On this day November 7th in 1917, the October Revolution began in Russia when the Bolsheviks initiated an armed insurrection in Petrograd, seizing the Winter Palace and dissolving the Provisional Government in a coup with minimal violence. The name “October Revolution” comes from the fact that the revolution began on October 25th in the dating convention of the time.
The October Revolution was the culmination of popular sentiment directed against the provisional government which was achieving little for the majority of people to change Russia from its Tsarist past. In particular, the unelected body continued to participate in the very unpopular First World War opting in July for participation in further military campaigns which provoked outrage amongst soldiers and workers alike.
After the February Revolution which established the Provisional Government, during the period of the Dual Power (February-October 1917), the Bolsheviks gradually gained in strength and influence especially in the soviets and in the army after July. The Bolshevik slogan ‘Peace, Bread and Land’ summarised their programme and was increasingly popular. They established their headquarters in the Smolny Institute. This was a former girls’ convent school which also housed the Petrograd Soviet. The Provisional Government now headed by Kerensky, was still officially in power and under pressure from the nobility and industrialists, Kerensky was persuaded to take decisive action against the Bolsheviks. Thus, on 22nd October he ordered the arrest of the Bolshevik Military Revolutionary Committee (MRC). The government was aware of the unstated purpose of the MRC, established on 12th October and led by Trotsky. The purpose of this committee, created by the Bolsheviks within the Petrograd soviet, was to prepare for armed insurrection against the government. The next day, 23rd October, the government attempted to close down the Bolshevik newspapers and cut off the telephones to the Smolny Institute. However, soldiers and Red Guards ultimately thwarted all Kerensky’s plans.
Following this, a long debate took place at a secret meeting of the Bolshevik Central Committee. At this meeting the main issue centred around Lenin’s proposal that the Bolsheviks should take action before the elections for the Constituent Assembly; in other words, the socialist revolution should proceed without delay. Zinoviev and Kamenev dissented, hence the importance of the MRC which had already deployed commissars to all garrison units. In essence this was both a measure of defence and, at the same time, a preparation for attack
Thus, orders were given for the Bolsheviks to occupy the railway stations, the telephone exchange and the State Bank. In the early morning of October 25th, armed workers started occupying key points of Petrograd, in conjunction with pro-Bolshevik sailors pulling into the city’s harbour. Power stations were seized and strategic bridges were held. These instances produced very little resistance and were not met with violence.
A blank shot from the Cruiser Aurora in the evening signalled the siege of the Winter Palace, which was to be the final offensive of the revolution. Crowds of Red Guards and insurgents surrounded the palace and secured entry, leading to the surrender of the remaining government officials in the early hours of the morning. Members of the Provisional Government that had not already fled the capital were imprisoned. Kerensky had managed to escape from the city.
Crowds of Red Guards and insurgents surrounded the palace and secured entry, leading to the surrender of the remaining government officials.
The revolution itself was brief, being almost entirely peaceful in its execution. Posters were distributed across the city declaring that “the Provisional Government is overthrown” and “Long live the Revolution of Workers, Soldiers and Peasants!” Lenin emerged from the revolution as one of its most notable strategists and a potential leader in the new era.
On 26th October 1917, the second All-Russian Congress of Soviets met and handed over power to the Soviet Council of People’s Commissars. Lenin was elected chairman and other appointments included Trotsky (Foreign Affairs). Two decrees were adopted at the first session: the Decree on Peace, which moved to start negotiations to withdraw from the war in order to bring about “a just and democratic peace,” and the Decree on Land, which moved to transfer land away from landowners and the church to peasant committees. ‘Peace, Bread and Land’ was thus transformed from a slogan into a living reality. In addition, the Council of People’s Commissars nationalised the banks and workers control of factory production was introduced. The army was demobilised and in December and the Soviet Government announced that it planned to seek an armistice with Germany. In December 1917, Trotsky led the Russian delegation at Brest-Litovsk to negotiate peace terms with representatives from Germany and Austria-Hungary.
Thus it was that the full Bolshevik programme, as outlined in Lenin’s ‘April Theses’ was implemented within three months of the successful socialist revolution.
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Getting a bit too into pruning and improving my “intro to Marxism-Leninism” reading list, haha. Using it as agitprop. Anyone want to help me pick out what I should keep, swap, or remove?
“Without Revolutionary theory, there can be no Revolutionary Movement.”
- Vladimir Lenin, What is to be Done?
It’s time to read theory, comrades! As Lenin says, “Despair is typical of those who do not understand the causes of evil, see no way out, and are incapable of struggle.” Marxism-Leninism is broken into 3 major components, as noted by Lenin in his pamphlet The Three Sources and Three Component Parts of Marxism:
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Dialectical and Historical Materialism
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Critique of Capitalism along the lines of Marx’s Law of Value
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Advocacy for Revolutionary Socialism
And as such, I recommend, in order:
Section I: Getting Started
- Friedrich Engels’ Principles of Communism
The go-to FAQ of Communism. Quick to read, and easy to reference if you ever want to clear up a misconception you see or have.
- Michael Parenti’s Blackshirts and Reds
Breaks down fascism and its mortal enemy, communism, and their antagonistic relationship. Understanding what fascism is, where and when it rises, why it appears, and how to banish it forever is critical. It also helps debunk common anti-Communist myths, from both the “left” and the right.
Section II: Historical and Dialectical Materialism
- Georges Politzer’s Elementary Principles of Philosophy
By far my favorite primer on Marxist philosophy. By understanding DiaMat first, you make it easier to understand the rest of Marxism. Marxist states have historically taught Dialectical and Historical Materialism before Political Economy for that very reason.
- Friedrich Engels’ Socialism: Utopian and Scientific
Further reading on DiaMat, but crucially introduces the why of Scientific Socialism, essentially explaining how Capitalism itself preps the conditions for public ownership and planning by centralizing itself into monopolist syndicates.
Section III: Political Economy
- Karl Marx’s Wage Labor and Capital as well as Wages, Price and Profit
Best taken as a pair, these essays simplify the most important parts of the Law of Value.
- Vladimir Lenin’s Imperialism, The Highest Stage of Capitalism
Absolutely crucial and the most important work for understanding the modern era and its primary contradictions.
Section IV: Revolutionary Socialism
- Rosa Luxemburg’s Reform or Revolution
If Marxists believed reforming Capitalist society was possible, we would be the first in line for it. Sadly, it isn’t possible, which Luxemburg proves in this monumental writing.
- Vladimir Lenin’s The State and Revolution
Excellent refutation of revisionists and Social Democrats who think the State can be reformed, and not replaced.
Section V: Intersectionality and Solidarity
- Vikky Storm and Eme Flores’ The Gender Accelerationist Manifesto
Critical reading on understanding misogny, transphobia, and homophobia, as well as how to move beyond. Uses the foundations built up in the previous works to analyze gender theory from a Historical Materialist perspective.
- Frantz Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth
Decolonialism is essential to Marxism. Without having a strong, decolonial, internationalist stance, we have no path to victory nor a path to justice.
Section VI: Putting it into Practice!
- Mao Zedong’s On Practice and On Contradiction
Mao wrote simply and directly, targeting peasant soldiers during the Revolutionary War in China. This pair of essays equip the reader with the ability to apply the analytical tools of Dialectical Materialism to their every day practice, and better understand problems.
After reading all of this, whoever has completed these works should have a good grasp of the basics of Marxism-Leninism and be equipped to do their own Marxist-Leninist analysis, though tons of excellent works were dropped for the sake of limiting the scope to an intro reading list.
“Everything under heaven is in utter chaos; the situation is excellent.”
- Mao Zedong
Today’s vegan product of my vegan labor: lobster rolls, potato salad and a cucumber and tomato salad
Comrade, I need those in my mouth right now.
Am I overreacting to think that this election has the capacity to torpedo the democratic party? They’re in full tilt, I already see some people taking advantage and attempting some political maneuvering.
after about 10 months my mil is showing some improvements cognitively after the hemorrhagic stroke she suffered in january. This week she started to use the remote control to her TV to watch shows by herself. We gave her her phone back last night and she’s been having us make calls to her family back in brazil so she can talk to them. She still has a good amount of aphasia and she is and probably will forever be hemiplegic but it’s nice to see her moving towards doing some stuff besides lay in bed all day.
hmmmm, still not quite right. methinks mayhaps a third celsius will fix what ails me, however…
No one has ever had any bad side effects from drinking too many energy drinks
Anyone who says otherwise is trying to keep you from feeling better
Is this an excerpt of Matt Christman’s new book?
I might go to a “debate night” next week about “muh idpol bad” is there anything i can read that can help me?
Proudhun tried that and went full racist. Honestly reading up on how fascism also has recuperated origins in pre international split socialism will make you more educated than 90 percent of people on where going nativist leads. (Lilly white movement is also something to check)
I mean history of exclusion of black workers and garment unions radicalism in the 1800s-10s, compared to full hogs of afl (or cio, who was the dipshit one before merger?). No universal solidarity
no right to speakyou’ll get divided and conqueredBut, in any case, argument is solidaristic one: if you can throw one minority under the bus, you will throw all of them sooner or later. Struggling racist car mechanic has more in common with struggling trans barista (or whoever they caricature): in rent payments, family health emergencies, police fucking them over, than they do with murdoch. They don’t struggle together for their rights tho and thus can’t see common ground, and perceive reality through media. Sans that struggle it would be eternal problem
And if a person can’t take some image of idealized worker in hard hat, imagine their circumstances, and then substitute whte men for black/roma/trans man/woman, and not see how it becomes even worse, they are idk what.
There’s some thin line in leftist critiques of idpol.
Like, there’s the critique that the point of common intersection is still class. The “moment” of oppression is poverty. I agree with this.
But then you inevitably get the brain worms that therefore identity doesn’t matter, or “merely serves to divide the working class” which is obviously wrong, or only very slightly correct and less correct than it is wrong.
Yea of course the material basis of oppression is poverty and lack of power, the moment of oppression is class, but why are black trans women so heavily overrepresented at the very bottom of that hierarchy?
I assume framework is leftist one from the jump tbh (who would do debate with the right over that), and that’s why i so heavily weigh class in my argument. Class can unite, because they have roughly same material (in baser sense) interests. They don’t have same identity interests, they can’t unite them aside from morality, and there you get torpedo-ed into myriads morality and ethics frameworks.
A point of inner debate for me is how capitalism generates those identity divides.
Like, the modern concept of race emerges from the dialectic of slavery and Christianity, so capitalism produces the identity. Ideology follows material.
A high income liberal who studied at a whatever university isn’t nearly as threatened by mass immigration as a low-skill factory worker and so can afford to not be racist.
But where does it get you? Latinos are being deported, not whites.
Yes the “perfect” answer here is to build worker solidarity between white and Latino workers but that seems like a refusal to own the issue rather than a solution.
Identity is generated by ideology but it’s an example of how ideology manifests as material reality.
You’re telling me a net hexed this bear?
October Revolution (1917)
the original color revolution
sopranos is my favorite sitcom
take5 mad take5 want chocolate :fussy:
“We need to grapple with the fact that Trump supporters are just evil and will overlook his criminality to vote for him” - person who overlooked a genocide to vote for Kamala Harris
Demand they explain how pro-abortion ballot measures outperformed kamala everywhere they were offered
A bunch of democrats downballot over-performed Kamala too.
The rich buy babies and refuse to have their own etc etc.
RoyalRoad slop thoughts of the day:
Catgirls and Dungeons is about 90% “trans lesbian thinking cute gay little thoughts” by volume. However, the author has not used the terms “trans” or “lesbian” and has tagged the story “gender bender yuri” instead.
I don’t think this is a deliberate omission, it reads more like the author is such an egg as to honestly think that the following is a perfectly ordinary cis man thought:
“I mean, I’ve always dreamed of being a catgirl—living out that ultimate fantasy. Cute cat ears, a tail, and a woman’s body? That’s peak fantasy material. Chef’s kiss, really.”
My vasectomy is in a few hours and I’m scared friends. I hate needles and I went with no sedation because I’m poor.
It’s ez pz. You’ll feel a little tugging during, it isn’t painful. Peak discomfort is the night after. Frozen peas take care of that.
:edit my testicles are more sensitive since having the vasectomy 4 years ago. But in a pleasurable way that I wouldn’t want changed.
My bag of frozen peas is open and chip clipped, will they still work or should I buy fresh?
I know what I’m numbed up it’s not gonna be much of anything aside from the swelling and discomfort during recovery, but I’m just way too worried about someone putting a needle in my balls. And like I know it’s going to just be for like a second but I’m still messed up about it.
You won’t even feel the needle. You’ll probably be too weirded out by having your bits on display in an unflattering position to notice. 😆
Rofl, that has also crossed my mind and my goofy ass is gonna crack a joke because of nerves. I just know it.
my Dr. gave me a fistbump after it was done and said “welcome to the club”
Hope it goes well… I want one too but I also hate needles and am poor
I guess it’s gonna be a quick 30 minute outpatient procedure so I’m hoping I can just disassociate during it and just get ready to do nothing for the next 24 or so hours while I recover. I think I do get some fun drugs for my nerves though at least. Which is why I needed to find someone that could drive me.