Via The NY Transfer News Service * All the News that Doesn't Fit Impact of the Soviet victory: struggles sparked worldwide By Monica Moorehead The 1917 seizure of power and the revolutionary measures taken in the next few years by the emerging Union of Soviet Socialist Republics opened a new chapter in human history. These events awakened yearnings for freedom in millions of people and inspired struggles in Asia, Africa, Latin America, the Middle East, North America and Europe. What inspired so many? The new Soviet constitution nationalized properties previously held in private hands. All lands and properties of the big landlords were confiscated and ownership transferred to the peasants. Factories and banks were nationalized by the Soviet State. The eight hour day, 48 hour week and pay increases for the workers were instituted days after the triumph of the revolution. Provisions were made for social insurance against unemployment. The Bolsheviks broke definitively with imperialism by publishing the secret treaties signed by the czar and the other imperialist rulers and aimed against the oppressed people of the world. Treated as private property under the Czar, women received full equality under the new Soviet law. The Bolshevik revolution outlawed arranged marriages and prostitution, providing a legal handle for women to fight for their rights. The Bolsheviks struck down repressive legislation aimed at lesbians and gay men. The new laws reflected the view of homosexuality as a healthy expression of sexual preference, a remarkable advance considering that there was no formidable lesbian and gay movement in the Soviet Union at the time. THE NATIONAL QUESTION Before 1917, the common link between the 100 oppressed nations was hundreds of years of domination by the "Great Russians." The Bolsheviks under Lenin sought to imbue workers and peasants of all nationalities with a spriit of cooperation, a task never realized under class society. The right to self-determination for nationally oppressed peoples was writen into law. The new Council of Nationalities, one of the two chambers of the Supreme Soviet in Moscow, offered all the nationalities equal representation. How extensive was the influence of thes revolutionary measures beyond the borders of the new Soviet state? "The heroic victories of the Soviet workers and peasants against counter-revolutionaries and foreign interventions, their triumph over famines and backwardness, their great achievements in the building of socialism, inspired millions of working people in many parts of the world," reads the South African Communist Party's program. (The African Communist, fourth quarter, 1987) "Powerful Communist Parties arose in many countries. In the areas of the greatest population, the colonies of imperialism in Asia, Africa and Latin America, the October revolution aroused hundreds of millions to fight for national liberation." In the imperialist countries, progressive and workers were electrified by these events. Throughout the U.S., workers defended the Russian Revolution. Seattle dockworkers refused to load guns destined for Russian counter-revolutionaries. The Central Labor Council of that city distributed 20,000 copies of a 1918 speech by Lenin, which was avidly read by workers on the West coast. The labor councils of Portland, Cleveland, Seattle and the state of Pennsylvania introduced resolutions at at 1919 trade union convention calling for the lifting of the blockade against the Soviet state and the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Soviet soil. The hope and optomism generated by the 1917 revolution was a strong factor in the surge in strikes following World War I not only in the U.S., but throughout Europe as well. MARCUS GARVY PRAISES LENIN The sensitive manner in which the Bolsheviks handled the national question did not go unnoticed among the oppressed in the imperialist countries. For instance, Marcus Garvey, leader of the Universal Negro Improvement Association, more popularly known as the Back to Africa movement, was moved deeply by the impact of the Bolshevik revolution. Following Lenin's death in April, 1924, Garvey wrote a moving eulogy that said in part that what Lenin, Trotsky and the Bolsheviks achieved needs to be done to liberate the downtrodden in Africa and around the world. The Bolshevik revolution had a huge impact upon the emerging national liberation movements in Africa, Asia, Latin America, the Middle East. The heroic victories over imperialist domination in Vietnam, Angola, China, north Korea, Cuba, Guinea Bissau, and elsewhere would have taken much longer had it not been for the material assistance and revolutionary inspiration provided by the Soviet Union and the socialist camp. On the 35th anniversary of the storming of the Moncada Barracks, Cuba's president, Fidel Castro, commented on Soviet Union's impact of the Soviet Union opon the worldwide struggle against capitalism: Said Fidel: "What the Soviet Union did has no precedent, starting with the Great October Revolution: their resistance against generalized invasion by all the capitalist countries following World War I; their industrialization; their resistance against fascism; the 20 million lives they lost in saving socialism and saving humanity from fascism; a country that had hardly been constructed when it was destroyed and they rebuilt it again. . ." The Soviet people showed the world that the workers and oppressed can storm the heavens and liberate themselves from capitalist oppression and slavery. It will happen again. -30- (Copyright Workers World Service: Permission to reprint granted if source is cited. For more info contact Workers World, 46 W. 21 St., New York, NY 10010; "workers" on PeaceNet; on Internet: "workers@mcimail.com".) NY Transfer News Service * All the News that Doesn't Fit Modem: 718-448-2358 * Internet: nytransfer@igc.apc.org