THE GREAT OCTOBER AND THE UNFINISHED STRUGGLE
OF THE WORKING CLASS
On the 109th Anniversary of the Great October Socialist Revolution, the Contradictions of World Capitalism, and the Continuing Necessity of Social Emancipation
By Kat Ulrike
This note extends its revolutionary greetings on the occasion of the 109th anniversary of the Great October Socialist Revolution, whose historical significance remains inseparable from the continuing struggle of the working masses against exploitation, oppression, and the domination of society by the interests of capital. Although commemorated in November under the Gregorian calendar, the revolution retains its October designation from the old Julian calendar, under which the workers, soldiers, and revolutionary forces of Petrograd overthrew the Provisional Government on October 25, 1917. More than a century has passed since that momentous event, and the world has undergone transformations that the revolutionaries of that period could scarcely have anticipated. Nevertheless, the commemoration of October serves as a reminder that the struggle for the emancipation of labor does not necessarily disappear with the defeat of revolutionary movements, the dissolution of socialist governments, or the apparent triumph of an opposing political and economic order.
The history of the international working-class movement has never been an uninterrupted succession of victories. It has been marked by periods of extraordinary advance and equally profound retreat, by revolutionary enthusiasm and political disillusionment, by the construction of new institutions and the destruction of those institutions through internal contradictions and external pressures. Yet the historical significance of these developments cannot be determined solely by the survival or disappearance of particular states and organizations. Political institutions may collapse, revolutionary parties may lose their influence, and entire generations may be persuaded that the aspirations of their predecessors have become obsolete. The material conditions from which those aspirations arose, however, do not necessarily vanish with the organizations that once represented them. As long as exploitation, class inequality, economic dependence, and the concentration of productive resources continue to characterize society, the fundamental questions raised by the revolutionary movement remain unresolved.
Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels opened their Manifesto of the Communist Party with the declaration that a spectre was haunting Europe, the spectre of communism. This observation, written in 1848, expressed more than the apprehensions of European governments confronted by a developing socialist movement. It referred to the emergence of a historical force whose existence challenged the legitimacy of the economic and political relationships upon which the established order depended. The subsequent history of capitalism has demonstrated that the spectre was never confined exclusively to the European continent, nor could it be permanently exorcised through political repression, ideological denunciation, or the eventual collapse of the Soviet Union and the socialist governments of Eastern Europe.
For generations, the defenders of the established order have attempted to diminish the significance of revolutionary history through arguments that range from the failures of particular socialist experiments to the supposed impossibility of organizing society upon principles other than competition, private accumulation, and the pursuit of individual advantage. They have repeatedly invoked freedom, liberty, democracy, choice, and personal initiative as though the frequent repetition of these terms were sufficient to establish the moral and historical legitimacy of the prevailing economic system. Indeed, the extraordinary persistence of these arguments suggests that the question of social emancipation remains sufficiently troublesome to require continual ideological opposition, even after the political establishments of the capitalist world have proclaimed the definitive triumph of their preferred system.
One may call the revolutionary aspiration idealistic, impractical, or even delusional, as its critics frequently do. Nevertheless, such descriptions cannot substitute for an examination of the economic relationships that continue to generate inequality and social conflict. It is insufficient to declare that socialism has failed and capitalism has prevailed without examining whether the latter has resolved the conditions that made the former historically necessary. The existence of a victorious economic order does not establish that its contradictions have been overcome, just as the defeat of a revolutionary movement does not necessarily demonstrate that the grievances from which it emerged were without foundation.
Capitalism has undoubtedly established itself as the dominant world economic system. Its institutions, commercial relationships, financial arrangements, and conception of economic development influence virtually every country, regardless of the political terminology employed by their governments. Its vocabulary has become the ordinary language of public administration, business management, international finance, education, and even personal conduct. Investment, productivity, entrepreneurship, competitiveness, innovation, and consumer choice are presented not merely as economic activities but as indispensable principles of modern civilization. Their apparent universality has reached the point where alternative conceptions of economic organization are frequently dismissed before their underlying arguments have been seriously examined.
Even countries that continue to identify themselves as socialist, particularly China and Cuba, operate within an international economic environment substantially determined by global capitalist relations. China possesses extensive state-owned industries and powerful institutions of economic planning while also maintaining a large market economy, substantial private enterprise, and a central position in international manufacturing and trade. Cuba retains a much more extensive system of state ownership and direction, although its economic arrangements have also been affected by market reforms, private activity, international trade, and external financial constraints. These differences are significant, and it would be inaccurate to treat the two countries as possessing identical relations of production. Nevertheless, neither exists outside the pressures of the international division of labor, commodity exchange, technological competition, and the global accumulation of capital.
Capitalism must therefore be examined as a world system rather than merely as a collection of individual national economies. Its influence extends beyond the formal ownership of enterprises into the relationships through which countries acquire technology, obtain financing, organize production, distribute goods, employ labor, and participate in international exchange. The economic policies of governments may differ considerably, but the material requirements imposed by global commerce and the concentration of productive capabilities continue to shape the choices available to them. The domination of capitalism is consequently not abolished by the existence of governments that employ socialist terminology, just as its universal influence does not imply that every society possesses the same economic institutions or the same degree of political independence.
The defenders of capitalism frequently regard this historical predominance as sufficient justification for treating the system as the natural and permanent organization of human economic life. According to this argument, the persistence of competition, inequality, private ownership, and the pursuit of material advantage demonstrates that capitalism corresponds more closely to human nature than its alternatives. The imperfections of the system are acknowledged, but these imperfections are themselves converted into evidence of its realism. Greed, selfishness, acquisitiveness, and the unequal distribution of wealth are explained as unavoidable expressions of human conduct, while proposals for transforming the social relationships that encourage them are dismissed as attempts to establish an impossible perfection.
Yet the same system that claims to accommodate human imperfection continually demands perfection in production, management, technology, and individual performance. Workers are instructed to become more productive, enterprises are encouraged to eliminate inefficiency, industries are expected to achieve ever greater competitiveness, and governments are urged to remove obstacles to investment and commercial expansion. The individual is subjected to an apparently endless requirement to improve qualifications, acquire additional skills, demonstrate initiative, and adapt to increasingly rapid economic changes. The system accepts the supposed inevitability of exploitation and inequality as expressions of human nature while refusing to accept limitations upon the productive demands imposed upon human beings.
This contradiction exposes the peculiarity of the prevailing conception of progress. Capitalism recognizes the necessity of continually transforming the machinery and methods of production, yet its defenders frequently resist the proposition that the social relationships governing production might themselves require transformation. Scientific discoveries may overturn established methods of industry, technological developments may render occupations obsolete, and entire communities may be subjected to economic restructuring in the name of efficiency. Nevertheless, the continued subordination of labor to capital is defended as though it belonged to an immutable social order.
Thus the world is encouraged to imagine a technologically extraordinary future while remaining bound to economic relationships inherited from an earlier period of industrial development. The appearance of society changes, but the fundamental question of who controls the means of production and appropriates the results of collective labor remains substantially unchanged. The future becomes an endless succession of machines, commodities, and commercial innovations rather than a transformation of the social conditions under which human beings live and work.
Marx and Engels themselves recognized capitalism’s extraordinary revolutionary role in developing the forces of production. Their analysis did not deny the capacity of the bourgeoisie to transform industry, expand international commerce, overcome the restrictions of feudal society, and establish productive capabilities of unprecedented magnitude. On the contrary, their criticism rested partly upon the contradiction between the immense social character of modern production and the private appropriation of much of the resulting wealth. Capitalism developed the material possibilities for improving human existence while maintaining relationships that prevented those possibilities from being fully realized by the people whose labor sustained them.
The fundamental relationship between capital and wage labor remains central to this contradiction. Marx, writing in Wage Labour and Capital, observed that capital presupposes wage labor and wage labor presupposes capital. In Marxist political economy, capital is not merely a quantity of money, a collection of machinery, or a stock of accumulated commodities. It is also a social relationship through which the owners or controllers of productive resources employ labor power in the process of producing additional value. The worker receives wages, but the productive activity performed under capitalist relations generates value beyond that represented by the compensation paid for labor power. The difference forms the basis of Marx’s theory of surplus value and his explanation of capitalist exploitation.
This distinction remains fundamental despite the considerable changes in the organization of the world economy since 1917. Where production is organized through the employment of wage labor for the accumulation of capital, there continues to exist a working class whose economic position cannot be abolished merely through changes in occupational terminology. The industrial worker, office employee, teacher, supermarket attendant, hospital worker, transport employee, warehouse laborer, call-center agent, and digital-platform worker may occupy different positions within the productive process. Their educational qualifications, incomes, professional identities, and conditions of employment may differ substantially. Nevertheless, their dependence upon the sale of labor power and their limited control over the principal decisions governing production remain important characteristics of their economic position.
The composition of the working class has undergone profound changes during the past century. Extensive industrial complexes have emerged in China, Southeast Asia, Latin America, and other regions historically classified as belonging to the developing world, while traditional concentrations of heavy industry in Western Europe and North America have experienced restructuring, contraction, and relocation. The decline of mining, steelmaking, shipbuilding, and other established industries has weakened working-class communities whose collective identity developed through generations of employment in particular enterprises and localities. Meanwhile, the expansion of services, finance, information technology, and digitally mediated employment has created new occupational arrangements that often conceal rather than eliminate the dependence of labor upon capital.
These transformations have affected not only the material organization of production but also the consciousness of the people participating in it. The disappearance of large industrial workplaces and their associated communities has weakened many of the institutions through which workers developed a common understanding of their economic interests. Trade unions, mutual-aid organizations, cooperatives, political associations, and working-class cultural institutions have experienced changes in influence and membership, while the language of individual advancement has increasingly displaced the language of collective emancipation. Workers are encouraged to regard themselves primarily as consumers, professionals, entrepreneurs, independent contractors, or aspirants to an indefinitely expanding middle-class existence, even when their livelihoods remain dependent upon employment under conditions established by others.
The result has been an increasingly fragmented conception of labor. Economic difficulties that arise from common structural relationships are frequently interpreted as evidence of personal inadequacy, insufficient discipline, or a failure to acquire the qualifications demanded by the market. Unemployment becomes a problem of employability, inadequate wages a problem of personal financial management, and insecure working conditions an unavoidable consequence of competition. Such interpretations do not necessarily deny the importance of individual responsibility, but they become ideological when they obscure the relationships through which economic opportunities and constraints are distributed unequally across society.
One may consequently ask whether the defenders of capitalism will eventually find it necessary to abandon the very terminology of capitalism in favor of expressions possessing a more agreeable moral appearance. Shall the prevailing order be described as initiativism, effortism, or some other doctrine celebrating the virtues of enterprise and industriousness while avoiding serious examination of ownership, exploitation, and class power? Such hypothetical descriptions may appear exaggerated, but they reflect a tendency already present in contemporary economic discourse, where the language of self-improvement is increasingly employed to explain social relationships that cannot be reduced to individual conduct.
The individual is encouraged to regard the self as an enterprise whose knowledge, personality, appearance, reputation, and productive abilities must be continually improved to preserve market value. Professional development becomes a permanent obligation, personal relationships may acquire commercial significance, and even leisure is increasingly examined according to its contribution to individual advancement. The distinction between the human being and the economic commodity becomes less apparent when personal existence is subjected to continuous evaluation through the requirements of employability and competitive performance.
This development gives renewed relevance to Marx’s analysis of alienation. The worker may possess advanced qualifications and sophisticated technical abilities while remaining separated from meaningful control over the organization, purposes, and results of productive activity. Technological progress does not necessarily overcome this relationship, for the introduction of new machinery may strengthen the authority of those who control investment and production while increasing the dependence of workers upon decisions in which they possess little influence.
The development of artificial intelligence and advanced automation has brought these contradictions into increasingly sharp relief. For generations, scientific and technological progress was presented as the means through which humanity might gradually free itself from exhausting, repetitive, and dangerous labor. Machinery was expected to increase productivity and provide the material conditions for improved living standards, greater security, and the reduction of unnecessary toil. Yet under an economic system in which investment decisions are substantially governed by profitability and the accumulation of capital, technological improvements may instead become instruments for reducing employment, intensifying surveillance, weakening bargaining power, and transferring the benefits of productivity to those who own the new productive assets.
The worker is thus encouraged to compete not only with other workers but also with the machinery introduced to increase productive efficiency. Human beings and machines are incorporated into the same system of production, although their respective positions within that system are fundamentally different. Machinery does not experience exploitation in the human sense, but it may become an instrument through which the conditions of exploitation are reorganized. The contradiction is particularly striking when enterprises celebrate the arrival of technologies capable of reducing necessary labor while the people whose employment may be displaced are informed that they must simply acquire additional qualifications and find alternative opportunities within the same economic order.
A society possessing increasingly sophisticated productive capabilities ought to be able to examine whether higher productivity might permit shorter working hours, more secure livelihoods, improved public services, and broader access to education and cultural development. Yet such possibilities are frequently subordinated to the requirement that technological advancement must first demonstrate its commercial profitability. The question of who benefits from increased productivity is consequently treated as secondary to the question of whether that productivity generates satisfactory returns upon investment.
The same contradiction extends into the relationship between industrial development and the natural environment. The celebrated technologies of the digital age depend upon extensive material infrastructures, including energy generation, mining, semiconductor manufacturing, transportation, construction, and the processing of substantial quantities of natural resources. Their production may involve environmental degradation, land conversion, displacement of communities, and the concentration of strategic resources in the hands of a relatively small number of enterprises. The technological future promoted through commercial advertising may therefore reproduce forms of exploitation whose origins belong to the earliest periods of industrial capitalism.
It would be a mistake to interpret these contradictions as evidence that technological development should be rejected in favor of an idealized agricultural or preindustrial existence. Such a conclusion would deny the productive possibilities created by modern science and industry. The question is not whether humanity should abandon machinery but whether the immense capacities of modern production should remain subordinate to private accumulation or be organized according to broader social objectives. A system capable of producing unprecedented quantities of wealth cannot claim to have fulfilled its historical purpose merely because it has perfected the instruments of production while leaving substantial sections of humanity without adequate food, housing, employment security, and access to essential services.
The contradiction between productive development and social dependence becomes equally apparent in the international economic order. Developing countries are repeatedly instructed to organize their economies according to comparative advantage, attract foreign investment, liberalize commercial relationships, and participate in global supply chains through activities corresponding to their existing productive capabilities. These prescriptions are commonly presented as neutral conclusions of economic science, even though their application may reinforce historical inequalities between industrially advanced economies and those whose productive capacities remain comparatively underdeveloped.
Comparative advantage is a legitimate analytical concept in international economics, and specialization can produce substantial gains from trade. The difficulty arises when an account of existing productive relationships is transformed into a permanent prescription for national development. If a country presently possesses an advantage in inexpensive labor, agricultural commodities, or elementary processing, it may be encouraged to remain within these activities rather than undertake the difficult process of establishing advanced industries. The immediate requirements of commercial competitiveness may consequently become obstacles to the long-term development of national productive capabilities.
The historical experience of industrialization demonstrates that productive advantages are not simply inherited through geography or determined permanently by the existing distribution of resources. They may be created through investment, infrastructure, education, technological acquisition, industrial research, institutional coordination, and the deliberate cultivation of domestic enterprises. The development of advanced manufacturing in South Korea, semiconductor production in Taiwan, and aircraft manufacturing in Brazil demonstrates that capabilities once regarded as beyond the reach of particular national economies may be established through sustained industrial policy.
The issue is therefore not whether developing countries should reject international trade or foreign capital. It is whether their participation in the world economy should be determined exclusively by existing inequalities in productive capacity or directed toward the transformation of those capacities. Foreign investment may contribute to national development when it supports domestic industries, technology transfer, engineering capabilities, skilled employment, and the expansion of productive resources under increasingly favorable conditions. It becomes considerably less satisfactory when its principal attraction lies in inexpensive labor, fiscal concessions, imported industrial inputs, and the continued dependence of local enterprises upon decisions made outside the national economy.
For the Philippines, these questions possess immediate importance. Economic growth cannot be regarded as a sufficient measure of national development if the expansion of commercial activity does not produce a corresponding strengthening of domestic industry, agriculture, infrastructure, and technological capability. The development of business-process outsourcing, overseas employment, commercial real estate, and foreign-financed activities has contributed to national income, but these achievements do not automatically establish the productive foundations required for genuine industrial advancement.
A country that exports substantial quantities of labor while importing much of the machinery, equipment, advanced technology, and finished goods upon which its economy depends must eventually examine whether it is building the foundations of independent economic development or merely accommodating itself to a subordinate position within the international division of labor. The problem cannot be resolved through appeals to entrepreneurship alone, nor through the assumption that the unrestricted operation of the market will necessarily generate the industrial capabilities required for national progress.
Industrial development requires a deliberate relationship between public investment, domestic capital formation, scientific education, infrastructure, agriculture, energy, transport, and the establishment of industries capable of creating increasingly sophisticated products. It also requires consideration of the relationship between economic development and the distribution of its benefits. A nation may establish modern factories and attract considerable foreign investment while leaving workers without adequate compensation, farmers without secure livelihoods, and communities without the infrastructure necessary for social progress. The expansion of productive capacity is indispensable, but its social purpose cannot be determined solely by the profitability of the enterprises engaged in production.
The prevailing international order frequently presents the future as a collection of technological capabilities that developing countries must purchase, import, or acquire through participation in production networks controlled elsewhere. Such a conception risks transforming national development into a permanent process of adjustment to priorities established by more powerful economies. The possibility of creating independent productive capabilities is consequently subordinated to the immediate requirements of investment attraction, trade specialization, and competitiveness.
This is one of the more consequential contradictions of contemporary capitalism. It celebrates the advancement of productive forces while frequently discouraging weaker economies from undertaking the institutional transformations necessary to develop those forces independently. Progress is encouraged insofar as it strengthens participation in established commercial relationships, but it becomes subject to suspicion when it involves deliberate changes in the distribution of economic power.
The same reluctance to examine the historical foundations of economic relationships can be observed in the manner by which contemporary society organizes its memory. Capitalism depends upon the continuous introduction of new commodities, technologies, and methods of production, while commercial competition encourages the replacement of objects that were themselves celebrated as revolutionary only a few years earlier. The mobile phone, computer, vehicle, and household appliance are repeatedly transformed into successive generations of products whose desirability depends partly upon the suggestion that what was previously adequate has become obsolete.
This process of commercial renewal is not necessarily without productive or social benefit. Technological improvements can increase efficiency, improve safety, and expand human capabilities. Nevertheless, the commercial celebration of novelty may encourage a broader cultural tendency to regard historical experience as irrelevant simply because it belongs to an earlier period. The old becomes synonymous with the obsolete, while the new acquires an appearance of superiority independent of its actual contribution to human welfare.
Such attitudes become politically consequential when applied to the history of working-class struggle. The achievements of trade unions, socialist movements, cooperatives, labor organizations, and campaigns for social protection are increasingly treated as ordinary features of modern economic administration rather than historical results of prolonged political conflict. The circumstances under which workers secured the recognition of collective bargaining, shorter working hours, occupational protections, and social insurance gradually disappear from public consciousness. Institutions established through collective struggle may come to be regarded as concessions provided by enlightened governments or employers rather than achievements arising from the organization of the working masses themselves.
The weakening of historical memory is reinforced by the fragmentation of employment and the decline of institutions through which workers previously developed a collective understanding of their interests. Individuals are encouraged to interpret their economic circumstances principally through the language of personal responsibility and professional advancement, while structural questions concerning ownership, production, and the distribution of wealth are increasingly confined to specialized political or academic discussions. The consequence is a society in which enormous quantities of information circulate continuously while the historical relationships necessary to interpret that information become less familiar to much of the population.
The interests of the bourgeoisie are served when the working class loses the capacity to recognize the historical origins of its own rights and institutions. This does not require the existence of a single coordinated conspiracy. The requirements of commercial culture, the weakening of collective organizations, and the increasingly individualized character of employment may themselves encourage the erosion of class consciousness. Nevertheless, the political consequences are substantial, for a working class deprived of historical understanding may be encouraged to accept as natural those relationships that earlier generations struggled to transform.
The preservation of revolutionary memory must therefore involve more than the repetition of historical slogans or the ceremonial observance of anniversaries. It requires serious examination of the development of capitalism, the transformations of the working class, the achievements and failures of socialist governments, and the changing conditions under which social emancipation may be pursued. The historical experience of the proletariat cannot be reduced to an imagined past that must be restored. Its importance lies in the lessons it offers concerning the organization of society and the possibilities of future transformation.
The distinction is especially important because reactionary political movements have frequently employed an idealized conception of the past to justify their own programs. Nationalist, authoritarian, and religious movements may present social restoration as the recovery of an imagined period of harmony, authority, and established hierarchy. Such movements differ substantially from one another, but their appeal frequently rests upon the promise that the contradictions of modern society can be overcome through the reestablishment of selected institutions or identities associated with an earlier historical period.
The revolutionary socialist conception of history proceeds from a different premise. It understands society as a developing totality whose productive capacities, institutions, and social relationships are subject to historical transformation. The purpose of historical inquiry is not to reconstruct an idealized social order that once existed but to understand the conditions through which a society beyond existing relationships of exploitation might become possible. The proletariat, within this conception, is a class whose historical interests are associated with the transformation of the present rather than the preservation of inherited privilege.
It is against this wider historical background that the recent political events of 2026 acquire particular significance. The strikes and demonstrations in France, the reelection of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in Brazil, the political and financial crisis surrounding Paraguay’s President Santiago Peña, the results of the United States midterm elections, and renewed protest movements in Southeast Asia have revealed substantial dissatisfaction with established political and economic arrangements. Their origins, participants, and immediate objectives differ, and it would be incorrect to regard them as manifestations of one unified revolutionary movement. Nevertheless, their recurrence demonstrates that the institutional predominance of capitalism has not produced an uncontested social order.
In France, the nationwide strikes and demonstrations of November 5 brought together workers, students, trade unions, and other sections of society protesting wages, purchasing power, public services, and the economic conditions confronting ordinary people. Participation estimates differed substantially between the authorities and labor organizations, but the scale of the mobilization demonstrated that the social contradictions confronting a developed capitalist economy had not been eliminated through the institutions of parliamentary government and the welfare state. The demands extended beyond immediate compensation to questions concerning public expenditure, employment conditions, education, and the distribution of the burdens associated with economic adjustment.
In Brazil, the reelection of Lula on October 25, defeating Flávio Bolsonaro in a closely contested presidential contest, demonstrated the continuing political influence of forces historically associated with organized labor, social inclusion, and state intervention in economic development. Lula’s victory does not constitute a revolutionary transformation of Brazilian society, nor does it place his government outside the contradictions of capitalism. Nevertheless, the continued appeal of a political movement rooted in the history of the labor struggle challenges the proposition that the pursuit of social redistribution and public economic intervention has lost its political relevance.
The crisis in Paraguay provides an illustration of the relationship between financial institutions and political legitimacy. The collapse of digital lender ueno, the freezing of depositors’ funds, and allegations concerning the relationships between political authorities and financial interests provoked public anger and demands for accountability. President Santiago Peña announced his resignation on November 5, although its formal acceptance remained unresolved as impeachment proceedings continued on November 6. The affair demonstrated how rapidly questions ordinarily treated as matters of banking supervision, corporate governance, and financial regulation may become political crises when ordinary people discover that their savings and economic security have been endangered.
In the United States, the November 3 midterm elections produced Democratic victories sufficient to secure control of both chambers of Congress, reflecting a substantial electoral reversal for the Republican administration of President Donald Trump. The results cannot be regarded as an endorsement of revolutionary socialism, particularly within a political system whose principal parties remain broadly committed to capitalist economic arrangements. Nevertheless, they indicate that the institutional strength of an incumbent government does not automatically guarantee continued public acceptance of its policies, and that questions concerning living costs, public accountability, and the direction of national governance remain capable of producing significant political change.
The situation in Southeast Asia reveals similar tensions under different economic and political circumstances. In Indonesia, students, workers, transport employees, and civic organizations have participated in demonstrations over corruption, wages, employment conditions, and the concentration of political authority. In Thailand, protests associated with the October meetings of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank brought attention to debt, economic inequality, environmental destruction, and the influence of international financial institutions over national development. These mobilizations were particularly significant because their participants challenged not merely individual governmental decisions but also the wider economic relationships through which indebtedness, resource allocation, and development priorities are determined.
The Philippines has likewise witnessed renewed demonstrations over corruption, political accountability, dynastic influence, and the distribution of public resources. Protest actions surrounding the September commemoration of the declaration of martial law brought together students, workers, civic organizations, and other concerned groups demanding accountability for irregularities associated with public expenditure, including the flood-control controversy. These immediate political grievances exist alongside more enduring questions concerning inadequate wages, insecure employment, agrarian inequality, homelessness, deficient infrastructure, and the continued dependence of national development upon an unequal international economic order.
These events do not establish that a revolutionary situation exists simultaneously in every country mentioned, nor that the participants in these movements possess identical political objectives. The distinction is essential to a materialist understanding of political developments. Popular dissatisfaction may produce demands for reform, changes in electoral leadership, the reorganization of existing institutions, or more fundamental challenges to the economic and political order. The direction of such movements depends upon the relationship between objective conditions, political organization, social consciousness, and the capacity of competing classes and political forces to influence the outcome.
Nevertheless, the recurrence of these conflicts exposes the limitations of the prevailing claim that the existing economic order has achieved a stable reconciliation between productive development and social welfare. Governments may respond through concessions, legislative measures, institutional reforms, political appeals, or restrictions upon protest. Such responses differ considerably in legitimacy and consequence, but they demonstrate that the preservation of established authority remains inseparable from the management of social contradictions that have not been permanently resolved.
The defenders of the existing order frequently invoke freedom, democracy, and constitutional legitimacy when confronted by popular dissatisfaction. These principles possess real historical importance, and their defense remains necessary wherever arbitrary authority threatens the rights of citizens. Yet their invocation becomes contradictory when the legitimacy of political participation is recognized only insofar as it remains confined to questions that do not challenge established relations of economic power. Workers may be encouraged to exercise their right to vote, but demands for a fundamental transformation of ownership and production are often dismissed as incompatible with the supposedly natural requirements of economic society.
Thus arises the contradiction between the formal sovereignty of the people and the material authority exercised by those who control the principal resources of production. Political institutions may recognize equality before the law while operating within an economic order characterized by profound inequalities of property, income, and social influence. The citizen possesses the formal right to participate in elections, while the worker may remain dependent upon employment conditions determined by enterprises whose decisions are not subject to comparable democratic accountability.
It is in this context that the Marxist conception of the dictatorship of the proletariat must be examined. The term has frequently been employed by opponents of Marxism as evidence that revolutionary socialism necessarily requires the establishment of arbitrary rule. Yet its theoretical origins concern the historical character of state power and the class relationships upon which political authority rests. For Marx, the transition from capitalist to communist society involved a period in which political power would be exercised by the proletariat for the purpose of transforming the economic and institutional foundations of class domination.
The concept did not concern merely the replacement of one set of government officials with another. It concerned the question of which class exercised decisive authority over the state and whose interests were protected through the organization of political power. In this interpretation, the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie referred to the class character of a political order founded upon capitalist property relations, even where that order possessed representative institutions and constitutional forms. The dictatorship of the proletariat was conceived as the revolutionary political rule of the working majority during the transformation of society beyond capitalist relations.
Lenin developed this argument in The State and Revolution, drawing upon Marx’s interpretation of the state and the experience of the Paris Commune. He argued that the working class could not accomplish its emancipation simply by assuming control of the established machinery of government without transforming the institutional relationships through which the state exercised authority. The revolutionary question was therefore not confined to the identity of those who occupied political office but extended to the organization of the state itself and its relationship to the classes composing society.
The historical experience of revolutionary governments, however, requires this theoretical conception to be examined critically. Institutions established in the name of proletarian political power have at times developed into systems characterized by bureaucratic privilege, political repression, and the concentration of authority. Such developments cannot be dismissed merely through appeals to revolutionary necessity, for they raise the question of whether political institutions claiming to represent the working class may themselves become separated from the people whose interests they profess to defend.
This problem is of fundamental importance to any serious contemporary examination of socialism. If the purpose of proletarian political power is the abolition of class domination, then its institutional organization must be assessed according to whether it actually expands the capacity of working people to participate in the direction of social life. The mere existence of a government identifying itself as socialist cannot establish that the economic and political relationships of exploitation have been overcome.
Nevertheless, the failures of particular revolutionary governments do not eliminate the question of class power. If the existing political order continues to protect relationships through which productive resources are controlled by a minority, then the transformation of society necessarily raises the question of how political authority itself might be reorganized. The right to revolution, considered within this historical framework, concerns the possibility that the legitimacy of established institutions may be challenged when those institutions are no longer regarded as capable of resolving fundamental social contradictions.
The right to revolution cannot be reduced to an indiscriminate authorization of violence or the proposition that any movement invoking the people thereby acquires unlimited moral authority. Political transformation remains subject to questions concerning human dignity, public accountability, and the consequences of the means employed. Nevertheless, the historical development of modern society demonstrates that fundamental changes in political authority have not always occurred exclusively through procedures established by the institutions being challenged. The distinction between legality and legitimacy consequently remains central to the examination of revolutionary history.
The political awakening of the working class is indispensable to this question. Economic hardship does not automatically produce revolutionary consciousness, nor does the existence of exploitation guarantee the emergence of a movement capable of transforming society. The development of class consciousness requires a process through which workers and other oppressed sections of society begin to understand their immediate difficulties in relation to the wider organization of production, ownership, and political authority.
John Reed, in Ten Days That Shook the World, provided a particularly revealing account of the political awakening that accompanied the Russian Revolution. Describing the extraordinary interest in political education and public debate among workers, soldiers, peasants, and other sections of society, he wrote of a country in which the demand for knowledge had become inseparable from the revolutionary struggle:
“All Russia was learning to read, and reading politics, economics, history - because the people wanted to know … The thirst for education, so long thwarted, burst with the Revolution into a frenzy of expression. From Smolny Institute alone, in the first six months, went out every day tons, carloads, trainloads of literature, saturating the land. Russia absorbed reading matter like hot sand drinks water … Then the Talk, beside which Carlyle’s ‘flood of French speech’ was a mere trickle. Lectures, debates, speeches - in theatres, circuses, school-houses, clubs, Soviet meeting-rooms, Union headquarters, barracks … meetings in the trenches at the front, in village squares, factories … What a marvellous sight to see Putilovsky (the Putilov Factory) pour out its forty thousand to listen to Social Democrats, Socialist Revolutionaries, Anarchists, anybody, whatever they had to say as long as they could talk! For months in Petrograd, and all over Russia, every street corner was a public tribune. In railway trains, street-cars, always the spurting of impromptu debates, everywhere … At every meeting, attempts to limit the time of speakers were voted down, and every man free to express the thought that was in him.”
Reed’s account possesses significance beyond its description of revolutionary enthusiasm. It illustrates the transformation of a population previously accustomed to occupying a subordinate position within established institutions into a political force increasingly determined to examine the organization of society. Workers who had previously been expected to devote their energies primarily to production began discussing economic theory, government, history, and the future of political authority. Soldiers questioned military discipline and the purposes of war. Peasants examined land ownership and the organization of agricultural production. Questions previously confined to government offices, universities, political parties, and intellectual circles became the subjects of public debate among people whose everyday circumstances had allowed them comparatively little influence over the direction of society.
The significance of this development rested upon the emergence of a new relationship between political knowledge and popular participation. The worker was no longer merely an employee seeking improved wages, the soldier no longer merely an instrument of military authority, and the peasant no longer merely a producer dependent upon established agrarian relationships. Each became involved in examining the institutions that determined the conditions of collective existence.
This is what is meant by the politicization of class struggle. Workers, driven by immediate economic necessity, may come to recognize that their difficulties cannot be fully understood without examining the wider organization of society. A dispute concerning wages may raise questions about productivity, ownership, and the distribution of profits. A struggle for housing may lead to the examination of land ownership, speculative investment, and the relationship between public policy and private property. A movement against corruption may develop into a broader inquiry concerning the relationship between political authority, commercial interests, and the control of national resources.
The transformation from immediate economic grievance to political consciousness is neither automatic nor inevitable. Workers may organize around limited reforms, and popular movements may remain committed to the preservation of existing institutions while demanding their improvement. Nevertheless, the possibility of broader political awakening remains inherent in the contradictions of social life. The class struggle becomes a question of political power when the participants begin to examine not merely the conditions under which they are governed but the legitimacy and organization of the institutions that govern them.
Lenin emphasized the importance of revolutionary theory in What Is To Be Done?, arguing that political movements required more than immediate dissatisfaction if they were to develop a systematic understanding of society. His observation concerning the relationship between revolutionary theory and revolutionary action reflected the conviction that class consciousness could not be reduced to spontaneous reactions against particular instances of exploitation. It required an examination of the totality of social relationships, the historical development of political institutions, and the interests of the classes participating in economic life.
The political education described by Reed was therefore not simply an incidental feature of the October Revolution. It was one of the conditions through which the revolutionary movement acquired a social character extending beyond the immediate activities of political organizations. The workers and soldiers engaged in public debate were examining the questions upon which the future organization of society depended. Their participation demonstrated that political knowledge need not remain the exclusive possession of established authorities and professional administrators.
The modern world possesses technological means of communication that would have appeared extraordinary to the revolutionaries of 1917. Information travels across continents almost instantaneously, economic statistics are published continuously, and political debate has acquired a global reach through digital networks. Nevertheless, the abundance of information does not automatically produce the development of political consciousness. The circulation of competing opinions may coexist with a limited understanding of the structural relationships governing economic and political life.
Indeed, the commercial organization of information can encourage the treatment of politics as entertainment, personal rivalry, or an endless succession of controversies detached from their material foundations. Questions concerning ownership, labor, production, and national development may be subordinated to disputes over personalities and administrative procedures. The citizen is encouraged to participate continuously in public discussion while exercising comparatively limited influence over the institutions whose decisions determine the distribution of economic resources.
The revolutionary significance of political education lies precisely in overcoming this separation between public discussion and the organization of society. The working class cannot develop an adequate understanding of its historical position solely through the accumulation of information. It must examine the relationships connecting everyday economic experience with the broader structures of production, ownership, public authority, and international economic power.
The recent political movements across Europe, the Americas, and Southeast Asia demonstrate the continuing possibility of such a development, although their eventual direction remains uncertain. The workers protesting in France, the citizens contesting political authority in the United States, the depositors demanding accountability in Paraguay, and the students and labor organizations mobilizing in Southeast Asia do not necessarily possess a common revolutionary program. Yet their grievances may give rise to questions extending beyond the immediate circumstances that brought them into political activity.
The important distinction is between a population that merely experiences the consequences of economic and political decisions and one that begins to question the relationships through which those decisions are made. Political awakening occurs when the ordinary conditions of social life cease to be regarded as natural or inevitable and become subjects of collective examination.
The defenders of the prevailing order frequently respond to such developments by presenting the preservation of stability as the highest objective of political life. Stability, however, cannot be understood independently of the conditions it preserves. A society may possess orderly institutions while tolerating severe inequality, economic insecurity, and the concentration of political influence. The restoration of administrative normality following a period of unrest does not necessarily establish that the grievances responsible for that unrest have been resolved.
This is not to suggest that disorder possesses an inherent revolutionary virtue or that the breakdown of institutions automatically benefits the working masses. The experience of revolutionary history provides numerous examples of social upheavals whose outcomes differed substantially from the aspirations of their participants. Nevertheless, the existence of institutional stability cannot be regarded as sufficient justification for preserving relationships that remain the subjects of legitimate social conflict.
The contradiction between the political language of freedom and the economic reality of dependence is particularly apparent in the position of wage labor. Workers are repeatedly informed that capitalism provides freedom of contract, freedom of employment, and the opportunity to pursue individual advancement. Yet the necessity of securing the means of subsistence places substantial limitations upon the practical choices available to those who possess little productive property. An employment agreement may be voluntary in the formal legal sense while reflecting inequalities of bargaining power that cannot be understood independently of the economic circumstances of the parties involved.
The same contradiction appears when enterprises demand public assistance during financial crises while opposing measures intended to strengthen the economic security of workers. The state, otherwise condemned as an obstacle to private initiative, may become indispensable when the preservation of established commercial interests requires intervention. Meanwhile, demands for higher wages, stronger labor protections, agricultural reform, public housing, and social provision are frequently subjected to arguments concerning fiscal discipline, competitiveness, and the dangers of excessive governmental involvement.
Such inconsistencies do not demonstrate that every intervention in support of enterprise is unjustified. Industrial development may require extensive public investment, infrastructure, technological research, and coordinated economic planning. The question concerns the interests served by these interventions and the distribution of their benefits. A developmental policy that strengthens national productive capacity while improving the material conditions of the working masses differs fundamentally in social purpose from one that uses public resources principally to preserve private profitability without corresponding obligations to the wider population.
The continued relevance of Marxist political economy lies in its insistence that these questions are not merely technical problems of administration. They concern the relationships between classes, the organization of production, and the distribution of economic power. The language of managerial efficiency may conceal the political character of decisions concerning wages, taxation, employment, investment, and public expenditure, but it cannot abolish their consequences for the classes composing society.
One may therefore observe that capitalism has not overcome class struggle so much as developed increasingly sophisticated institutions through which its contradictions are administered. The decline of traditional industrial workplaces, the expansion of digital employment, the internationalization of production, and the commercialization of everyday life have altered the appearance of class relationships, but they have not eliminated the fundamental dependence of labor upon capital.
The historical significance of the Great October Socialist Revolution must consequently be examined beyond the ceremonial commemoration of a particular victory. The revolution arose from the contradictions of a society devastated by war, agrarian inequality, economic dislocation, and the incapacity of established institutions to satisfy urgent popular demands. It represented an attempt to transform the relationship between political authority and the masses through the establishment of institutions identified with the rule of workers and peasants.
The Soviet experiment that followed produced achievements of considerable historical importance, including rapid industrialization, the expansion of education, scientific development, and the mobilization of productive resources. It also developed contradictions associated with political repression, bureaucratic privilege, coercive administration, and economic organization that require serious historical analysis. The dissolution of the Soviet Union cannot be dismissed as an insignificant event, but neither can it be treated as definitive evidence that the social questions motivating the October Revolution have been permanently resolved.
The failure of a particular institutional arrangement does not establish the impossibility of the social objectives it claimed to pursue. Equally, the historical achievements of a revolutionary government do not exempt its institutions from examination or criticism. The preservation of revolutionary memory demands an understanding of both achievements and failures, particularly where the concentration of political authority threatens to reproduce forms of domination inconsistent with the declared purpose of emancipation.
The experience of the twentieth century should therefore encourage the development of a more comprehensive understanding of socialism rather than the substitution of nostalgia for analysis. Questions concerning public ownership, economic planning, democratic participation, technological development, national independence, and international cooperation cannot be resolved merely by reproducing the institutional arrangements of earlier socialist governments. They require examination in relation to the material circumstances of contemporary society and the historical lessons furnished by previous attempts at transformation.
The fundamental contradiction of the present world remains the disparity between the extraordinary productive capabilities developed by humanity and the continuing insecurity experienced by substantial sections of the population. Modern industry can produce immense quantities of material goods, advanced agriculture possesses the means to increase food production, technological systems can coordinate economic activity across continents, and scientific research continues to expand the possibilities of human development. Yet poverty, homelessness, insecure employment, environmental destruction, and unequal access to essential services persist alongside these achievements.
The problem cannot be explained entirely through insufficient production, for the distribution and organization of productive resources remain central to the conditions under which people live. Nor can it be resolved solely through appeals to charity, individual discipline, or improved administrative efficiency. These measures may alleviate particular difficulties, but they do not necessarily transform the relationships through which economic inequality is generated and reproduced.
Capitalism’s defenders may continue to proclaim that the system has prevailed because it corresponds most closely to human nature and possesses an unmatched capacity for innovation. Its achievements in developing the productive forces are undeniable, but its historical predominance does not confer permanent legitimacy upon every relationship through which those forces are organized. The existence of private accumulation, wage dependence, and unequal control over productive resources remains a matter of historical development rather than an immutable requirement of human society.
The idea that humanity has reached the final and most satisfactory form of economic organization is itself contrary to the historical experience upon which modern civilization rests. Feudal institutions once appeared permanent, colonial empires justified their authority through appeals to civilization and necessity, and political arrangements regarded as indispensable by their defenders were eventually transformed through changes in productive capacities and social relationships.
There is no sufficient reason to assume that the institutions of contemporary capitalism possess an exemption from the historical processes that transformed earlier social orders. Their durability and capacity for adaptation must be recognized, but neither characteristic establishes that further transformation has become impossible.
This consideration is especially important in an age when technological progress is repeatedly presented as evidence that humanity has entered an entirely new historical condition. The instruments of production may have changed beyond recognition, but the continued subordination of labor to capital demonstrates that technological novelty does not necessarily constitute social transformation. A society may possess artificial intelligence, automated industry, advanced communications, and immense financial resources while continuing to organize economic life through relationships whose fundamental characteristics were already being examined by Marx during the nineteenth century.
The prevailing order thus offers a future whose technological appearance is continually renewed while its underlying economic relationships remain bound to a continuing past. The individual is encouraged to celebrate innovation while accepting the permanence of economic dependence, to admire the productive capacity of machinery while competing for employment against it, and to recognize the extraordinary wealth of modern society while treating insecurity and deprivation as unavoidable consequences of human nature.
The contradiction becomes increasingly difficult to justify as productive capabilities advance. If humanity can transform the organization of industry, develop sophisticated technologies, overcome geographical limitations, and create new forms of material wealth, then the proposition that its social relationships must remain substantially unchanged requires more than an appeal to tradition, market necessity, or the alleged imperfections of human conduct.
The question of the future cannot be separated from the question of political power. The working masses may seek immediate improvements in wages, employment, housing, education, and social protection, but the persistence of structural inequalities raises the wider question of who determines the direction of economic development and whose interests guide the organization of society. In Marxist theory, the struggle for proletarian political power emerges from the recognition that the transformation of productive relationships cannot be accomplished solely through changes in the administration of an unchanged economic order.
This does not make every protest revolutionary or every political crisis an indication of the imminent collapse of capitalism. A serious materialist analysis must distinguish between immediate dissatisfaction, organized class struggle, political crisis, and the development of conditions in which fundamental social transformation becomes possible. Nevertheless, the persistence of these possibilities demonstrates why the historical question raised by October cannot be dismissed merely because the institutions established in its name have experienced defeat.
The commemoration of the Great October Socialist Revolution should therefore be understood as an occasion for examining the unfinished development of human emancipation. Its significance does not depend upon an expectation that history must reproduce the events of Petrograd or that the political institutions of 1917 should be reconstructed in their original form. Rather, it lies in the recognition that the economic and political organization of society remains subject to historical transformation, and that the working masses possess a legitimate interest in determining the conditions under which their labor contributes to collective prosperity.
The revolutionary traditions of the working class must be preserved not as objects of uncritical reverence but as sources of historical understanding. Their achievements demonstrate the capacity of organized labor to influence the development of society, while their failures reveal the dangers of political isolation, institutional degeneration, bureaucratic privilege, and the substitution of authority exercised in the name of the people for the meaningful participation of the people themselves.
The recent political developments across the world do not establish that the international working class has already entered a unified revolutionary movement. They do, however, reveal the continued instability of the relationships through which economic and political authority is exercised. The grievances expressed by workers, students, depositors, farmers, and other sections of society demonstrate that the prevailing order has not succeeded in reconciling its promises of freedom and prosperity with the material circumstances of all those who live under it.
The politicization of these grievances remains a historical possibility rather than a predetermined outcome. The development of class consciousness depends upon the capacity to connect immediate economic experiences with the broader relationships of production, ownership, and political authority. Reed’s account of revolutionary Russia reminds us that periods of profound social conflict may also become periods of extraordinary intellectual and political awakening, when people previously confined to subordinate positions begin to participate in examining the organization of society itself.
The continued relevance of October rests upon this relationship between material conditions, historical consciousness, and political action. The transformation of society cannot be understood solely through changes in technology, commercial organization, or the personnel occupying public office. It involves the development of productive capabilities and the relationships through which the people who sustain those capabilities participate in determining their social purpose.
As the world enters another year marked by political dissatisfaction, economic uncertainty, technological transformation, and unresolved inequalities, the question posed by the Great October Socialist Revolution remains one of considerable historical importance. The working class has undergone profound changes in composition and organization, yet the relationships between capital and labor continue to shape the conditions of production and distribution. The international economic order has become increasingly integrated, yet the inequalities between nations and classes remain substantial. Humanity has developed extraordinary productive capabilities, yet the possibility of placing those capabilities more fully in the service of social emancipation remains contested.
The persistence of these contradictions provides sufficient reason to reject the proposition that class struggle belongs exclusively to the history of an earlier industrial age. The proletariat may no longer be concentrated primarily in the great factories and mining communities depicted in the photographs of the early twentieth century, but its continued existence within the relationships of modern production demonstrates that the material foundations of class conflict have not disappeared.
Capitalism may have prevailed, and its institutions may continue to dominate the international economic order, but its predominance does not constitute the completion of history. The development of productive forces does not automatically resolve the contradictions of their social organization, just as the repeated invocation of freedom, liberty, democracy, and initiative cannot establish the justice of every relationship defended in their name.
The future cannot be understood merely as an endless succession of technological innovations introduced into an otherwise unchanging social order. It must also remain open to the possibility of transforming the institutions through which humanity organizes production, distributes wealth, exercises political authority, and determines the purposes of collective economic life. Without such a possibility, the celebration of progress risks becoming the repeated presentation of an inherited economic order in increasingly modern forms.
It is upon this understanding that this note commemorates the 109th anniversary of the Great October Socialist Revolution, recognizing both the profound historical significance of the revolutionary movement and the necessity of examining its experience through the conditions of the present. The struggle for the emancipation of labor remains inseparable from the wider question of whether humanity can organize its productive capabilities in a manner that overcomes exploitation, reduces unnecessary dependence, and permits the people who create society’s wealth to participate meaningfully in determining its use.
The class war cannot be regarded as concluded merely because its outward forms have changed, because the institutions of earlier socialist governments have disappeared, or because the prevailing economic order has developed increasingly sophisticated means of preserving its authority. Its continued relevance must be judged according to the material relationships that persist within society and the contradictions that arise from them.
On this anniversary, the memory of October remains a reminder that social institutions are historical rather than eternal, that the productive achievements of humanity need not be regarded as inseparable from the economic relationships under which they were developed, and that the future remains a legitimate subject of collective political action. The unfinished struggle for social emancipation will continue to demand serious examination for as long as the development of productive wealth coexists with exploitation, insecurity, and the unequal distribution of economic power.
In extending revolutionary greetings upon this commemoration, this note recognizes that the historical importance of the Great October Socialist Revolution lies not merely in the victory achieved in 1917 but in the enduring questions it raised concerning class power, social ownership, political authority, and the emancipation of labor. These questions remain inseparable from the determination of whether the extraordinary productive capabilities of modern humanity will continue to reproduce the inequalities of an inherited order or contribute to the development of a society in which economic progress and human emancipation are no longer treated as competing objectives.
Long live the memory of the Great October Socialist Revolution and the continuing struggle for the emancipation of labor and humanity.
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References and further reading
Marx, K., & Engels, F. (1848). Manifesto of the Communist Party. https://www.gutenberg.org/files/61/61-h/61-h.htm
Marx, K. (1849). Wage Labour and Capital. https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/wage-labour/
Marx, K. (1867). Capital: A critique of political economy (Vol. 1). https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/
Marx, K. (1875). Critique of the Gotha Programme. https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1875/gotha/
Lenin, V. I. (1902). What Is To Be Done? Burning Questions of Our Movement. https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1901/witbd/
Lenin, V. I. (1917). The State and Revolution. https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/staterev/
Lenin, V. I. (1918). The Proletarian Revolution and the Renegade Kautsky. https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1918/prrk/
Reed, J. (1919). Ten Days That Shook the World. https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/3076
United Nations Conference on Trade and Development. (2016). Virtual Institute teaching material on structural transformation and industrial policy. https://unctad.org/system/files/official-document/gds2016d1_en.pdf
International Monetary Fund. (2022). Industrial Policy for Growth and Diversification: A Conceptual Framework.
Contemporary reporting
Associated Press. (2026, November 5). Reporting on nationwide labor and student protests in France.
Tribunal Superior Eleitoral, Brazil. (2026, October 26). Official announcement of the reelection of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.
Reuters. (2026, November 5–6). Reporting on the resignation announcement and impeachment proceedings involving Paraguayan President Santiago Peña.
Associated Press. (2026, November 4). Reporting on the United States midterm elections and Democratic congressional gains.
Channel NewsAsia. (2026, August 27). Reporting on anti-corruption demonstrations in Indonesia.
The Philippine Star. (2026, September 21). Reporting on Philippine anti-corruption protests marking the anniversary of martial law.
The Nation Thailand. (2026, October 15–16). Reporting on protests associated with the IMF and World Bank meetings in Bangkok.