1917 RUSSIAN REVOLUTION: WALLS COME TUMBLING DOWN

This week is the centenary of the October 1917 Russian Revolution.

The 100th anniversary of the event I and many others regard as the greatest act of human liberation so far witnessed. When the 1,000 years of Tsarist dictatorship was overthrown - a semi-feudal regime that left over 70% of the Russian people illiterate; over 80% scraping out a miserable existence on tiny strips of land; soldiers starving and slaughtered to uphold the interests and imperialist ambitions of the monarchy, landowners and western capitalists; women queuing endlessly in the freezing cold for bread rations slashed to famine levels; and national minorities mercilessly persecuted.

The 100th anniversary of this momentous, multi-millioned human drama has been mostly ignored by the West's media - or distorted.
I watched that vile reactionary, Mail on Sunday columnist Peter Hitchens, spew out on TV the well-worn lie that the October Revolution was a putsch, a coup, orchestrated by German militarism. Carried out by German agents like Lenin; by a violent, isolated, unrepresentative Bolshevik conspiracy that led to disaster.

And of course for many decades, the same capitalist politicians, professors and press poured out the scaremongering lie that the subsequent Stalinist tyranny in Russia was the fate awaiting all of us if there was ever a socialist society established here, or anywhere else.

The gangster capitalist, Vladimir Putin - head of the capitalist system that was restored in Russia 25 years ago - is equally keen to bury the truth about what the 1917 Bolshevik-led socialist revolution actually involved.
He especially wants nobody knowing anything about the dramatic gains ushered in, during the first years of the new socialist government, for the millions of workers and peasants who took power in 1917. People comparing those advances would be all the more likely to challenge the tyranny and chaos that capitalism has now imposed on the land of Red October 1917.

1917: Walls Come Tumbling Down

So what did happen in 1917? What's the truth about the Russian revolution? Was the Bolshevik government an example we can learn from in the struggle against the police tyrannies, obscene inequality and exploitation that capitalism means in the 21st century - as underlined by the Paradise Papers revelations? How did Stalinism come about, and how does it differ from the socialist democracy many of us have spent a lifetime fighting for?

I've just written a 72-page book addressing these and other key questions. It tries to introduce today's generations to issues, theories, events and struggles largely - and quite deliberately - hidden from our eyes.
It's hopefully a good introduction to the Russian Revolution, its relevance today, and the subsequent rise of Stalinism. It aspires to be a source of discussion, debate and clarification for workers and socialists.
Anyone seeking a socialist future cannot dodge these issues, and we can learn an awful lot from the one fully successful socialist revolution so far in history.

I'd encourage you to order a copy of my book(let), 1917:Walls Come Tumbling Down. 

Get your own copy; consider getting a copy for an interested friend; maybe ask your union branch to order a few to encourage discussion around the issues it raises; likewise in colleges or school Modern Studies classes.
The size of the book, and the price - £4.99, or £5.99 if posted out - should both help to make it accessible. You can order it by clicking on the link here - or by contacting me through Messenger on my Facebook page.