Leon Trotsky, The Lessons of October - Platypus

Leon Trotsky 3the toilers — in November 1918 — only succeeded in transferring powerto the hands of the bourgeoisie. One propertied class is able to seize thepower that has been wrested from another propertied class because it isable to base itself upon its riches, its cultural level, and its innumerableconnections with the old state apparatus. But there is nothing else that canserve the proletariat as a substitute for its own party.It was only by the middle of 1921 that the fully rounded — out work ofbuilding the Communist parties really began (under the slogan ”Win themasses,” ”United front,” etc.). The problems of October receded and, simultaneously,the study of October was also relegated to the background.Last year we found ourselves once again face to face with the problemsof the proletarian revolution. It is high time we collected all documents,printed all available material, and applied ourselves to their study!We are well aware, of course, that every nation, every class, and even everyparty learns primarily from the harsh blows of its own experience. Butthat does not in the least imply that the experience of other countries andclasses and parties is of minor importance. Had we failed to study theGreat French Revolution, the revolution of 1848, and the Paris Commune,we should never have been able to achieve the October Revolution, eventhough we passed through the experience of the year 1905. And after all,we went through this ”national” experience of ours basing ourselves ondeductions from previous revolutions, and extending their historical line.Afterwards, the entire period of the counter-revolution was taken up withthe study of the lessons to be learned and the deductions to be drawn fromthe year 1905.Yet no such work has been done with regard to the victorious revolutionof 1917 — no, not even a tenth part of it. Of course we are not now livingthrough the years of reaction, nor are we in exile. On the other hand, theforces and resources at our command now are in no way comparable towhat we had during those years of hardship. All that we need do is to poseclearly and plainly the task of studying the October Revolution, both on theparty scale and on the scale of the International as a whole. It is indispensablefor the entire party, and especially its younger generations, to studyand assimilate step by step the experience of October, which provided thesupreme, incontestable, and irrevocable test of the past and opened widethe gates to the future. The German lesson of last year is not only a seriousreminder but also a dire warning.An objection will no doubt be raised that even the most thorough knowledgeof the course of the October Revolution would by no means haveguaranteed victory to our German party. But this kind of wholesale andessentially philistine rationalizing will get us nowhere. To be sure, merestudy of the October Revolution is not sufficient to secure victory in other