OctoberRevolution &mdash; Fight Back! News https://fightbacknews.org/tag:OctoberRevolution News and Views from the People's Struggle Wed, 05 Aug 2026 21:25:42 +0000 https://i.snap.as/RZCOEKyz.png OctoberRevolution &mdash; Fight Back! News https://fightbacknews.org/tag:OctoberRevolution Tallahassee FRSO hosts October Revolution event https://fightbacknews.org/tallahassee-frso-hosts-october-revolution-event?pk_campaign=rss-feed <![CDATA[Celebration of October revolution in Tallahassee, FL.") Tallahassee, FL - On November 6, the Tallahassee District of the Freedom Road Socialist Organization held a celebratory meeting at Florida State University to honor the 105th anniversary of the October Revolution. !--more-- The October Revolution is the 1917 revolution that saw the overthrow of the czar, a Russian monarch, and the establishment of working-class power led by the Bolshevik party. About a dozen or so students and community members gathered to learn about the October Revolution and the lessons it presents for today. The event was facilitated by FRSO members Alex Carson, Regina Joseph and Delilah Pierre. The gathering consisted of a PowerPoint presentation, a reading of a FRSO statement “The October Revolution and some lessons for the struggle for socialism in the U.S.” followed by a short discussion. Facilitator Alex Carson said, “Lenin and the Bolsheviks cemented the struggle against social-chauvinism and imperialism as a key aspect of Marxism. This separated the Bolsheviks from the opportunists of the Second International and brought Marxism into the era of imperialism.” To join the FRSO visit https://frso.org/join/ #TallahasseeFL #Socialism #OctoberRevolution div id="sharingbuttons.io"/div]]> Celebration of October revolution in Tallahassee, FL.

Tallahassee, FL – On November 6, the Tallahassee District of the Freedom Road Socialist Organization held a celebratory meeting at Florida State University to honor the 105th anniversary of the October Revolution.

The October Revolution is the 1917 revolution that saw the overthrow of the czar, a Russian monarch, and the establishment of working-class power led by the Bolshevik party.

About a dozen or so students and community members gathered to learn about the October Revolution and the lessons it presents for today.

The event was facilitated by FRSO members Alex Carson, Regina Joseph and Delilah Pierre.

The gathering consisted of a PowerPoint presentation, a reading of a FRSO statement “The October Revolution and some lessons for the struggle for socialism in the U.S.” followed by a short discussion.

Facilitator Alex Carson said, “Lenin and the Bolsheviks cemented the struggle against social-chauvinism and imperialism as a key aspect of Marxism. This separated the Bolsheviks from the opportunists of the Second International and brought Marxism into the era of imperialism.”

To join the FRSO visit https://frso.org/join/

#TallahasseeFL #Socialism #OctoberRevolution

]]> https://fightbacknews.org/tallahassee-frso-hosts-october-revolution-event Thu, 01 Dec 2022 01:33:53 +0000 The October Revolution and some lessons for the struggle for socialism in the U.S. https://fightbacknews.org/october-revolution-and-some-lessons-struggle-socialism-us-873q?pk_campaign=rss-feed <![CDATA[ To mark the anniversary of the October Revolution - by our calendar Nov. 7, 1917 - Fight Back News Service is circulating the following paper by Freedom Road Socialist Organization. This paper prepared collectively by the central leadership of Freedom Road Socialist Organization, and was presented by leading member of FRSO, Frank Chapman, at the Centennial Commemoration of the October Revolution, held in New York City, July 2017. The event was sponsored by People’s Response for International Solidarity and Mass Mobilization (PRISM) in cooperation with the U.S. member organizations of the International League of People’s Struggle (ILPS-US). Introduction !--more-- As communists and revolutionaries, we welcome this opportunity to mark the 100th anniversary of Russia’s 1917 October Revolution, and to discuss its ongoing relevancy to the struggle today. The October Revolution was a world-changing event. At one stroke, it settled the question of whether another world was possible. Releasing one-sixth of the world from the chains of wage slavery, it smashed the myth that rule by the few was a sort of permanent condition, and, by successfully establishing proletarian political power, the October Revolution succeeded in opening the road to socialist construction. For the years that followed, the great achievements of the Soviet Union created a new and better way of life and would exercise a powerful effect on working and oppressed people around the globe. Not only did the October Revolution change the lives of the millions who lived in what would become the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), it changed the world revolutionary movement in a big way. Mao was later to say, that the October Revolution sent the “salvos of Marxism to China” where it was to become a powerful force in the movement for national liberation and socialism. In the U.S., the October Revolution came to exercise a magnetic pull on the revolutionaries in the socialist, labor and other people’s movements, contributing to the creation of a single, revolutionary Communist Party in the early 1920s, which became an important factor in the country’s political life. How we can learn for the October Revolution in the U.S. The Bolsheviks, under the leadership of Lenin, Stalin and others, creatively applied Marxism to the concrete conditions of Russia. In doing so they waged a consistent struggle against opportunism in the socialist and labor movements - internationally and in Russia itself. It was this struggle against opportunism that prepared the Bolsheviks to lead the working class in the seizure of power. The October Revolution was a qualitative leap, from one historical epoch to another – a period in which moribund capitalism is heading for extinction and where socialism is on the agenda. This process in turn gave rise to Leninism; Leninism being Marxism in the era of imperialism and proletarian revolution. Marxism-Leninism is a science, the science of revolution. It allows us to understand the laws that govern the processes at work in the world, and by understanding those laws, including those of how history develops, we can grasp the necessity and understand our freedom to change the world. Because Marxism-Leninism is a science, a science that is by necessity and fact, universal in character, we can take the lessons of the October Revolution and learn from the experience in a materialist way that helps us to advance our work in the U.S. Lenin made the point that the soul of Marxism was a concrete analysis of concrete conditions, so we cannot say that it something that is fixed, static, or immutable. Rather, Marxism-Leninism is and will be constantly enriched through cycles of practice, and the summation of that practice. We learn from the past, to guide our work in the present and to serve the future, which includes our revolutionary goals. We have no desire to be a historical reenactment society, and it should be obvious to all serious people that we cannot rely on analogies from Russian history to understand current conditions. Conditions in the U.S. today The U.S. today is empire in decline, beset by contradictions internal and external. Lenin stated imperialism was capitalism in its moribund stage, and it is arguable that the irrational bigot Donald Trump is a fitting political representative of a sick and dying system. Internationally, the U.S. faces a growing challenge for the national liberation movements and the national democratic governments, the socialist countries, and other imperialist rivals. Thus, the U.S. is increasing military spending, taking hostile actions against socialist Korea and Cuba, and is stepping up the U.S. wars in Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen, Somalia, Iraq and other places. Within the U.S., the monopoly capitalists are perusing an agenda of austerity and reaction, which means an intensification of racist discrimination and national oppression, directed at African Americans, Chicanos and Latinos, Arab and Asian Americans, and indigenous peoples including Pacific Islanders. There is an attack on the standard of living of working people (including wages, health care, pensions, and perhaps most importantly - the right to have trade unions), attacks on the rights of women, and organized bigotry against Muslims. The point here is not do draw up a comprehensive list of the crimes being committed by the monopoly capitalist class, nor is it to chart the restructuring of the economy and political polarization that has unfolded since the great economic crisis of 2007, rather it is to provide a general picture of a wide-ranging war that the bourgeoisie is waging on the people of the U.S. and by extension, the peoples of the world. Fortunately, the war that the rulers of the U.S. are waging on working and oppressed people is not a one-sided one, and we are now in the midst of one of the greatest upsurges of struggle since the 1960s. In cities across the country, massive and militant protests have taken place against police crimes and there is a growing movement for community control of the police. There is a growing tide of anger over the anti-immigrant polices of the Trump administration. Trump’s attempted ‘Muslim ban’ drew hundreds of thousands of people into the streets and airports. It is estimated that about 20% of the people of the U.S have taken part in protests and demonstrations since Trump took office. Finally, there another point concerning objective conditions that bears mentioning: the communist movement in the U.S. is small. This does not negate the fact that the existing Marxist-Leninist organizations have not made big contributions to the people’s struggle. We have. Rather it is recognition of the reality that the U.S. is a large country with big working class, and for those of us who are revolutionaries, the task of building a new communist party remains on our agenda. At any given time, communists have three general tasks: to win all that can be one in the struggle while landing the strongest possible blows on the enemy; to raise the general level of consciousness and organization among the people; and to build communist organization win the advanced to Marxism-Leninism. As we carry out these tasks there is an incredible amount that we can learn from the October Revolution and the work by Russian communists to make it a reality. The October Revolution and the need for a communist party Given that no ruling class, be it the capitalists and landlords who ruled Russia in 1917, or the monopoly capitalists who rule the U.S. today, have ever left the stage of history voluntarily, working and oppressed people need to be organized to take political power by whatever means necessary. This is basic lesson of the October Revolution that is universally valid. Lenin made the following points about what is needed for revolution: It is only when the "lower classes" do not want to live in the old way and the "upper classes" cannot carry on in the old way that the revolution can triumph. This truth can be expressed in other words: revolution is impossible without a nation-wide crisis (affecting both the exploited and the exploiters). It follows that, for a revolution to take place, it is essential, first, that a majority of the workers (or at least a majority of the class-conscious, thinking, and politically active workers) should fully realize that revolution is necessary, and that they should be prepared to die for it; second, that the ruling classes should be going through a governmental crisis, which draws even the most backward masses into politics… weakens the government, and makes it possible for the revolutionaries to rapidly overthrow it. (LCW Vol 31, p. 85) To this we can add another precondition - the need for a Communist Party. The outstanding revolutionary leader, Mao Zedong put it like this: If there is to be a revolution, there must be a revolutionary party. Without a revolutionary party, without a party built on the Marxist-Leninist revolutionary theory and in the Marxist-Leninist style, it is impossible to lead the working class and the broad masses of people in defeating imperialism and its running dogs. (MSW Vol 4, p. 284). Our organization, Freedom Road Socialist Organization (FRSO), does not claim to be the party of the working class. We are a communist organization that is working to build a new communist party. The reason we do not claim to be the party is that we do not in any real way, to use Stalin’s formulation, encompass the advanced detachment of the working class. The problem is this: most advanced workers - the activists, organizers and leaders - are not revolutionaries or communists. The active of our class are in one place politically and the communists are in another. There is a gap. A separation. So, we need to fuse Marxism and the workers’ movement. One of the great strengths of the communist movement in Russia is that it dealt with the problem of fusing Marxism and the workers’ movement in a practical and meaningful way. In 1899 Lenin posed the issue like this: The separation of the working-class movement and socialism gave rise to weakness and underdevelopment in each: the theories of the socialists, unfused with the workers’ struggle, remained nothing more than utopias, good wishes that had no effect on real life; the working-class movement remained petty, fragmented, and did not acquire political significance, was not enlightened by the advanced science of its time. For this reason we see in all European countries a constantly growing urge to fuse socialism with the working-class movement in a single Social-Democratic movement. When this fusion takes place the class struggle of the workers becomes the conscious struggle of the proletariat to emancipate itself from exploitation by the propertied classes, it is evolved into a higher form of the socialist workers’ movement—the independent working-class Social-Democratic party. (LCW, Vol 4, p. 255) In addition, Lenin and the Bolsheviks also developed measures to consolidate the party – organizationally, politically and ideologically - all of which we can learn from today. Taken as a whole, conditions in the U.S. today are favorable for building communist organization. The large number people who self-identify as “socialists”