Optimism—historical and up-to-date
Packed meeting in Belfast to mark the October Revolution
To draw a crowd of well over fifty people to a political meeting in Belfast would be marked as a great success for any political party, never mind one on a subject that is usually denied mainstream media publicity, considered “a thing of the past,” and organised by the communists into the bargain.
But it can be done; and last Thursday [25 October] the CPI premises had nothing but very limited standing room to offer from 7 p.m. onwards; even the windowsills had to be converted into seats in the course of the evening.
The make-up of the visitors was as fascinating as the meeting itself: CPI activists, of course, and members of the CYM, Unity readers, and a remarkable number of trade-unionists. Members of other progressive organisations—the Workers’ Party and Socialist Party, to name but two—were there, and, strikingly obvious, ordinary working people, many of them very young.
“We heard about it on the radio, and it took a while to find you, but what a night! We’ll be back.” The comment of a young couple somehow sums up the feeling.
The internationalist attitude of the CPI was visible at this event, as at many others. Comrades and friends from various countries attended: Cuba, the United States, Uruguay, Switzerland, and Germany.
The general secretary of the CPI, Eugene McCartan, in his short but absolutely inspiring opening speech, left no doubt about the party’s position on the October Revolution. The first time working-class power became reality in history was a keystone for the development of the communist movement and is—despite all the problems and faults of the Soviet Union—as valid today as it was then. He drew a bridge to the rest of the world and to the now: none of the concessions capitalism had to make to the working class, such as retirement age, public health system, education for working people and so forth, would be in existence nowadays had the first workers’ state in history not put them into practice.
And, like 1917, no advances can be made without class struggle: “There is no easy option. If we knew one, we’d go for it. No progress will be made without hard, sometimes bitter struggle . . .”
Noell Carrillo is an amazing man. If any country had been threatened in its very existence just a day before by a brutal speech by the head of the world’s no. 1 imperialist power, one would expect the ambassador of that country to be nervous and frightened. Not so the Cuban one: in sharp but very optimistic words Noel made it clear that the Cuban revolution will neither be finished should Fidel Castro not return to office, nor will the Cuban people be bullied into returning to capitalism. “They [the US government] think that if Fidel dies the revolution is dead. They believe their own lies, but of course we don’t.”
The ambassador emphasised the political nature of the renewed threats—the total economic strangulation by the United States is already happening—and that political solidarity is needed more than ever. The attempts to demonise and internationally isolate Cuba must be thwarted. Everybody in the audience understood the urgent need to put every effort into intensifying publicity and truthful information about Cuba.
Noel Carrillo’s conclusions from the October Revolution showed how up-to-date it is. He left no doubt that a socialist country like Cuba would not be there today without the events of 1917, and made it equally clear that the alive and continuing Cuban Revolution is very different, because of the conditions, and that any revolutionary change will have its own dynamics and learn the lessons from previous ones.
The keynote speaker, Prof. Hans Heinz Holz, had the audience glued to their chairs for a good forty minutes. The eighty-year-old philosopher is living proof that the philosophy of the working class is nothing dry or high above their heads.
His talk, which was given in English and without a written script (“I’d rather do it coming from the heart than in well-translated pre-fabricated form”) was one of the most stunning mixtures of personal experience and scientific facts that many of the guests had heard.
“I survived German fascism and its prisons. Had it not been for the Soviet Union, the result of the October Revolution and its struggle against fascism, I would not be alive today.” Could anyone in this world give more up-to-date testimonial of the need of socialism?
His logic is that of a true Marxist and a lifelong scientist. “If the theory which Marx, Engels and Lenin worked out is correct—and we have evidence that it is correct—we don’t need new Marxism, we need to put this one into practice. To get it to the masses of the working people we have to start here and today, all of us here in the room.”
Holz’s critical remarks on the faults and deformations of socialism in both the Soviet Union and the other European socialist countries are at no point dominating his belief in socialism as the only possible future form of society. “The only other alternative is the fall into barbarism, the end of mankind as a civilised species”—a belief that results from knowledge and that is the driving force behind his optimism. It was not surprising that the limited number of copies of his book The Downfall and Future of Socialism were sold out within minutes of the end of the meeting.
The optimistic mood of the speakers was taken home by everyone after this remarkable meeting. It’s the task of the communists to turn it into increased activity.
[HGB] |