( See Challenge January 15 and January 29, 2025, for the first and second parts of this series: “Part 1: How Bolsheviks Built a Mass Revolutionary Party” - https://plp.org/home/challenge-newspaper/13408-part-1-how-bolsheviks-built-a-mass-revolutionary-party and “Part 2: How Bolsheviks Built Mass Party” - https://plp.org/home/challenge-newspaper/13428-part-2-how-bolsheviks-built-mass-party )
World War I (1914-1918) was triggered by the imperialists' competition to redivide the world. The war would have been less destructive if the socialist Second International had dared to rouse the working class against the warmonger governments. Instead, the European proletarian parties deserted to the side of the imperialists. Only the Bolsheviks of Russia remained faithful to socialism/communism and internationalism. Only the Bolsheviks mounted a civil war against their own imperialist ruling class.
The Capitalist March “Revolution”
In the midst of the war, January 1917 began with a wave of workers’ strikes in Russia. By late February, the strikes spread and became more sharply political. Workers demanded an end to the war and to the Tsarist absolute monarchy.
On March 11, Tsar Nicholas II unleashed the Russian army against the strikers. But one company of soldiers turned their guns around and opened fire on squads of mounted police instead. Rising in revolt, the workers and soldiers arrested tsarist ministers and generals and freed jailed revolutionaries, who promptly joined the revolutionary struggle. Other political prisoners, including Joseph Stalin, returned from exile in Siberia. Stalin went to Petrograd, where he joined the editorial board of Pravda, the Bolshevik daily newspaper.
The Tsar abdicated, ending three centuries of the Romanov bosses’ rule. (The following year, Nicholas and his family were executed). Intoxicated by these early successes, and lulled by the support of the compromising Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries, most of the petit bourgeoisie, soldiers, and workers supported the capitalist Provisional Government. It fell to the Bolshevik Party to explain to the masses of workers and soldiers that as long as power remained in the hands of these capitalists, and as long as the Soviets [councils] were dominated by the compromisers, the workers and peasants would secure neither peace nor land nor bread. To achieve complete victory and complete the revolution, power needed to be transferred to the Soviets under communist (Bolshevik) leadership.
On April 4, 1917, one day after returning from exile abroad, Lenin issued his famous April Theses. He called for his Bolshevik Party to seize state power. Six months later, this campaign, which started with only a handful of comrades, would change the face of the earth.
Between March and October 1917, the Bolsheviks accomplished the difficult task of winning over the majority of the working class and the Soviets, and enlisting the support of millions of peasants for the Socialist revolution. The Bolsheviks conducted extensive political work both at the front lines, among the soldiers, and in the rear, to prepare the masses for revolution. The Bolsheviks viewed socialism as a key step toward communism.
The Bolsheviks confronted the Socialist-Revolutionary and Menshevik parties, the Anarchists, and the other non-communist parties that fought to preserve the capitalist profit system. At the same time, they defeated attempts by capitulators within their own party to deflect them from the path of socialist revolution.
In July 1917, workers rose up against the capitalist Provisional Government. Though Lenin realized the uprising was premature, he insisted that the Bolsheviks support the rebelling workers. The Provisional Government violently suppressed the uprising and outlawed the Bolshevik Party. Lenin went into hiding in Finland. But organizing for revolution never stopped.
Under Bolshevik leadership, the urban working class, in alliance with the poor peasants, and with the support of the soldiers and sailors, overthrew the bourgeoisie and established the power of the Soviets. They set up a new type of state, a Socialist Soviet state. They expropriated the businesses of the capitalists, dispossessed many landlords, started collectivising the country’s land and turning it over to the peasants, withdrew Russia from World War I, and obtained peace—a much-needed respite. Together, these measures created the conditions for the development of Socialist construction.
The Great October Socialist Revolution smashed capitalism, deprived the bourgeoisie of the means of production, and converted much of the mills, factories, land, railways and banks into the public property of the whole people. Throughout the vast country, it established the dictatorship of the proletariat. It made the working class the ruling class.
On the night of November 7, 1917, revolutionary workers, soldiers and sailors stormed the Winter Palace in Petrograd, arrested the bourgeois Provisional Government, and placed state power in the hands of the Soviets.
Why were the Bolsheviks successful?
There were five significant factors:
- First, the Russian bourgeoisie was weak. They were entangled in World War I, which the masses of Russian workers and peasants soon came to bitterly oppose. After the capitalists gained power in February 1917, workers in Russia saw no essential differences between them and the Tsar.
- Second, workers in Russia had been steeled by revolutionary battle, by the insurrections in 1905 and February 1917 and by the mass working-class strikes and uprisings that began in 1912. The workers in these battles followed the leadership of the Bolsheviks.
- Third, the Bolsheviks understood they could turn imperialist war into civil war. As the Russian rulers focused on the European battleground, they left their internal flank wide open for attack. The Bolsheviks knew to kick the bosses when they were down.
- Fourth, the Bolsheviks built a worker-peasant-soldier alliance. They organized many agricultural workers under their revolutionary leadership, often meeting these agricultural workers for the first time as they were organizing soldiers to turn their guns on their generals
- Fifth, the Bolsheviks won significant portions of the working class and peasantry to the essential concept of revolutionary violence, without which no revolution can succeed.
What was the impact of the Bolshevik Revolution?
Over the decades that followed, it stimulated working class struggles worldwide. Legalized trade unions, the minimum wage, unemployment insurance, and Social Security were all attempts by U.S. bosses to “save capitalism” through reforms. An enormous international communist movement inspired and led rebellions against imperialists and colonizers around the world. Socialism won out from China to Eastern Europe.
These great advances began to erode and reverse in the 1960s, when Nikita Khrushchev made it clear that the working-class revolution was no longer the program of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and whatever world communist movement it still led at that time. The collapse of the Soviet Union—and later of the great Chinese Revolution for communism—led directly to the low level of class struggle in the current period and degraded conditions for the international working class.
And so the most important questions facing the working class of the world are: WHY did the glorious communist movement of the 20th century turn into its opposite? And HOW can the next great revolution have a different outcome?
Note: See the series on the centennial of the Russian Revolution in CHALLENGE in 2017 – 2018. Here are some specific suggestions:
https://plp.org/home/challenge-newspaper/10369-bolshevik-revolution-centennial-series-the-great-insurrectio
https://plp.org/home/challenge-newspaper/10350-bolshevik-revolution-centennial-series-free-at-last-the-worl
https://plp.org/home/challenge-newspaper/10577-bolshevik-revolution-101-workers-took-power-we-can-do-it-aga
https://plp.org/home/challenge-newspaper/13364-bolshevik-revolution-the-epic-black-sea-revolt
https://plp.org/challenge/challenge-13-jun-2018/viewdocument/271 - page 6.
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Kentucky: Same enemy, same fight, to smash this sexist, racist system we must unite!
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- 30 January 2025 609 hits
FRANKFORT, KY, January 18- Instead of mourning Donald Trump's inauguration as the chief sexist and racist, Kentucky Progressive Labor Party (PLP) members led a rally against sexism and in support of reproductive healthcare and equal rights for women, queer, and immigrant workers. We gave speeches, led radical chants, and distributed products such as masks, condoms, drug test strips, CHALLENGE, and water. Before the rally, we made signs connecting the struggle of women and queer workers to the struggle against capitalism, and handed these signs out to rally attendees.
The rally itself had initially been planned as part of the People’s March (formerly the Women’s March) but the original organizers dropped out. Because the original march had not been planned by communists, we received some push back from a handful of liberals when they found out that we were the new organizers. On the other hand, the vast majority of workers in the area were grateful that another group had stepped up to lead the event in Frankfort. We used this opportunity to introduce many new people to PLP and communist ideas. We even met some people who were already communists but didn’t know about the PLP. For example, we met a young comrade from Peru and we had a great conversation about internationalism and the communist fight against racism and xenophobia. He was also happy to hear that there were Spanish versions of PL literature.
In our speeches, PLP members made sure to connect all the struggles that exist under capitalism to the struggle for women’s rights. We explained how these problems cannot be separated. One PL’er in her speech explained how homelessness, police brutality, and the genocide in Palestine are also all women’s issues and directly impact bodily autonomy.
The PL’er also explained how these issues are all fundamental to capitalism and can only be solved by destroying the capitalist system with communist revolution. We all openly declared ourselves communists; this had many more positive effects than negative. It allowed us to have open conversations with people who were also fed up with both parties, and helped these people feel like they didn’t have to hide their politics. It also allowed us educational opportunities with people who didn’t know much about communism but wanted to learn.
Some non-PLP comrades gave powerful speeches as well, regarding trans rights and reproductive rights. We also handed the megaphone off to anyone who wanted to speak.
Once all the speeches were done, we headed back to our table where we led more chants. One chant that one of our members came up with was, “Same Enemy, Same Fight, Women Workers Must Unite!” There was a non-PLP attendee we met who took over chants for us when our voices got tired, and she even led another one of our communist chants, “Asian, Latin, Black, and White, Workers of the World Unite!” She started telling the attendees of the rally we had to fight, and brought radical energy when the rally needed it. We were extremely happy to get to meet people like this and introduce them to the Party.
During this period of increased repression, we must be bold in letting workers know that the only solution to the racism and sexism of capitalism is a communist society where workers run the world for our needs, not for profit and exploitation. We must be bold in sharing our ideas in the mass movement and organizing workers for the long term struggle needed to build for a communist revolution.
WASHINGTON, D.C., January 18 – On inauguration weekend, members of the revolutionary communist Progressive Labor Party (PLP) and friends joined in protesting the reinstatement of Deporter-in-Chief Donald Trump. Various reform organizations were present at the Lincoln Memorial, where the People’s March held a concert-like program. PLP, like many of the other organizations, gave chants and speeches; but unlike these other groups, we called for more than the condemnation of Trump and his administration. We boldly demanded the smashing of this genocidal capitalist system and for the bright future under a dictatorship of the working class: communism.
Bringing class consciousness to D.C. and beyond
Comrades from the surrounding area of D.C. took the lead for the day's events. Comrades and base members from as far as New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut joined us. We started the day at a comrade’s house with breakfast. Afterwards, we took a bus before walking to a street leading up to the Lincoln Memorial. The lead comrades noticed many people leaving the area as we were arriving, so on the spot they decided to start our action at a street corner where we held a picket. This proved to be beneficial because, being away from the main rally, we were able to draw attention from passersby with our chants, and interject much needed class consciousness. “¡Las luchas obreras no tienen fronteras!” “Workers in Gaza are under attack. What do we do? Stand up! Fight back!” Two comrades also gave short speeches shaming the Biden administration for its full-scale support of Israel's genocide against the workers in Palestine, and blasting Trump’s administration for its atrocious racist nationalism. Comrades also distributed our newspaper CHALLENGE on two separate streets.
There was no large-scale march once everyone was at the Lincoln Memorial, so we created our own. After our picket, we lined our group in pairs and marched towards the main area of the rally. We continued with our bold chants: “From Haiti to the Congo, these racist bosses have got to go!” “From Ukraine to the Philippines, stop the imperialist war machines!” We stopped soon after to continue distributingthe rest of the newspapers and to engage in conversations with other attendees. In just a little over 15 minutes, we gave out the majority of our remaining CHALLENGEs, distributing a total of close to a 1,000. Everyone reunited at our meet up spot before we left the rally and returned to our comrade’s house.
Reflections on current situation
We continued our gathering with an evaluation of our time at the rally. Multiple comrades expressed surprise at how receptive people were in getting CHALLENGE, from feminists to even Trump supporters. One friend of the Party said that they wished they had initiated more conversations. They discussed with one person the catastrophe of the fires in Los Angeles, and the selfish nature of capitalists during this deadly time. Billionaire parasite Rick Caruso, an owner of many residential and commercial properties in California, has used private firefighters to salvage his buildings, while thousands of workers have lost much—if not all—of their belongings. We all agreed that our politics were generally well-accepted and a wanted alternative for workers disillusioned by both Democrats and Republicans.
Before our second group discussion, we enjoyed pizza and homemade dishes while socializing among ourselves. Our major focus of the discussion was our college work and how to organize in areas where we may only have one or a few comrades. Conversations varied from workers’ fears post-election to the liberal misleaders’ weakening sway over the mass of workers. The students among us reported varying levels of attitudes from their campuses; some of their peers feel discouraged, fearful, and enraged. With millions refusing support for a Harris or Trump presidency, it is clear that workers are becoming more aware of the dead-end that capitalist “democracy” offers them. Crackdowns on student gatherings and demonstrations amidst the U.S.-backed Israeli genocide have served as reminders that workers’ rights to protest injustice will be met with repression from all levels of the ruling class.
Workers WILL win and defeat this racist system
Even with the dangers we face on our campuses and in our communities, multiple comrades concluded that we are rightfully pushing back against the imperialist state. Our base members grow more confident when we fight alongside them as a collective; we see firsthand that the fear truly lies in the administrators, police, and politicians—who put roadblocks to student-worker unity and fightback.
We made it clear that, whether we have been organizing for years or don’t know where to start, the Party supports everyone who wants to find an area of focus where they can grow politically and share our analysis with coworkers, students, teachers, and neighbors. Our time in D.C. energized and reaffirmed that our fight against the capitalist state is necessary. Trump’s blunt xenophobia and sexism give understandable heightened fear and anger to our class siblings. But we need to remind ourselves that Democrats like KKKamala Harris, and Obama before her, are not the safer option for our class. They also serve the billionaires—both nationally and abroad—while workers internationally suffer from their genocidal destruction. We must continue this new year with the same fighting principles for all workers—from Haiti, to Sudan, to Palestine, to Myanmar: turn imperialist war into class war!
The class struggle surrounding racist raids, arrests, and deportations is intensifying by the minute here in Chicago and around the country. The new vile administration of President Donald Trump has come crashing out of the gate, making good on many of the fascist threats made on the campaign trail, spurred on by a flurry of executive orders made the evening of his inauguration.
Chicago particularly, as a so-called “sanctuary” city has been in headlines in the lead-up to Trump returning to power as a “ground zero” for the anti-worker attacks unleashed by the Gestapo Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents and their border czar Tom Homan.As a result, there is a cloud of fear hanging everywhere. In one West Side dual-language elementary school, over 50 students didn’t show up the Wednesday after the inauguration out of anxiety the school would be raided. Indeed, there have been reports of federal agents showing up at schools, although as of this writing they have been successfully repelled by education workers. Undocumented workers hesitate to step out of their homes, forced to choose between feelings of safety and earning wages.
But even as the bosses spread state terror, the working class here is demonstrating resilience, organization, and fightback! Numerous rapid response networks have been springing up everywhere, determined to patrol, mobilize and defend neighborhoods against fascist ICE. In schools and universities plans are being made to repel attacks, and healthcare workers are finding ways to secure the wellbeing of the workers they serve.
The international communist Progressive Labor Party (PLP) is finding ways to connect with these struggles here and give leadership on the ground in our neighborhoods, schools, and workplaces. We will continue to connect these racist attacks to the wider decay of the capitalist profit system, and the need to build a worker-run communist society to truly guarantee the safety and dignity that our class deserves!
Inter-imperialist rivalry drives fascism, lays ground for war
Trump’s frenzy of activity and assault on workers in cities like Chicago can best be understood in the context of the continuing decline of U.S. imperialism on a global level. Losing ground internationally to imperialist rivals like China and Russia, the U.S. ruling class is forced to ramp up fascist attacks, including scapegoating migrant workers, pushing extreme nationalism, and making deep cuts to social services to discipline workers and get the country on a better war footing. Although these are attacks that Trump and his faction of the ruling class take on with delight, overall they are embraced by all bosses who understand the inevitable trends of capitalism towards wider war.
Growing fascism in the U.S. and many other places around the world means that the bosses are more inclined to dispense with any pretense of the so-called “rule of law” and due process and instead resort to more unmasked class dictatorship. Even as we help organize with other workers around know-your-rights workshops, we cannot for an instant believe that the bosses will willingly give up their state power. They will attack us in any way that suits their short or long-term interests.
Nor can we hope or ally with any liberal or “progressive” wing of the capitalist ruling class to come to our defense. These class enemies have shown no hesitation in doing above and beyond the vicious assaults that Trump is boasting about today. We have seen the record numbers of deportations under the administrations of Barack Obama and Joe Biden, not to mention their gung-ho support of Israel’s genocide on workers in Gaza. Even the “People’s Mayor” Brandon Johnson of Chicago showed his “solidarity” to migrant workers by corralling them into overcrowded filthy shelters, feeding them rotten food and letting kids die (see CHALLENGE, 1/31/24).
Notably, several of the groups responding to ICE presence on the ground take their leadership from non-profit organizations, which themselves are generally appendages of the liberal capitalist bosses. Absent a revolutionary outlook, the call can only be for workers to hide and wait until a “better” set of bosses can get back in power. But deportations and raids are still guaranteed as long as capitalism exists.
As communists we have an essential role to play not only in giving leadership to defending our working-class siblings but also to educate how only communism can break down borders and create the egalitarian classless society that makes designations like “undocumented” and “citizen” irrelevant.
¡Abajo con Trump – Que viva comunismo!
It’s clear that the international working class is heading into an extremely volatile period. Many risks and dangers will present themselves but at the same time there are opportunities to expose the true deadly and unsustainable nature of capitalism and win more workers to building a mass PLP and the fight for communist revolution. We must be bold yet collective as we make plans and refuse to meet the bosses’ attacks with complacency or fear.
The impulses on display right now to support and protect our fellow workers in a climate of state terror are the glimmers of communism in action. We need to nurture and grow these selfless seedlings into an international, multiracial movement and a Party of millions that uproots and burns down this rotten system once and for all. ¡Abajo con Trump, Biden y capitalismo! ¡Que viva el communismo! (Down with Trump, Biden, and Capitalism! Long Live Communism!)
The following text is an excerpt from a flyer being distributed by the Progressive Labor Party (PLP) members in the California Bay Area. To read the full text please visit PLP.org.
No doubt over two million Gazans are rejoicing that the bombing has stopped and some bits of food and other aid are getting through. But the commitment of the Zionist machine to the genocide of Palestinians and the annexation of the West Bank and Gaza remains. There are just some temporary tactical changes of plan to placate the new powers in Washington and the Israeli rulers demanding progress on hostages. Meanwhile, the need of the U.S. for its one reliable, nuclear-armed ally in the Middle East remains in place, for 80 percent of the fossil fuel resources of the world are in this area and 80 percent of the world's energy still comes from fossil fuels. The U.S. also cannot lose control of critical trade routes of the Suez Canal, the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf as it vies for world control with China. The U.S. will never divorce from Israel, no matter its crimes.
For nearly fourteen months Israel has mercilessly attacked Gaza, killing upwards of 64,000 (Lancet, 1/9), injuring hundreds of thousands, destroying 90 percent of housing and most of the health, education, sanitation and power infrastructure. The entire population has been affected by malnutrition, lack of treatment of disease and psychic trauma. But even this is less than the level of destruction that the Zionist regime has desired from the outset, as stated by Zionism's founders and every Prime Minister since. “Thin” the Palestinian population “to a minimum.” said Netanyahu in 2023 (Theintercept, 12/03/23). Complete ethnic cleansing has always been the goal. In a declining imperialist and capitalist world order, there are no ceasefires! War remains constant. From Gaza to Ukraine to Sudan, only a communist world—one run by and for the international working class, without borders—can abolish the profit motive and end the imperialist wars driven by competition for territory and resources.
A sorry recycled Ceasefire
The current ceasefire is no different from that which was proposed in May 2024 by the U.S., Qatar and Egypt. Phase 1 calls for Israeli troops to pull back to a border buffer zone, end fighting for six weeks, and free 1904 Palestinian prisoners as Hamas frees 33 hostages. Phase 2 is supposed to commit Israel to withdraw from the Gaza-Egypt border and completely withdraw by day 50. But according to an Israeli official, Israel will not do so unless Hamas is fully dismantled, which will not happen as there is no indication that Hamas has been destroyed or even has fewer fighters than it did before. Both Netanyahu and his far-right Finance Minister Smotrich have said they have no intention of seeing this ceasefire last past Phase 1 (Mondoweiss, 1/22).
The whole deal only happened at this time because of fear of President Donald Trump's. unpredictability and aggressiveness and his threat that "all hell will break out" if hostages are not released by January 20 (NPR, 1/7).
Trump has also said that the ceasefire is unlikely to hold (Middleeasteye, 1/21) and that he will resume sending 2000 pound bombs to Israel. He is pressuring Jordan and Egypt to accept 1.5 million Gazan refugees and has noted what great real estate Gaza represents. Israel has already violated the agreement by refusing to allow thousands of displaced Gazans to return to the north, as of January 26.
If Israel does not succeed in expelling Gazans or eliminating Hamas, both of which are unlikely, it will continue its long term reliance on dividing and ruling Palestinians - the Palestinian Authority, Fatah, on the one hand and Hamas on the other. Israel has actually funded Hamas for years for this purpose, first at its inception in 1987 and again since 2018.
We should have no illusions that anyone in the U.S. or Israeli Government cares a whit about any workers' lives, Palestinians or hostages. As soon as the Gaza deal began, Israel upped its attacks in the West Bank (WB), without any objection from the U.S. They have attacked Jenin, long a center of resistance, killing at least 14 by January 25, destroying roads and displacing thousands from their homes, all with the help of the Palestinian Authority. For the past week, Israel has erected 17 new metal gates at the entrances of towns and villages in the WB, in addition to the more than 700 that previously existed. From October 7, 2023 to December 31, 2024, Israeli settlers staged at least 1,860 attacks on Palestinian communities as the army stood by and watched (Aljazeera news, 1/23). Over 12,000 WB Palestinians have been arrested and over 6000 acres of land annexed (Mondoweiss, 1/25).
So we may speculate that Netanyahu is getting weaker or that he is more afraid of Trump than Biden, but the Israeli program of seizing as much Palestinian land as possible while getting rid of as many Palestinians as possible continues.
Who is supporting workers in Palestine?
The main problem for workers in Palestine, as for workers across the world, is that they do not have leaders or an organization to fight in their interests. Just being the leader of an oppressed group or nation does not mean that a group's ideas or tactics are correct. Fatah has always been in open collaboration with the Zionists and U.S. imperialists. Hamas is an Islamic group that has ruled over Gaza without regard for the welfare of those who are not its adherents, gathering wealth and privileges for itself and subjecting thousands to death and deprivation. The current war has brought massive hardship down on Gazans who were not prepared or protected, as have many previous smaller Hamas attacks on Israel.
Workers in Palestine, like those in Israel and all workers of the world, need a struggle for the overthrow of capitalism and imperialism, an end to nationalism, and the institution of a society run by and for the workers of the world - a communist world lead by the Progressive Labor Party.
