The working class of the world is observing the 87th anniversary of the Great November Revolution. The Paris Commune was the first attempt by the working class to seize power, but it was through the Great November Revolution of 1917 that the working class of any country, for the first time, actually overthrew the bourgeoisie from state power, in Russia. A link in the worldwide chain of imperialist-capitalist states was broken for the first time. Led by Great Lenin, the workers and poor peasants of a vast and backward country like Russia, even with the least experience, education and habits of organization and amidst struggles against the exploiters and gigantic difficulties, captured the state power and established the dictatorship of the proletariat, a stable socialist state. The Soviet Union emerged. The infant Soviet state withstood the combined attacks of a host of imperialist-capitalist countries and emerged victorious in a life-and-death struggle. The Soviet Union, under the able stewardship of Great Stalin, not only built up a strong socialist economy amidst hostile capitalist encirclement in an incredibly short time, but inflicted a crushing defeat on the marauding armies of Hitler that had overrun Europe, by uniting the peoples of all nationalities and ethnicity, thus saving mankind and civilization from the scourge of fascism. Again, under the leadership of Stalin, the Soviet Union not only restored the war-ravaged economy within just a few years, but developed it to be on a par with the advanced capitalist countries industrially, even outstripping them in some respects. The Soviet Union stood out as an inspiration to the exploited and oppressed of the world, a beacon illuminating the path of revolutionary and national liberation struggles from country to country. People’s democratic states were established in the countries of East Europe. The Chinese Revolution became victorious under the leadership of the Great Mao Zedong. As if the world revolution knocked at the doors. All these are hard facts of history, which cannot be wished away.

But then came the set-back to the world communist movement. After the demise of Stalin, the revisionist clique headed by Khrushchev usurped the power in the Soviet party and the state taking advantage of the low level of consciousness of the people, and in the name of the party, started taking steps one after another undermining the socialist structure. This deleterious process was continued by the Brezhnev leadership and the coup de grace was delivered by the Gorbachev leadership through glasnost and perestroika. Thirty years of dismantling of socialist economic, political, social and state structure culminated in the victory of counter-revolution, full restoration of capitalism and the break-up of the Soviet Union. In the similar process, socialism was dismantled and capitalism restored in the East European countries.

This year, the observance of the November Revolution comes at a very critical juncture in the history of the working class movement of the world. The revisionist clique led by Deng Xiaoping usurped power in China after the demise of Mao Zedong. Through a series of measures directed against the socialist system spread over years, the revisionist Chinese leadership went on dismantling the socialist structure step by step, deviating from Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong Thought until a nodal point was reached in the counter-revolutionary turn of the situation in China leading to full restoration of capitalism there, formalized by the constitutional amendments adopted by the Tenth National People’s Congress of China on 14th of March, 2004 restoring full capitalist right to private property.

Emboldened by the break-up of the socialist states in the Soviet Union and East Europe and the discarding of the revolutionary line by the revisionist Chinese leadership, the imperialist powers headed by the USA, operating in a uni-polar world in the absence of the mighty Soviet Union acting as the bulwark and guarantor of peace and security of the peoples of the third world countries, is having a free run in controlling the word affairs for over a decade now. They are launching attacks on countries at will, now invading this and now that - cooking up excuses in “justification”. After Afghanistan, it was the turn of Iraq to be invaded. Iraq has been occupied but not cowed down. The heroic resistance of the Iraqi people continues. The Palestinian people continue to bleed. Socialist Cuba and North Korea as well as Iran are under constant threat of US attack. The imperialists talk of democracy and project bourgeois parliamentary democracy as the ultimate in democracy and yet the election process has been reduced to a farce even in USA, the leading imperialist state. Democratic rights and civil liberties of the people are being slashed down in all imperialist-capitalist countries. The imperialist powers speak about peace and democracy, but hardly a day passes without them, and particularly the US imperialism, planning an invasion or intervention, a war directly or by proxy or spreading war psychosis in this or that corner of the globe.

Why is this so? It should be realized that these apparent signs of strength of imperialism are at the same time signs of grave weaknesses. War is an endemic economic necessity of crisis-ridden imperialism-capitalism. In this era, decadent capitalism cannot but be more and more crisis-ridden, and the ever-deepening crisis makes it resort more and more to triggering wars or creating war-like situations as the only way to mitigate the crisis somewhat in the bid to extend its lease of life. The present situation is that the imperialist-capitalist countries are getting plunged into one deep crisis after another despite all efforts to avert it. The crisis is all-out, pervading the economic, political, social, moral-ethical and cultural spheres. But all their counter-measures to mitigate the crises have proved fruitless. The sweet dream of the imperialist-capitalists of having a crisis-free economy due to the disappearance of the competing socialist economic system through overthrow of socialism in the Soviet Union and East Europe, has proved to be a day dream. The prospect of a war-free world that was held out before the people on termination of the ‘cold war’ and the emergence of a uni-polar world to mislead and lull them, has proved to be a hoax. The economic policies of globalization, liberalization and privatization thrust upon the world at the behest of imperialist monopoly capital to co-ordinate, integrate and systematize ruthless exploitation of the peoples of the world in order to mitigate the global crisis, have failed to serve their purpose. Even the protagonists of the globalization policies are forced to admit as much. In the face of ever-mounting crises, the ruling capitalist class, from country to country, is engaged in the conspiracy to pass the total burden of capitalist crisis on to the shoulders of the common people through the globalization policies. This has heightened the distress of the common people the world over to an unprecedented level. The basic requirements and amenities of life like food, shelter, employment, education and health facilities are being progressively more and more denied to the bulk of the people. Plagued with the intense, all-out crisis in their lives, the people of the world are rising up in spontaneous protests, they pine for a change. Resistance against imperialist-capitalist exploitation and oppression, against the globalization policies, is on the rise, not only in the third world but also in the metropolitan imperialist countries. People in tens of thousand are coming out on the streets even in the USA, in the West Europe, in protest against the attacks on their life and living, against the globalization policies, against the curtailment of their democratic rights and civil liberties. Thousands flock on to the streets in Russia, waving portraits of Lenin and Stalin.

This is the silver lining amidst the dark clouds. Objective conditions of revolution are maturing fast. But mere ripening of the objective conditions, intensification of crisis and spontaneous protests and resistance do not lead to successful revolution. A salient teaching of the November Revolution is that a correct base political line, a correct revolutionary party upholding that line and possessing adequate strength with a correct leadership are the essential pre-conditions to be fulfilled for success of revolution. Mere fulfilment of the objective conditions for revolution does not suffice. Subjective preparation for revolution is to be undertaken through a correct revolutionary theory identifying the enemies and allies of revolution and painstaking ideological and organizational work, for preparing the people ideologically, organizationally and on the edifice of higher proletarian culture to become fit and conscious tools in the historical process of radical transformation of society, steeling them in many a battle. This is where the role of a correct revolutionary party comes in.

The chief hindrance in performing this task, at present, is modern revisionism. The lesson of the recent grievous setbacks in the communist movement is that unless revisionism can be properly understood and combated ideologically, organizationally and culturally, it inevitably leads to ultimate downfall of the socialist system itself. The experience in the Soviet Union, East Europe and China has been that so long as the leaderships of the ruling communist parties had correct realization of Marxism-Leninism and applied it correctly, the revolution advanced from Russia to East Europe to China till a situation conducive to world revolution was created. But, in the euphoria generated by the tremendous advancement of the socialist economy, what was lost sight of was that defects and shortcomings had been growing and accumulating within the communist movement for a long time. After Lenin, inspite of Stalin’s best effort to upgrade the theoretical and philosophical advancement of Marxism could not keep pace with the changing needs of the time. Again a mechanical, rather than dialectical sense of discipline grew in both inner party and intra-party spheres which resulted in the tendency of blind allegiance. The painstaking ideological-educational-cultural work among the masses lagged behind the need. As a result, the standard of ideological consciousness of the masses remained at a low level. The socialist economic base advanced fast, but the superstructure lagged behind. A gap arose between the two and widened. This provided a fertile breeding ground for revisionism. When revisionism eventually raised its ugly head to usurp power in the party and the state, the people, because of their low level of consciousness, were ideologically unarmed to combat it. While acknowledging with just pride and deference the very many achievements and successes and glorious sacrifices of the world communist movement, our party led by Comrade Shibdas Ghosh did not fail to point out the serious shortcomings accumulating within it, and to sound the caution that unless checked in time, these would nurture revisionism and ultimately pave the way for restoration of capitalism.

It is modern revisionism that is now the chief obstacle before the international communist movement in performing the essential task of subjective preparation for revolution. Parties which call themselves communist but practice revisionism under cover of the “communist” signboard and pseudo-Marxist vocabulary, hold the stage from country to country. These sham communists, playing the social democratic role of agents of the bourgeoisie in working class movement, are eating into the vitals of the movement from within.

In our country, the CPI(M) and the CPI are playing this heinous role. Behind the smokescreen of radical, pro-people talks, they have totally degenerated into opportunistic parliamentary parties, have become a part of the capitalist establishment. In the two states of West Bengal and Tripura where they are in power, they are faithfully implementing the globalization policies at the behest of monopoly capital and crushing mass movements being in government. At the Centre, by bolstering up the government led by the Congress, the trusted political agent of the Indian ruling class of long standing, the CPI(M) and CPI are serving the ruling class. They are supporting all measures to increase the military and police budgets to strengthen the capitalist state machine. Behind the façade of pro-people stance and slogans, they are now engaged in developing closeness with Indian and foreign monopoly capital in quest of more pelf and power within the rotten bourgeois parliamentary system.

The main task of the true communists from country to country is to regroup, unite and fight out modern revisionism and build up class and mass struggles. In this struggle, we are armed with the teachings of Lenin and Stalin against opportunism-revisionism. We are armed with the teachings of Mao Zedong formulated in course of the long and, on the whole and in the main, correct struggle against modern revisionism by the Chinese party under his leadership; we are armed with the teachings Comrade Shibdas Ghosh, our founder leader, teacher and guide and an outstanding Marxist thinker and philosopher of the era, left in course of concretely tracing and analyzing the growth of modern revisionism in the Soviet Union, without grasping which, neither can the new problems facing the movement to-day be understood and tackled, nor can the revolutionary movement be advanced.

Armed with these teachings, communists everywhere have to fight and root out modern revisionism ideologically and organizationally and intensify the class and mass struggles. They have to grasp that revolution means radical transformation in all spheres — economic, social, political, philosophical, moral-ethical and cultural — and strive to develop Marxism-Leninism in all directions as Lenin enjoined upon them to do. It should be remembered that communism must demonstrate its superiority over capitalism in every respect in order to replace it as a world system.

History never moves along a straight line but adopts a zigzag course. Socialism is a transitional phase between capitalism and communism. The interregnum between these two social formations is apt to be long and cataclysmic and even marked with temporary reverses. But that is nothing to be afraid of. Capitalism has demonstrated its utter incapacity to solve any basic problem of life. It is bankrupt economically, politically, socially, ideologically, philosophically, morally and culturally and cannot lead mankind forward in this era. Despite all imperialist-capitalist propaganda, the present era remains the era of imperialism and proletarian revolution as depicted by Lenin. Ammunitions for revolution are getting ready from country to country. The Great November Revolution is the beacon illuminating the path of social progress. History will move on inexorably sweeping aside the obstruction and machinations of imperialism-capitalism. As Lenin pointed out : “We have made the start. When … and the proletarians of which nation will complete this procedure is not important. The important thing is that the ice has been broken; the road is open and the path has been blazed.” Lenin asserted that the bourgeoisie could temporarily crush a particular revolution, even the Russian revolution for that matter, but could never crush world revolution. Because, “Communism ‘springs’ from positively every sphere of public life; its shoots are to be seen literally everywhere. The ‘contagion’ … has very thoroughly permeated the organism and has completely impregnated it. If special efforts are made to ‘stop up’ one of the channels, the ‘contagion’ will find another, sometimes a very unexpected channel. Life will assert itself.”

Down with modern revisionism !

Long live proletarian internationalism !

Long live the Great November Revolution !