'Unlike the February Revolution, the

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October Revolution was not spontaneous. It was consciously organized and led by the Bolsneviks, rganized and led by the Bolshevik who felt the insurrectional mood SOCIALIST ACTION OCTOBER 1992 15 party's program to organize and prepare the working class (with the support of the peasantry) for the seizure of power.

The interplay between the leadership of the party and its ranks, and between the party and the working class and peasant masses was not science but art. It required a feel for the mood of the masses in order to determine how to politically lead the revolution and to sense the right moment for insurrection.

This meant formulating the slogans and demands that corresponded with the consciousness of the masses and that also raised the consciousness of the masses.

The democratic demands for land, bread, and peace became the revolutionary demands of the socialist revolution.

These demands and approach of the Bolshevik Party served as the basis of the "Transitional Program," written by Trotsky in 1939.

Unlike the February Revolution, the October Revolution was not spontaneous. It was consciously organized and led by the Bolsheviks, who felt the insurrectional mood of the masses. The Bolsheviks led the democratic seizure of power by the working class with the support of the peasant masses based on the institutions of the majority-the soviets. For the first and only time in history, the majority had control over its own destiny.

All of the capitalist world recoiled in horror of the power of the Russian Revolution. After World War I, the capitalist powers put their differences temporarily aside and set up an economic blockade of the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union was invaded on 13 fronts during the Civil War from 1918 to 1922.

The new workers' state prevailed, howevbecause of the social gains of the of the masses.' revolution and the conscious self-sacrifice of the working class and the poor peasantry. But victory was won at a tremendous cost to the Soviet economy. It also decimated the cadre of the Bolshevik Party, who were the best fighters and leaders of the Red Army and the most advanced leaders of the soviets.

The rise of Stalinism The economic blockade and failure of the revolution to extend itself into Europe due to the betrayals of the Social-Democratic parties was the material base for the rise of the Stalinist bureaucracy. Stalin's rise to power was directly opposed to the over-all policies advocated by Lenin and Trotsky and later by the "Left Opposition."

Stalin was able to usurp the power of the soviets through dictatorial police-state methods. In the name of "building socialism in one country" he used the authority of the October Revolution to subordinate the struggles of the world working class to the interests of the soviet bureaucracy.

In the process, the Soviet Communist Party became the political instrument for counter-revolution both inside and outside the Soviet Union. (For a complete understanding of the process that took place, readers should read Trotsky's "The Revolution Betrayed.")

In the section on the Soviet Union in the "Transitional Program" (the founding document of the Fourth International), Trotsky summed up the whole process. He wrote:

"The Soviet Union emerged from the October Revolution as a workers' state. State ownership of the means of production, a necessary prerequisite to socialist development, opened up the possibility of rapid growth of the productive forces. But the apparatus of the workers' state underwent a complete degeneration at the same time; it was transformed from a weapon of in Yugoslavia, famine in Africa, the worldwide unemployed and homeless masses, the destruction of the environment, and the AIDS plague, we now face the specter of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. The choice is either socialism or barbarism.

The current world-wide attacks upon the living standards of the masses have not as yet provoked widespread struggle. But it is fair to assume that, as the world's economic crisis deepens, such a response will be forthcoming.

The lessons of the October Revolution are essential for today. The United States has the most conscious and violent ruling class in history. Their "New World Order" precludes the successful transformation of society without the establishment of a Leninist Party. There are no short cuts. This has been demonstrated in Nicaragua and El Salvador and in the former Soviet block countries.

On the 75th anniversary of the Russian Revolution, we remember the words of James P. Cannon, the founder of American Trotskyism, on the 25th anniversary in November 1942. His speech was made when the Soviet Union was pressed to the wall by the German invasion-just before the Red Army closed the trap on Hitler's armies at Stalingrad. Cannon's words ring true for today:

"The Russian Revolution is in the greatest peril today. We do not deceive ourselves or others with any false optimism about the danger confronting the Soviet Union. We see the situation as it really is. We know that the fate of the Soviet Union hangs in the balance, that it depends now, more than ever, on the world revolution of the proletariat and the colonial masses. But we have faith in the the world revolution, and because of that, we retain our hope in the ultimate regeneration of the Soviet Union.

"We keep undimmed our faith that the world revolution will release humanity from the terrible vise of the war and oper up a new stage of progress on the way to a communist future. Because of that, here on the occasion of the 25th anniversary, as we celebrate the living revolution, we can still express the confident hope that the funeral of the Russian Revolution, which so many renegades and traitors are announcing, will not merely be postponed, but will never take place."