The Significance of the Great October Socialist Revolution

By Njabulo Dlamini

In 2017 we honoured the Centenary of the Great October Socialist Revolution that took place in 1917 in Russia. This event manifested and determined the course of millions of people, not just with geographical confines of the first socialist state in the history of humanity, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), but it also had an impact of every corner of the planet.

Great October demonstrates the working class’ potential and capacity to implement its historical mission as a revolutionary class, to lead the biggest attempt to construct socialism. At the same time, it shows the irreplaceable role of the guiding force of the socialist revolution, the Communist Party.

Further, Great October demonstrates the enormous strength of proletarian internationalism. Despite the developments after the triumph of counterrevolution which led to the fall of the Soviet Union, the Centenary of the October Revolution continues to inspire us and to see the certainty and necessity of socialism.

Vladimir Lenin addressing soldiers in Moscow's Red Square

Capitalism has socialised labour and production to unprecedented levels. The working class, the main productive force, constitutes the majority of the economically active population. However, the products of social labour are privately owned by the capitalist class. For capitalism, the immense accumulation of profits, appropriated by the capitalists, is at the centre of production, and not humans. This contradiction is the root cause of all the crises inherent in capitalist societies. These include economic crises, the destruction of the environment, drug abuse problems, longer working days despite the great increase of labour productivity, and which of course coexists with unemployment, under-employment and semi-employment, and the intensification of the exploitation of labour power, and so on.

At the same time, however, this reality signals the need to abolish private ownership of the means of production, to socialise them and use them in a planned way for production. This should be planning guided by workers’ power so that the relations of production correspond to the level of development of the forces of production.

In March 1917 over 150 000 workers in Saint Petersburg, led by women workers, filled the streets demanding Bread, shouting "Down with the Czar!" slogans, sparking what is popularly known as the “February Revolution”

The Great October Socialist Revolution confirmed Lenin’s position that the modern era, the era of monopoly capitalism, i.e. imperialist stage of capitalism, is the era of the transition from capitalism to socialism, the era of socialist revolutions.

Socialist gains in the Soviet Union

The socialist revolution was not superficial. It provided real improvements to people’s material lives. For instance, healthcare conditions in Tsarist Russia were appalling. After the revolution, the life expectancy for all age groups went up. A new-born child in 1926-27 had a life expectancy of 44.4 years, up from 32.3 years thirty years before. In 1958-59 the life expectancy for new-borns went up to 68.6 years. The trend continued into the 1960s when the life expectancy in the Soviet Union went beyond the life expectancy in the United States.

The revolution also made unprecedented impact on education. When the Communists came to power in 1917, they faced a crumbling empire infamous for its backwardness and poor education system. In 1917 about 37.9 percent of the male population above seven years old was literate and only 12.5 percent of the female population was literate. By 1939, however, male literacy was at 90.8 and female literacy had increased to 72.5 percent By the 1950s, with a stable education system, the Soviet Union had reached a 100 percent literacy rate of.

The historical experience and significance of the Great October Socialist Revolution provides us with significant lessons on how to pursue our own struggle. In Swaziland, a deteriorating semi-feudal form of capitalism is sustained by an equally rotten form of semi-capitalist form of feudalism. As the Communist Party of Swaziland, we learn that we need to create coalitions and bridgeheads of progressive forces to replace, in the immediate term, the Mswati dictatorship with a democratic one. We are also expected to launch campaigns that would create great change in Swaziland’s political arena, such as the unbanning of political parties.

The Communist Party of Swaziland’s 2017-2018 Red October Campaign focuses on mobilising the people to reject and boycott the tinkhundla ‘elections’ organised  by the Mswati autocracy, set to take place towards the end of 2018. The elections are nothing but a sham. Their aim is to provide an aura of credibility to the nasty, brutal dictatorship of Mswati and his elite in the tinkhundla semi-feudal system. There can be no genuine democracy in Swaziland without the total abolition of royal rule and its replacement with a people-driven democracy.

Imperialism and the tinkhundla system

It is clear to everyone that imperialist forces of the West have few worries about doing business with the absolute monarchy that is Swaziland. If the tinkhundla regime were an obstacle to access to natural resources of any sort, imperialist forces would be clamouring for regime change and “freedom” of the people. As it is, Swaziland suits imperialist goals! It is true that the United States of America, during Barack Obama’s administration, condemned Swaziland’s lack of progress towards multiparty democracy and freedom of association, and removed its favoured national status with respect to imports of clothing products under the US’s African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) and placed certain benchmarks. Recently, however, the US made a U-turn despite the fact that the Mswati regime has not met these bench marks. The European Union often criticizes Swaziland’s human rights record. But such moves are more designed to provide a superficial distance between them and the tinkhundla regime; to be seen to take a progressive stance while in fact conducting a business-as-usual relationship.

A socialist Swaziland or at least a Swaziland with a broad left democratic dispensation is a situation that imperialism wants to avoid. By imperialism, we should stress that we mean mainly the US, the UK (especially through the Commonwealth) and the European Union, as these are the principal imperialist actors involved on any regular basis in Swaziland.

Through our Red October Campaign, the Communist Party of Swaziland aims to highlight the need for everyone in the pro-democracy movement, for the workers and poor, the oppressed and exploited people of Swaziland, and for the international community to make concerted efforts towards the dismantling of the Mswati autocracy and replace it with a democratic dispensation.

Democracy…Yes!     Mswati’s Elections…No!

Comrade Njabulo Dlamini serves as the International Organiser for the Communist Party of Swaziland

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