 1945, a date which, in my opinion, is what we should be celebrating every year rather than November 11, would almost certainly have never happened without the USSR’s gigantic contribution to turning the tide in WW2.
There can be no doubt that the October Revolution was one of the greatest events of the 20th century, demonstrating beyond a shadow of a doubt that even in the most difficult of circumstances and harshest of times, working class and oppressed people can, and will prevail. This is very important to understand given the circumstances that we face today.
This brings me to the US election, which I really don’t want to talk too much about, but I can’t avoid mentioning. Donald Trump is finished. Joe Biden has won. The paranoid idea that Trump was going to launch a coup or start a civil war proved to be unfounded, and I think that proves the point that he was not an exceptional threat or a Hitler-wannabe, just a capitalist swindler with an ego and a marketing strategy. The idea that a guy like him is exceptional or unprecedented in American history is laughable, if you look at the kind of racist right-wing populism that was employed by presidents from Woodrow Wilson to Ronald Reagan, all of whom sought to buttress capitalism by reinforcing the racial divide within American society. And I fail to see how a half-senile old white dude and a middle-aged black woman who built her career on serving the same racist prison-industrial complex that her running mate played such a key role in setting up in the 80s and 90s, will improve things…especially given that he’s explicitly campaigned against basically every single policy item proposed by Bernie Sanders and the DSA.
That being said, Trump did provide a lot of encouragement to far-right forces around the world, and if this loss can take at least some of the wind out of their sails that would be a good thing. I mean if Bolsonaro chooses not to run for re-election in Brazil because Trump lost, that would be amazing. Still, I don’t think Biden is going to withdraw support for the same Ukrainian neo-nazis that he did so much to put in power in 2014. It’s been part of American foreign policy since the start of the Cold War to encourage right-wing forces and right-wing violence around the world as a means of stopping leftist and progressive alternatives to global capitalism. And that’s not going to change, even if it becomes a little more low key now.
In my show a last week, I stressed that there is far more continuity than change in American presidential politics. Afterall, the president is an emperor and the guardian of the global capitalist order, those are the class forces that he defends and stands for and is prepared to use horrific violence to uphold and extend. I understand the need that people have for hope, but hope, at least in my books, comes from winning victories against the institution, not the man. Presidents come and go, but the empire remains, the violence of empire remains, the racism of empire remains, and the plunder and exploitation of empire remains. Whether a particular president sucks particularly bad or not, the empire is the real threat and it’s a threat all over the world. The Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 punched a big hole in the armor of the European-dominated global order at the time, paving the way for countless victories and the break-down of a brutal colonial system. Working class and oppressed people will have to do something similar today if the present global order is to be defeated.
In conclusion, I want to congratulate Luis Arce, the new socialist President of Bolivia, who was just inaugurated on Sunday in defiance of right-wing threats and fascist street violence (check out Back in the USSR’s episode from October 26 for more details on the political situation in Bolivia). He’s the one who truly deserves praise right now and not a certain Wall Street stooge who only got into power because “he’s not Trump”. It’s important to remember, to always remember, that the spirit of 1917 goes on, anti-colonial struggles are still ongoing, people are still resisting capitalism and pushing for socialism as they fight for justice and a livable future. These people are the real heroes and their victories are the real victories.
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