I) Introduction
The hundredth anniversary of the Great October Revolution comes in the midst of a counteroffensive by imperialism and the forces of reaction against the social and political advances of the working class. In these conditions, it becomes especially important to deliver the objective truth about the first victorious proletarian Revolution, its historic global importance for the world’s worker movement, for the struggles to liberate the oppressed peoples from imperialism, and ultimately for all humanity.
In 1917, the proletarian and peasant Revolution did not only triumph throughout wide-reaching Russia, but its bells of freedom also began to sound across the globe. Through the construction of a socialist society and the latter building of Communism, the era in which humanity would jump “from the kingdom of necessity to the kingdom of freedom”[1]- as the well-known definition from Frederich Engels states- had begun.
With the victory of the October Revolution a new social system had begun to be built. The laws of socialist Revolution, which in their earliest form had been elaborated by Marx and Engels, underwent an immense technical and practical development in the melting pot of the Russian Revolution.
That the arena was a great multinational State, with areas of developed Capitalism and others with clear signs of persistent Feudalism and the slave era, does not take anything away from or reduce the quality of the Revolution. Its own characteristics as a socialist Revolution under the hegemony of the working class; the agglutination of all of the oppressed masses; the situation of the Russian Empire, which reflected the real situation of the world under the dominion of Imperialism, all reaffirm the greatness of October and its core principal as the immense and multifaceted Revolution of our time.
For the Latin American nations, exploited as they were by Imperialism, the Russian Revolution bore a three-fold importance:
1. This severe blow at the heart of Imperialism served as a strong stimulus to all the peoples’ struggles and especially by the recently born proletariat of the colonial and dependent world against their oppressors.
2. It meant a fraternal hand from the most advanced class- which had been able to destroy the essence of Capital- to the ample oppressed masses. The totally new international relations which Russia established, its peaceful and anticolonial policies, and the quantitatively different economic links which it offered opened up impressive new horizons for national liberation struggles and, where chosen, to those who wanted to transit down the road towards Socialism. What’s more, as Soviet power began to establish itself and a new correlation of forces was created in the world, Russia transformed itself into a stronghold which put the brakes on, impeded, and defeated other Imperialist interventions.
3. In the ex-Tsarist Empire, the development of the Revolution became an example into itself with proletarian solutions being found to the problems of national self-determination and the incorporation of very backward regions into a more developed economy and culture.
In Latin America, the October Revolution gave our peoples a new perspective. In many countries Communist Parties were created, and the working class vanguard and the clearest minded intelligentsia opened their arms to Lenin’s cause. Yet its influence was even greater than that: there is not a single important popular movement in Latin America in which the powerful stamp of October cannot be seen[2].
In this year (1917) in Venezuela with its rural and pre-capitalist economic structure and in the midst of a fierce military dictatorship controlled by the USA, there was also something new happening. In the west of the country oil based economic activity was beginning, and with it came the creation of the working class in the region: great masses of handicraft workers, peasants, and fisherman started transforming themselves into oil workers. Inspired by the achievements of the Russian Revolution, these workers came to be the backbone of the formation of the Communist Party of Venezuela in 1931 from the Russian Revolution solidarity movements and from the polemic and heated definitions of the Trade Union movement, who were later to lead the vast solidarity movement with the USSR after the attacks of the Second World War.
II) The Communist International and Latin America
The Communist International, also known as the Third International or Comintern, was born out of the October Revolution and founded in March 1919, relating itself perfectly to the working class traditions of the principal and practice of internationalism. As the bourgeoisie and Capital have international characters, the working class do also, and necessarily had to organize their struggles without regard for national borders. In the face of reactionary bourgeois nationalism in Europe, the working class movement proclaimed the idea of internationalism.
In the second half of the 19th Century the First and Second Internationals had existed. The First International had had just a brief existence due to the strong repression which it suffered. The Second International had a longer duration, but the prevalence of opportunist and reformist tendencies at its heart led the majority of social democratic European parties to ally themselves to the bourgeoisie in their countries and support the warmongering policies which led to the First World War and to what Lenin correctly described as bankruptcy.
One of the first challenges the Third International faced was the urgency of considering the relationship between national and international issues, between State and Revolution, between power and the project, especially because now- for the first time- the Communist movement wasn’t merely in opposition but it was in power and was the State, as in ex-Tsarist Russia. How do you connect these elements which are not necessarily concordant? The response to this challenge can be seen throughout the history of the Communist International.
The work of the Communist International was initially directed towards Central Europe, but with its internationalist vision and so that it functioned better, the world leadership of the Communist movement created regional structures.
The idea that the Communist Party of Russia (Bolshevik) deserved great prestige was something that was accepted in the communist movement, partly because it “had more experience and authority” but also because it controlled the Country of the Soviets, representing the strategic rear-guard of the worlds communist movement. However, in organisational terms, the Communist Party of Russia (Bolshevik) was just one more section of the Communist International which, together with the other sectionals, obeyed the collective decisions.
In the case of Latin America, the Communist Parties of Mexico, Argentina, and USA played similar roles with respect to the other parties in the region.
Since the beginning of the 1920’s, there were special departments in Moscow for the Latin American subcontinent. Regional Secretariats were created in 1926, and Latin America was placed under the control of the “Latino” Regional Secretariat (“Latin American” as of 1928), with the number of functionaries living in Moscow who were dedicated to Latin America growing (Latin Americans as well as Europeans). The Regional Secretariat was subordinated to the Executive Committee and acted on all relevant issues connected with Latin America.
In 1919 the first branch of the Communist International in Latin America was opened in Mexico, although it only functioned for a few months. By resolution of the Presidium of the Executive Committee of the Communist International and as part of the process of “bolshevization”, the South American Secretariat was created in 1925 in Buenos Aires with the aim of contributing to the “intensification and unification of Communist ideological training with the objective of creating a stronger relationship between the South American parties and the Communist International”. The South American Secretariat, with its political campaigns and the work of its press organ- the Correspondencia Sudamericana (South American Correspondent)- played a decisive part in the diffusion of the politics of the Communist International in Latin America. It was reorganized in the summer of 1928 and with the Italian-Argentine Victorio Codovilla at the reins, the fulfilment of its workload was guaranteed.
In Mexico it worked alongside the Anti-imperialist League of the Americas (LADLA in Spanish)- which was founded in 1924- and diverse sub-secretaries which had been created in 1928 for the preparation of the First Latin-American Conference of Trade Unions (celebrated in Montevideo in June 1929), as well as with various regional institutions controlled by the Communists. In New York the Caribbean Bureau was created in 1931 to oversee the same tasks as its South American counterpart.
The LADLA was founded at the end of 1924 by the Communist Parties of Mexico and the USA after receiving the proposal from the Communist International. The idea was based on the concept which was developed by Lenin of a united anti-imperialist front. Workers, peasants, students, and intellectuals from across the American Continent were convened as a consequence to unite against the “principal enemy”: the bourgeoisie of each country and North American imperialism.
III) The Impact of the October Revolution in Latin America
Workers from the Latin American countries, as those from other parts of the world did, warmly applauded the October Revolution, its great leader Lenin and the Leninist policies of peace, and they declared themselves in defence of the world’s first Socialist State and against the Imperialists and counterrevolution.
Often, the people received true and complete information about the deeds of October in Russia late, and the bourgeois press deliberately tried to silence or twist the great happenings of the world’s first socialist Revolution. All the more in vain, as Pablo Neruda would say, were the efforts of Capitalism to organize a confabulation of silence about Soviet Russia, to deform the truth and turn off the light which was arriving from the other side of the ocean[3].
The peoples of Latin America understood the immense importance of what was happening in far off Russia from the very first days. “I vote for the Russian Bolsheviks without hesitation, as they are showing us the path to peace and the liquidation of the barbaric Capitalist bourgeois regime” stated the founder of the Communist Party of Chile, Luis Emilio Recabarren, in the days following the October Revolution. “He who does not defend their cause defends Capitalism and all its horrors” [4].
The progressive Brazilian writer Lima Barreto on the 14th June 1918 wrote that “the Russian Revolution has shaken not only the thrones, but also the social bases of our predatory bourgeois society. The sympathetic wave which has been awoken in our hearts cannot be ignored and it is impossible to drown our desire to see something similar here”[5].
The opinion of the Latin American vanguard was of comprehension and praise for the historic role of the leader of the Proletarian Revolution, V.I. Lenin. The Argentinian scientist José Ingenieros characterized Lenin as a man of “great intelligence” and “illustrious statesmanship”[6] in his work Economic Teachings of the Russian Revolution written in 1920. He also wrote that there had been no obstacles from the dominant bourgeois classes and Governments which may have “stopped the admirable current of good-feeling which the Russian Revolution has awoken across the entire world”[7].
In Argentina, where class rivalry had been considerably exacerbated by the eve of the First World War, 10,000 men took to the streets of Buenos Aires on the 7thNovember 1918 with slogans of support for Soviet Russia.
The 10th Congress of the FORO-V, the largest Trade Union Federation in Argentina, took the decision to “express their most ample solidarity and backing to the workers of Russia… and fervently go out and look for votes of support for the consolidation of the Socialist Federal Republic of Soviets of Russia, so that this supreme aspiration of the proletariat can be established and made a reality”[8].
Victor Codovilla, veteran of the Latin American working class movement and president of the Communist Party of Argentina, remembers that “the most conscious parts of the working class and Argentinian people felt that, with this victory, a new era in the history of humanity had opened up, the era of the fall of Capitalism and of the triumph of Socialism and Communism”[9].
The victory of the October Revolution was welcomed with enthusiasm in Brazil. The workers understood that the October Revolution was a proletarian Revolution, close to the heart of the workers[10], as Astrogildo Pereira, one of the founders of the Brazilian Communist party, recalls. In one example, a public meeting held on the 1st May 1919 in Rio de Janeiro with the participation of 60,000 workers in the Brazilian Capital, approved a message of solidarity with the Russian working class.
Another shining example of proletarian support was the 24-hour strike of 11th July 1919 of the Metal Workers Union in the Federal District of Rio de Janeiro in protest against the intervention of the Imperialist States in Soviet Russia.
The victory of the workers and peasants in Russia was also celebrated by the workers of Cuba. In November 1919 a meeting of workers was held in Habana to commemorate the second anniversary of the October Revolution. The delegates to the Second Workers Congress of Cuba, held in April 1920, sent a fraternal greeting to the soviet workers.
In October 1923, the First Student Congress of Cuba adopted a resolution which protested the unfair isolation to which the new Russia was being subject to by the world powers and to request that the Cuban Government recognize the Socialist Republic of Russia[11].
The heartfelt waves of affection and respect from the Cuban people towards Lenin manifested themselves particularly in the days of January 1924. On the 21st of this month, Antonio Bosch, Mayor of Regla (a suburb of Habana), described Lenin as a “great citizen of the world” and requested that the citizens of the city honour his memory with two minutes of silence and meetings on the 27th January, the day of the funeral of the head of the Proletarian Revolution, in the El Fortin hill where an olive tree would be planted as a symbol of peace “in memory of this date and the deeds which worry us”. More than 1,000 workers, sailors, day labourers, and students from Habana met at the given hour in El Fortin despite the torrential tropical rain where Antonio Bosch and the young Cuban Mercedes Barrero planted an olive tree. Later, all of the meetings progressed to the Municipal Palace where a joint meeting was held in Lenin’s memory. Those at the meeting received telegrams of solidarity from the workers of Santiago of Cuba, Morón, and other cities from the island. The El Fortin Hill has since been called the Lenin Hill[12].
At the start of the 20’s, Soviet Russia was visited by numerous and notable personalities of the Latin American Revolutionary movement. On returning to their countries, they emotionally explained to the workers the achievements of the first proletarian state in the world and published articles and books.
Leader of the Chilean workers and founder of the Communist Party of Chile, Luis Emilio Recabarren, spent more than 40 days in the Soviet country in 1922. In the book which he published after his trip, entitled Rusia obrera y campesina (Worker and Peasant Russia), he wrote that “I went to see if the working class did effectively have political power with which they guarantee the conservation in their hands of economic power … I went to see if the working class had abolished once and for all types of Capitalist exploitation and tyranny. I gladly saw that effectively the Russian workers did indeed have all the strength of political and economic power in their hands, and it seemed that there was not a force in this world able to dispose the Russian proletariat of the power that they had won… I could also testify that the expropriation of the exploiters is so complete that a regime of exploitation and tyranny, such as that which we still put up with in Chile, will never return to Russia”[13].
The speeches of Recabarren in Chile about the Soviet Republic produced immense impressions in the auditoriums. Pablo Neruda remembers that in those days a magnificent Chilean returned from the Soviet Republic which had just been born. His name was Luis Emilio Recabarren, and the return of this titanic personality changed the progress of the ideological currents in Neruda’s generation.
Whilst talking to him and listening to his speeches, he understood the feeling of the great event… Recabarren allowed him to understand, with great simplicity, that an entire age has been left in the past, that from the utopia had been born the practical creation of a new State and of a new society[14].
In the same year of 1922, one of the founders of the Uruguay Communist Party, Francisco Pintos, similarly spent various months in the Soviet Republic.
The economic, political, and military strength of the USSR, the increase in its international prestige, as well as the thriving support from the worlds proletariat and the hopes of the commercial foreign mediums to enter into mercantile-economic relations with the USSR are key factors which forced the Governments of the majority of the Capitalist States to abandon their policies of non-recognition of the Soviet Union and proceed towards the establishment of normal diplomatic relations with her.
The foresight of Lenin, expressed in his speech to the Plenary of Soviets of Moscow on the 20th November 1922, about how “economic relations- and through them diplomatic ones- will normalize themselves, must normalize themselves, and will be normalized without fail” came perfectly true[15].
IV) The October Revolution and its influence in the formation of Communist Parties: an approximation
The October Revolution was a response from the Russian working class, peasants, and soldiers to feudal despotism and Capitalist exploitation. The Latin American working class and workers from the city and countryside similarly understood this: not only were good feelings towards Russia on the increase, but so was the consciousness of the need to follow the example of the Russian Revolution to construct Socialism-Communism.
In 1918 in Argentina, Victorio Codovilla and Rodolfo Ghioldi founded the International Socialist Party, which, with only 92 days since its foundation, decided to affiliate itself to the Communist International the following year. Codovilla, who had started his political activism in his home country in the ranks of the Italian Socialist Party, and was now a resident of Buenos Aires, was amongst the founders of the “Karl Marx Study Centre” in 1912.
In 1919 in Guatemala the League of Patriotic Workers was organized, which only months later was the principal driving force behind the insurrection of the workers against the dictatorship. In 1921 the 1st May was celebrated for the first time in this country.
Also in 1919 the First Socialist Congress of Mexico was held, which, with a majority of votes, decided to incorporate itself into the Communist International. Two months later it opted to change its name in accord with the international organisation which it had just joined: it would now be the Mexican Communist Party.
In Colombia, the Trade Union Federation, the Confederation for Social Action, and the Society of Mutual Assistance met, and, with the representation of 20 associations and guilds, formed a Socialist Party which would be used to promote the independence of the working class from other political parties and religious sects and to fight for working class concessions. Its main initial themes were proclaimed to be freedom, equality, and fraternity.
Despite the fact that we are concentrating on Latin America and the Caribbean, it is also important to mention the foundation of proletarian parties in the USA: the Communist Party and the Workers Communist Party. Both parties worked clandestinely and joined the Communist International, unifying themselves in 1921. The US Communist Party gained legality in 1929.
The people of Guatemala rose up against the dictator in 1920 and were able to overthrow him. This victory bought new energy to the young working class, and class based Trade Union organisation grew with the creation of the Trade Union confederation “Worker’s Union”.
On the 17th July 1920 the Second Congress of the Communist International met in Petrograd, setting the conditions which working class parties would have to meet to be accepted into its ranks. Lenin’s report “On the role of the Communist Party in a proletarian Revolution” was accepted, censuring the opportunist theses of some Trade Unionists which maintained the uselessness of a political party of the working class and the priority of the Trade Unions.
The report assures that revolutionary Trade Unionists “wish to fight against the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie but don’t know how. They don’t understand that the working class without an autonomous party is like a headless tree trunk. The Trade Unionist and Revolutionary industrialist represent a step forward only in comparison with the old, rancid, counterrevolutionary ideology of the Second International. But, in comparison with Revolutionary Marxism, i.e. Communism, Trade Unionism and industrialism are but a step backwards”[16].
Under this Leninist line, the 8th Congress of the Uruguayan Socialist Party decided with a massive majority to incorporate themselves into the Communist International. The following year-1921- they decide to change their name to the Communist Party of Uruguay.
In December 1920, the Socialist Workers Party of Chile which had been founded in 1912 by Luis Emilio Recabarren and which had manifested its warm felt support for the October Revolution in 1919, now decided to join the Communist International. In 1922 it opted for the name of the Communist Party of Chile.
In June 1921, the Constituent Congress of the Red International of Labour Unions met in Moscow with 41 countries, including an important class-based contingent from Latin America.
In 1921 the Third Congress of the Communist International met with the assistance of 50 affiliated parties, including Latin Americans. One of the central objectives was the creation of a unified front which would allow the union of all of the workers in the fight against Capitalism. An ample discussion was held on tactical questions, and guided as it was by Lenin, the Communist International recommended “criticizing in a fraternal, but energetic and clear way, the anarchic-Trade Union tendencies which reject the dictatorship of the proletariat and negate the necessity of a leading, unique, central organization to work with the Revolutionary vanguard, i.e. a Communist party[17]. The Communist International judged the “fusion of the Revolutionary labour organisations and Communists into a united front” as being possible[18].
With this political line numerous unconnected Marxist groups met in March 1922 in Rio de Janeiro by the invitation of A. Pereira, director of the journal “O Movimento Comunista” (The Communist Movement) and resolved to construct the Brazilian Communist Party.
By the end of 1922, the following Communist Parties existed in Latin America, each of which acted as Latin American sections of the Communist International: Argentina (January 1918), Mexico (November 1919), Uruguay (September 1920), Chile (January 1922), Brazil (March 1922) and Guatemala (1922).
As per the logic of the Latin American class struggle, faced by the plan of the Communist International, US Imperialism counter-attacked; and faced with Revolutionary advances by the working class, in 1923 the Fifth Pan-American Conference met in Santiago of Chile.
In 1924, year of the passing away of Vladimir Ilich Lenin in Gorki in January aged 54, a great depression overtook the progressive forces of the world, including the Latin American Communists.
Lenin’s work, however, continued to expand in the Latin American region. This very year the Communist Party of Honduras was founded, instantly confronting the imperialist United Fruit Company with heroic acts, and declaring itself as a sectional of the Comintern on the very day of its foundation.
In August 1925 the Communist Party of Cuba was organized in illegal conditions. Back in February 1917 an insurrection against the Government which was coordinated with numerous strikes had caused US Imperialism to take the opportunity to send marines to invade the island, under legal protection from the Platt Amendment. The occupation lasted until 1922, during which the first steps for the creation of a Communist movement were taken: left wing socialists met and approved a declaration recognising the need for the creation of a unified party, such as the Comintern had suggested. Marxist groups from various cities and villages were organized in build up to August 1925 when, in a clandestine congress, the Communist Party of Cuba was born, with its leaders requesting immediate incorporation into the Comintern.
In Argentina in 1925 a strong anti-imperialist Latin American movement was given form, with great resonance in the intellectual world. Amongst its objectives was “to develop in the Latin American peoples a consciousness of solidarity for national and continental interests, supporting all ideological renovation which pushes for the exercising of popular sovereignty and combatting all types of dictatorship which oppose social reforms”[19].
In 1926 in Ecuador some Marxist-Leninist groups had sprung up since 1920, and in 1924 Ricardo Paredes founded the newspaper ‘La Antorcha’ (‘The Torch’). In 1925 the ‘Ecuadorian Communist Sectional for the Divulgation of the Ideas of Lenin’ was organized, with workers and intellectuals affiliating themselves. In May 1926 the Ecuadorian Socialist Party was formed, incorporating itself to the Comintern in 1928.
In Brazil, the Communists started making contact with the Revolutionary, democratic military movements (lieutenant rank mostly) which Luis Carlos Prestes presided over. From these contacts was born the Worker-Peasant Front.
In most Latin American Countries Anti-imperialist leagues appeared, such as in Mexico and Cuba, which combined the class-based Revolutionary struggle with the international solidarity struggle. Revolutionary intellectuals commonly participated in these organisations, often editing numerous newspapers in which North American Imperialism was challenged with great worth.
By initiative of Ghioldi and Codovilla, in December 1926 the Communist Party of Argentina manifested their solidarity with the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, ratifying their energetic opposition to Trotskyism and its conceptions, describing them as “erroneous, adventurous, and anti-Leninist”[20].
Propelled by this Revolutionary and anti-imperialist upsurge, in Nicaragua in July 1927 General Augusto Sandino, the “General of free men”, started the patriotic war of the guerrillas against the invading North American troops. Next to Sandino was the El Salvadorian Communist Farabundo Martí. This movement for national liberation received the support of all of the anti-imperialist sectors of Latin America. The Venezuelan Communists Carlos Aponte and Gustavo Machado were also on the scene. For the people it was the start of a historic struggle which culminated with the victory of the Sandinista Revolution decades afterwards.
At the anti-imperialist Congress held in Brussels in 1927 and presided over by the French writer Henry Barbusse, Latin Americans such as Gustavo Machado (Venezuela), Jose Vasconcelos (Mexico), and Victor Codovilla (Argentina) were present.
Similarly, as part of the 10th anniversary celebrations for the October Revolution in November 1927, some of the most important Revolutionary leaders in the world congregated in Moscow, with the Latin Americans who were present taking advantage of the encounter to discuss strategy and tactics in the Latin American struggle.
In 1928 in Moscow the 6th Congress of Comintern was held, with Latin America being amongst the themes discussed. Taking into account the existence of mass-based organisations, the Congress considered the need to transform “the expression of the will of these mass-based political parties into truly Bolshevik parties”. With this objective the Caribbean Bureau was created, and the Socialist Party of Ecuador and Socialist Revolutionary Party of Colombia were accepted as Comintern sectionals.
In September 1928 the Peruvian Communist Party was founded, with Jose Carlos Mariátegui as its most important leader.
In Colombia, an extraordinary resurgence of the masses, as much in the labour organisations as well as the political parties, drove the conservative Government to consider a law to restrict the constitutional guarantees and prohibit the practices of the Revolutionary Socialist Party (PSR). At the time, the Venezuelan General and anti-dictatorial fighter, Emilio Arevalo Cedeño was exiled in Colombia and, whilst working with the plans of the PSR, was planning an invasion of Venezuela through the plains, giving Cedeño, an ex-telegraphist, the nickname of the “new Sandino”[21].
In June of 1929 the First Communist Conference of Latin America took place in Buenos Aires. Thirty-eight delegates took part from fifteen countries across the region (Argentina, Cuba, Brazil, Peru, El Salvador, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Uruguay, Colombia, Bolivia, Ecuador, Panama, Mexico, and Paraguay) as well as delegates from the Comintern, the Youth Comintern, from the Communist Parties of the United States and France. In the same year, the Caribbean Bureau set up a Support Committee in Barranquilla, Colombia, for the incipient Communist movement which was working clandestinely in Venezuela. At the head of the mission was Gustavo Machado, who later became the President of the Communist Party of Venezuela whilst residing in Bogota.
In Venezuela since 1914 various foreign companies, led by Royal Dutch Shell, were extracting oil from the ground, reaching a total of 332.000 barrels. During this year, work on the first commercial refinery began, with great quantities of handicraft workers, peasants, and fisherman being transformed into oil workers. Inspired by the news of class struggle on the old continent and the victory of the Bolsheviks, political and labour struggles expanded. The US, alongside the Venezuelan dictator, recognized the dangers that the example of the October Revolution could set when, in 1918, they expressed that “the doctrines of the radicals in Europe will have a greater impact in the countries where the ignorant and poor people are deprived of their political rights. Driven by the initiative of the social parties of Mexico and Puerto Rico, a public propaganda campaign is seeking the formation of a Workers League in all of the countries of America. This type of agitation is dangerous for us because our enemies will try to exploit it and some of those will start replicating the extremist doctrines of the Russians, i.e. the redistribution of land and wealth amongst workers and soldiers…”[22].
On the 5th March 1931, the first Communist branch in Venezuela was constructed in clear clandestinity, and on the 1st May the first manifesto from the Venezuelan Communist Party was circulated “to the working people”. The manifesto finished with a phrase from Lenin: “the gun on the shoulder of a worker is the only guarantee of democracy”, and amongst the slogans used was “Long Live Soviet Russia”.
Equally, for the first time in Venezuela, the Bolshevik Revolution was mentioned in a party political document, stating that “in Russia, the largest country in the world and with a population 50 times greater than Venezuela’s, which was submitted to a tyranny as bloody as that of Gomez- the Tsarist regime- the workers and peasants overthrew this Government thirteen years ago and put in place a Government of their own class, a workers and peasant Government called Soviet. The lands of the great landowners have been redistributed to those who directly worked them, and the factories, mines, and businesses have become collective property of the workers Soviets… wages have gone up and prices have fallen and there are no workers unemployed… in the schools, colleges, and universities workers and their children are given preference and the Government covers all of the needs of all of the students. Women enjoy exactly the same rights and advantages as men and are given complete time off for 2 months before and 2 months after giving birth. Under the worker and peasant Government in Soviet Russia comfortable and clean houses are being built for the workers, magnificent tower blocks for rehabilitation centres, hospitals, clubs, libraries, schools for the workers, who enjoy a freedom and comfort that has never been seen before in the world by the class which produces… the workers of the entire world are struggling and organizing to do that which their class brothers have done in Russia”[23].
V) Conclusions
“As the exploitation of one individual by another will also be put an end to, the exploitation of one nation by another will also be put an end to”[24] wrote Karl Marx and Frederich Engels in the Communist Manifesto. One hundred years later these words have been made a reality in Latin America and the Caribbean thanks to the October Revolution of 1917 and the presence of Communist Parties.
Despite the fact that Lenin couldn’t apply himself extensively to Latin America, it was not absent from his worries. In his works about Imperialism there are frequent references to Latin America, using Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and Uruguay to illustrate his theory and show the worst effects of the inter-imperialist contradictions that divided the region. In the First Congress of Soviets he denounced the North American imperialists who “are anxious to devour Mexico” [25].
With the great Revolution of October, the theory of a modern Revolution with its specific anti-imperialist, anti-capitalist, and anti-oligarchic characteristics and with its uninterrupted transition to the socialist-communist Revolution expanded to Latin America.
On one hand the objective socio-economic structures existed for the popularization of Marxism-Leninism: Imperialist penetration, Capitalism, a deepening of the class struggle, and agrarian problem which still today have not been solved. On the other hand, the existed an increase in the entire region of liberation movements as part of a global “revolutionary situation of general character” whose apex was the Great October Revolution.
The Communist Parties found in the examples of popular action and socio-political thought the subjective factors which bring alive the Revolutionary processes of the region even today.
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| Carolus Wimmer. |
We commemorate with Revolutionary optimism this 100-year anniversary of the October Revolution expressing as did Lenin in 1905: “the defeat of Russian Tsardom- heroically started by our working class- will change the course of all of the countries, will ease the task of the workers of all nations, of all states, across all of the confines of the Globe”[26].
The history of the last 100 years clearly confirms the truth of this Leninist vision.
[1] Eduardo Viera. Revista Internacional (International Review), Caracas, 1977, pg. 32
[2] Ibid, pg. 33
[3] Pravda, 8.XI, 1964
[4]Pravda, 5.XI, 1967. Quote taken from the pronounced speech in Moscow of Luis Corvalán, General Secretary of the CC of the CP of Chile in the formal meeting dedicated to the 50th anniversary of the Great Socialist Revolution of October.
[5] L.Barreto. Obras completas (Complete Works), Sao Paulo, 1956, t. IX, pg.72
[6] J. Ingenieros. Enseñanzas económicas de la revolución rusa. Los tiempos nuevos (Economic Lessons of the Russian Revolution. New Times), Buenos Aires, 1950, pg. 211
[7] Ibid, pg. 229
[8] Nuestra Palabra (Our Word), Buenos Aires, 21.XXX, 1967
[9] Pravda, 7.XI, 1964
[10] A. Pereira. Ensayos de Historia del Brasil (Lessons of Brazilian History), Moscow, 1962, pg. 260. Also see Problemas, 1958, N° 39
[11] Revista Cuba (Cuban Review), November 1967, pg.4
[12] Revista Cuba (Cuban Review), November 1967, pg. 5-6
[13] Revista Internacional (International Review), 1967, N°11, pg. 80
[14] Pravda, 8.XI, 1964
[15] V. I. Lenin. Selected Works in three volumes, Spanish edition, t.3, Moscow, 1966, pg. 754
[16] Ibid, pg.182-183
[17] Ibid, pg. 184
[18] Ibid, pg. 184
[19] Ibid, pg. 188-189
[20] Ibid, pg. 189
[21] Ibid, pg. 193
[22] Ibid, pp. 4-5
[23] J. Sanoja Hernández. 60 años de la URSS y su impacto en el proceso político venezolano (60 Years of the USSR and its impact on the Venezuelan Political Process), Caracas, Cantaclaro Editions, 1983, pp.27-28
[24] Ibid, pg. 8
[25] V. I. Lenin. Complete Works, 2° ed., Buenos Aires, Cartago, t. X, pg. 94
[26] Ibid, pg. 95.
* Director of the Journal “Debate Abierto” (Open Debate), International Relations Secretary of the Communist Party of Venezuela.
