Party and Class in Revolutionary Crises
Against The Current vol. 150
Post, Charlie
http://www.solidarity-us.org/node/3119
Date Written: 2011-01-01
Publisher: Against The Current
Year Published: 2011
Resource Type: Article
Cx Number: CX13739
The Russian Revolution of October 1917, the first successful revolution made by and for workers in world history, posed an immense paradox for revolutionary socialists. On the one hand, the combination of the most advanced forms of industrial capitalist development with a largely non-capitalist countryside and autocratic-absolutist state institutions made Russia “the weak link” in world capitalism, the society where a workers’ revolution could first succeed. On the other, Russia’s economic underdevelopment and the minority status of the working class in the population made the prospects of constructing a viable, democratic post-capitalist society impossible.
