ON PEOPLE'S REVOLUTION
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Not long ago, we celebrated the 200th anniversary of the French revolution. Despite the fact that this was a bourgeois revolution, despite the fact that it occurred two centuries ago, nevertheless, the ruling class in France and elsewhere could not refrain from denigrating the memory of 1789-93. Even such a distant historical event was an uncomfortable reminder to the rich and powerful of what happens when a given socio-economic system reaches its limits. They even propose to change the terrible words of the "Marseillaise."!
Yet revolutions happen, and not by accident. A revolution becomes inevitable when a particular form of society enters into conflict with the development of the productive forces, which form the basis of all human progress.
One of the greatest books of the twentieth century is Leon Trotsky’s History of the Russian Revolution. This monumental study of the event of 1917 has never been equaled. It is an outstanding example of the use of the method of historical materialism to elucidate the processes at work in society. The events leading up to October are not merely recounted, but explained in a way which has a validity and an application far more extensive than the Russian Revolution itself.
In an effort to discredit the October Revolution, the ruling class, through the agency of its hired hacks in the Universities, has assiduously cultivated the myth that the Bolshevik Revolution was only a "coup -d’etat" pulled off by Lenin and a handful of conspirators.
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Not long ago, we celebrated the 200th anniversary of the French revolution. Despite the fact that this was a bourgeois revolution, despite the fact that it occurred two centuries ago, nevertheless, the ruling class in France and elsewhere could not refrain from denigrating the memory of 1789-93. Even such a distant historical event was an uncomfortable reminder to the rich and powerful of what happens when a given socio-economic system reaches its limits. They even propose to change the terrible words of the "Marseillaise."!
Yet revolutions happen, and not by accident. A revolution becomes inevitable when a particular form of society enters into conflict with the development of the productive forces, which form the basis of all human progress.
One of the greatest books of the twentieth century is Leon Trotsky’s History of the Russian Revolution. This monumental study of the event of 1917 has never been equaled. It is an outstanding example of the use of the method of historical materialism to elucidate the processes at work in society. The events leading up to October are not merely recounted, but explained in a way which has a validity and an application far more extensive than the Russian Revolution itself.
In an effort to discredit the October Revolution, the ruling class, through the agency of its hired hacks in the Universities, has assiduously cultivated the myth that the Bolshevik Revolution was only a "coup -d’etat" pulled off by Lenin and a handful of conspirators.
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