Rob Walker, prominent member of Red Youth, speaks at the packed centenary celebration of the October Revolution, organised by comrades of the CPGB-ML in Southall, West London on 4th November 2017.
The mainstream (imperialist) media have marked this anniversary, unsurprisingly, with a crescendo of anti-Soviet and anti-communist propaganda. This propaganda is so prevalent that much of the so-called ‘left’ in Britain have also adopted the false narrative.
The CPGB-ML, by contrast, has a real theoretical base that allows us to understand the economic exploitation of the working class under capitalism, and the political trends that serve to tie workers to their own wage-slavery.
We are the only party in Britain, and one of the few in the world, that has understood the reasons for the collapse and demise of the Soviet Union. The reasons were serialised in a series of articles written by Harpal Brar, which have now been published and are available to buy online (see links below).
Perestroika, the complete collapse of revisionism:
Revisionism and the Demise of the USSR:
In a nutshell, Khrushchev introduced a capitalist-roading economic policy that re-introduced the ‘law of value’, ie the profit motive, into production. By extending the role of commodity production and the market, and allowing a role for private profit-making enterprises, and by consolidating his personal grip on power, alienating and side-lining all opposition to his ‘market-socialist’ policies, he laid the foundation for Gorbachev and Yeltsin to put the final nails in the coffin of the once great and glorious USSR.
It was thus revisionism, not communism that collapsed wiht the counter-revolutions that swept the European communist states from 1989-91.
While a correct economic and political line was followed in the USSR and the third international, the Communist movement between 1917 and the early 1950s advanced at an exponential rate unparalleled in human history, sweeping before it all obstacles and literally giving nightmares to the monopoly-capitalist gangsters who ran (and continue to run) the world.
With the revisionist corruption of Soviet Socialism, much of the communist movement lost its way and declined. This was the history of the British Communist movement as led by the once proud CPGB – which dissolved itself in 1991, leaving behind today only the revisionist residue (not even a ‘rump’) that calls itself, misleadingly, the ‘Communist Party of Britain’ (CPB) and clings miserably to the British Imperialist Labour Party for dear life.
The ‘general secretary’ of the CPB further exposed himself to ridicule at the hands of the Bourgeois media when he gave a radio interview to BBC R4’s Today Program, on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the October Revolution, in which he characterised communism simply as “unsustainable”, and saying some investigation was needed to find out why.
Echoing Lenin, we would say to these comrades who have so badly lost their bearings that “Without a revolutionary theory, there can be no revolutionary movement.”
That is why our revisionist opponents languish in the mire of recycled anti-communist propaganda, instead of being able to celebrate the rich legacy of successful working-class struggle, and chart a bold course forward for the liberation of mankind, despite the profound crisis in which the capitalist world is mired, leading to huge social upheavals, mass poverty, environmental catastrophy and war.
For our part, we recognise that what is needed is not ‘left-wing’ social democracy, but a Bolshevik organisation and a bolshevik struggle!
Contact us and get involved with your local party group, for study, discussion and action!