The centenary of the October revolution should serve as an occasion for reflection, in order to avoid extreme desperation when may be tempted to repeat the bloody totalitarian experiments like communism and fascism.
It can be a long scolding capitalism and “bourgeois democracy”, and there is every reason, but life has shown us that attempts to present Marxism-Leninism as an alternative, while communism looming on the horizon, the ideal can cost you more.
I have great attention to read the speech prepared by Jeronimo de Souza (Jerónimo de Sousa) in connection with the celebrations of the century, the October revolution of 1917 in Russia, and found there all the same unchanged tactics of using half-truths to convince us to repeat the political, social and economic experiment that failed in many countries, where it was taken.
In one place Secretary General of the Portuguese Communist party (PCP) writes: “Around the October revolution divorced the lot of hoaxes, she is accused of distortions, errors and deviations that, in certain historical conditions gave rise to “the model”, was for some time sustained, and, as we said that conflicted with the Communist project in terms of its main ideals and objectives.”
The Communist leader prefers to criticize “mystification,” but does not specify when it began the contradictory Communist project of distortion, error and bias, yet this question is crucial. Maybe the first aberration happened when the Communist leader Vladimir Lenin, who became the head of the above mentioned revolution, in 1918, ordered the dissolution of the Constituent Assembly, the only body elected by the people of Russia in a democratic way and one of the real characters of a multiparty system, which became the conquest of the February revolution of 1917? Maybe they began with Stalin? Or Khrushchev? Maybe Gorbachev?
After you specify at a specific time, when did the distortion, error and bias, it would be nice to know in what period or periods of Soviet history, they ended. In the era of Brezhnev, Chernenko and Andropov, which is officially regarded as the era of “developed socialism”, which opened a direct route to “communism”?
Jeronimo de Souza argues that the October revolution “has allowed the masses to decide their own fate”, but where? If the Soviet Union, then let him explain how long and how.
Throughout the text of the speech I found only one sentence that refers to this topic: “the tragic events in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union in the early nineties”.
There is clearly an error in dates, because PCP “tragic events” began in the mid-1980s, when Mikhail Gorbachev was elected General Secretary of the Communist party of the Soviet Union, and the peoples of Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union restored the right to decide their own destiny, to regain what is supposedly so ardently defend the Portuguese Communists, but what is under their own applause denied its citizens their Soviet comrades: a multiparty system, freedom of speech, etc.
Communist leader says: “This sample is organized Communists fight demonstrates to the world a wide range of solutions, stages and phases of the revolutionary struggle”, but it would be good to give specific examples so we can understand: on what planet? Maybe in some of the countries of the former Soviet bloc? In China? In North Korea? Cuba? In Vietnam?
In addition, listing the crimes of capitalism, as well as mentioning the war and millions of victims who are its direct consequence, the leader of the PCP decides not to use the same criteria when analyzing the experience of the Communists, who apparently did not commit and do not commit heinous crimes, limited to “only” the “errors” and “deviations”.
Since none of the Communist experiments failed, Jeronimo de Sousa said: “in view of the relevance of socialism and its necessity to solve problems all over the world need to take into account a wide range of solutions, stages and phases of the revolutionary struggle, in other words, there are no “models” of revolution or “models” of socialism — and this point has always defended the PCP — but the General laws of socialist construction: the power in the hands of the workers, the socialization of the basic means of production, planning and, most importantly, as a crucial element of state building, which encourages and ensures active and creative participation of the masses in building a new society.”
Maybe PCP is the key to this original miracle model, which has never given positive results? Hard to believe, because the General Secretary of the PCP was not telling the truth when, for example, claims that his party never acted as a protector of revolutionary and socialist models. Did the Soviet Union was for them a kind of “beacon”?
In this speech Jeronimo de Souza continues to insist that humanity, in whatever way it may have, will inevitably come to the construction of “socialism” and “communism”, but fortunately, from his words it becomes clear that this necessity is purely a matter of faith: “Yes, the October revolution continues to proclaim on the possibility of another world!”
The Communist leader also points to today’s “on a planetary scale campaign of disinformation, poisoning and manipulation of consciousness, which is intended to eliminate people have all sorts of aspirations and ideals, aimed at the implementation of the liberation project, which implies communism.”
I fundamentally disagree with this position — if such a campaign exists at all — for one simple reason: because they believe that communism PCP should remain a “looming on the horizon of the ideal” in the sense that it, how many try, no one will ever be able to achieve.
I do not mean to say that such an important event as the Communist revolution of 1917, should pass unnoticed for us. On the contrary, it should serve the people an occasion for reflection, to avoid the extreme of despair, when we might be tempted to repeat the bloody totalitarian experiments like communism and fascism.
