‘A century of revolution and counter-revolution’

This is apropos a Business Recorder op-ed “A century of revolution and counter-revolution” carried by the newspaper yesterday. The writer, Rashed Rahman, has offered a highly informed perspective on the subject. According to him, “The trigger for the 1917 revolutions in Russia proved to be the First World War. An absolutist monarchy out of touch with its people’s misery and demonstrating its incompetence on the battlefield fell prey to a general uprising of the people in February 1917. The revolution abolished the monarchy and declared a democratic republic. Most revolutionaries (including Lenin’s Bolsheviks), not to mention reformers, believed this democratic phase of the revolution would last for an extended period of time, such was the relief and euphoria at seeing the back of Czarism. However, the one man who thought differently changed the course of Russian and world history by arguing that Russia was ripe for a socialist revolution.”

The writer, however, may appreciate the point that unlike the proponents of the French Revolution who justified their action of dismantling an established order through facts on grounds, Lenin and his comrades were relying solely on the Marxist rhetoric; they hardly had plausible reasons to justify their historic action.

Let’s try to look at the October Revolution from another angle: Nazis were bad people; they planned bad things and they executed all bad things. The Communists, including Lenin and Leon Trotsky, were good people; they planned good things. Unfortunately, however, they implemented or carried out bad things. That is why Marxism ultimately gave birth to Stalinism.

KARACHI ABU OMAR