This is the  part of an extensive series about the Bolshevik Revolution and the triumphs, as well as the defeats, of the world communist movement of the 20th century. We welcome your comments and criticisms, and encourage all readers to discuss this period of history with their friends, classmates, co-workers, family, and comrades.

 In 1921, the workers in the former Russian Empire were faced with building the first workers’ state on a territory with the area of one-sixth of the earth’s surface. Much of the brand-new Soviet Union’s best farmlands and economy were shattered by the imperialist devastation of World War I; widespread peasant revolts rocked the countryside while urban populations were declining; and on top of this there was a famine affecting millions of workers and farmers. The leaders of the Communist Party (nicknamed Bolsheviks in Russian) included Vladimir Lenin, who had no blueprints or previous experiences to learn from.
Lenin proposed that the Bolsheviks temporarily adopt aspects of capitalism in order to create jobs and develop industry first, and build socialism later. After considerable debate, the Bolsheviks responded with the New Economic Policy (NEP) which lasted until 1928. The NEP allowed a limited  restoration of capitalism that was meant to be under the control of the Soviet Union. Lenin and others felt while this was a retreat from socialism, it was necessary for survival of the revolution to rebuild after the devastating civil war that followed the 1917 Revolution.
How Was the NEP Set Up?
Workers went along with changes because they saw this as a temporary sacrifice to build socialism. They formed trade unions for the first time, and were managed by a single “red manager” who was skilled in new technology. Some were even previously factory owners. These managers became Party members making ten to twenty times what a worker was paid along with “perks” such as vacations and cars. Their skills included management of large scale operations that could take advantage of technology and generate profit. Technicians, engineers and other specialists played a large role, and were favored with higher wages as well.
Expansion of industry required foreign investment and trade from the very same capitalist nations who had previously invaded the Soviet Union after 1917 in order to crush it. Imports of machinery were essential to modernize. Unfortunately, this also meant that the peasants had to supply more grain to pay for these imports, and the Party could not pay them for this surplus.
During the NEP, poor peasants were left out of the progress. The party relied on the rich and middle peasants to guarantee enough food for the cities, as well as the surplus for trade with capitalists. Some rich peasants who controlled the flow of credit joined the Party, and did not share with the poor peasants. Meanwhile the industrial sector did not make simple and cheap tools for the poor farmers since they were not so profitable. Many poor peasants were driven off the land, and the Party’s efforts to be more responsive to them were not successful.
What Was the Outcome of the NEP?
Modernization of Soviet society moved quickly under the NEP. Banking and taxation systems were created, and a stable currency was achieved. By 1925-6 industry and agriculture had recovered. The government developed a budget process and first efforts were made at planning economic development.
Social programs, especially education and literacy, expanded. The Bolsheviks launched what was at the time the largest mass literacy campaign in human history, eclipsed by the communists in China years later. By 1928, school enrollment had jumped 50% above pre-war levels, and public libraries skyrocketed to 80 million, from the 9 million across the whole Russian Empire before World War I. Training of medical doctors led to the tripling of the number of doctors to 63,000, despite most older doctors fleeing the country during the war.
On the other hand, these advances came with a political price. The experience convinced many Party members that the NEP should continue despite the absence of socialist production in either the factories or the farms. Many new Party members who joined during this period and were less committed to communist principles, and this also influenced some of the older Bolsheviks. Thus, when agricultural production could not keep up with the rapid industrialization and the Party turned to collectivization of agriculture in 1929, there were serious disagreements that led to factions and conspiracies within the Party and the government.
The End of the NEP Era
All of this occurred in the infancy of the working class’ attempts to organize a proletarian communist revolution.  Following the NEP, the Bolsheviks launched the First Five Year Plan, a drive for rapid farm collectivization and industrialization. A great deal of struggle and sacrifice was demanded, as catapulting a country into the front ranks of the most developed nations in the world within five years had never been attempted in human history. It was wildly successful, and this effectively put an end to the NEP.
The NEP did get production going again after the tremendous devastation of war, famine, and epidemic disease. In this sense, it was successful for a few crucial years.
However, the main problem was political. The NEP embraced the ideology of the same capitalist system the revolution was against – production for a market, inequality, wealth and poverty. Millions of workers were won to capitalist politics, not the communist politics the Bolsheviks had organized for years. Many rich peasants and some factory owners joined the Party because they benefitted under NEP. This harmed poor peasants and many workers, who for a time were alienated from the revolution.
Perhaps most serious, many Party leaders supported NEP and were afraid to abandon it. During the difficult years of the First Five Year Plan, from 1929-1933, some Party leaders were won to cynicism and defeatism, sure that these policies would fail. They were so sure than they formed secret factional, conspiratorial groups. Some of them plotted to kill the Bolshevik leader at the time, Stalin, and turn the Party’s policies back to NEP-style—capitalist—policies.
Ultimately, despite incredible advancements and the defeat of the Nazis in World War II, workers’ power in the Soviet Union was defeated by 1953. It was precisely because even the concessions to capitalism within full-fledged socialism - like the wage system, inequalities, and nationalism - were over the long term a one-way ticket back to full-fledged capitalism. These concessions opened the door to misleaders and traitors to communism like Nikita Khrushchev in the 1950s, who attacked Stalin under the guise of “returning to Lenin’s NEP” because he had decisively turned against capitalist-type policies.
With the benefit of a century of history, it’s tempting to say that the reversals of socialism were inevitable. Communist philosophy views history as a science, however, and it’s through learning from the past - not from random guesses, or rigidly following past formulas just because some great leaders said them - that the Progressive Labor Party, formed in the early 1960s, scientifically broke with socialism in the 1980s. Studying and learning from history is not the job of a few within the Party, it’s the job of everyone. Our fight for communism will depend on millions of workers understanding and applying the lessons of experiments like the NEP.

On November 24 Emmerson Mnangagwa, former vice president of Zimbabwe was named president, bookending national turmoil that began when former president Robert Mugabe fired Mnangagwa, triggering a military takeover, protests in support of Mnangagwa, and Mugabe’s own ousting by coup d’etat.
While a result of in-fighting within the ruling class of Zimbabwe, this is also a sign of China’s growing investment in Africa and the strengthening of their role as leading imperialist power.
China is Zimbabwe’s fourth largest trading partner and its largest source of investment, buying 28 percent of its exports in 2015 and a making a promise of five-billion-dollars in direct aid and investment from Chinese president Xi Jinping, who has called Zimbabwe an “all-weather friend” (BBC 11/20).
Nationalism Will Always Fail The Working Class
In the 1960s, Mugabe joined the African nationalist struggle in Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) under the leadership of Joshua Nkomo and the National Democratic Party. Mugabe soon grew impatient with Nkomo’s tactics.
Mugabe broke from Nkomo and formed the Zimbabwe African National Union, which organized a guerrilla struggle against the apartheid regime of Ian Smith, which had the support of powerful U.S. officials, including Dean Acheson and Richard Nixon. After being imprisoned along with 11 allies, Mugabe became the voice of the guerrilla movement against the Rhodesian racist government.
In 1979, however, rather than aligning with the Soviet Union, Mugabe rejoined Mr. Nkomo under pressure from African rulers and comfortably sat in the pocket of the British in order to establish the state of Zimbabwe (NYT 11/15). Mugabe became president of Zimbabwe in 1980 and remained in power until recently.
Often touted as a Marxist-Leninist, Mugabe is actually a capitalist leader. Given the opportunity to choose between workers revolution and nationalism, he chose nationalism and the interest of the imperialist ruling class, allowing multinational corporations to loot Zimbabwe’s rich resources of gold, copper, diamonds, platinum and other raw materials, enriching Mugabe and his friends, but leaving ordinary people poor and with a suspected unemployment rate as high as 90 percent (BBC 11/19).
Mugabe has ruled with an iron fist. In the 1980s, in a series of massacres known as the Gukurahundi, he sent in the national army to kill 20,000 Ndebele civilians suspected of being supporters of Joshua Nkomo, Mugabe’s political rival. (The Guardian 5/19/15).
Zimbabwe Welcomes Chinese Imperialism
During Mugabe’s fight against the Rhodesian government, he turned to Beijing to support his Zimbabwe African National Union. In 1980 Zimbabwe and China formally established their diplomatic relations, a pivotal year in China’s cultural and political history.
Following the death of Mao Zedong in 1976, China gave way to a generation that felt no connection to the Great Leap Forward of 1958 or the Cultural Revolution of the 60s and 70s (Pew Research 11/12/15).
The 1980s marked the establishment of China and Zimbabwe as states for the ruling class, not workers. A crushing blow to those who thought a widespread communist revolution was just around the corner in the 1960s.
“According to Professor Wang Xinsong, a specialist in international development at Beijing Normal University…China has been monitoring infighting within the Mugabe regime and the country’s faltering economy for some time – and carefully weighing its options” (The Guardian 11/17).
According to The Guardian (11/17) Mnangagwa is widely believed to be behind the coup against Mugabe. He has historically allied with the Chinese, receiving ideological and military training in Beijing and Nanjing.
Just days before the military take-over in Zimbabwe and the ousting of Mugabe, General Constantino Chiwenga, Zimbabwean army general and Commander of the Zimbabwe Defense Forces, visited China – a coincidence that has not gone unnoticed by the ruling class media, which has also noticed that the Chinese have yet to publicly condemn Mugabe’s removal.
On The Brink Of World War?
If China was instrumental in the military’s ousting of Mugabe, this would be the first example of its covert involvement in a military coup d’etat and a sign of China’s growing global power. (The Guardian 11/17). As the U.S. continues to slip in its rivalry with China, the world moves closer to another world war.
An alternative explanation is that Mnangagwa’s seizure of power may just be a sign of international instability allowing smaller powers to make internal moves without large allied forces to stop them, a period strikingly similar to that just before WWI.
“[This period] looks ominously like another moment in history — the period leading up to World War I, which marked the end of a multi-decade expansion in global ties that many call the first era of globalization” (The Washington Post 12/29/16).
With both scenarios leading to world war, the international working class is in danger of being driven to the front lines in order to protect the profit and power of a ruling class that will leave them to die. Progressive Labor Party calls workers everywhere to abandon all forms of nationalism, and instead join the fight for a communist future. From Zimbabwe to China to the United States, the working class has nothing to lose but its chains.J

In Iran, as tension increases between U.S. and Iranian capitalists making World War III a growing possibility, the working class is experiencing severe ruin. The devastation from the Iran-Iraq earthquake was the deadliest in a decade.
Devastation of Workers in Iran
It mainly affected Iran—killed over 500, injured 7,460, and left countless homeless, traumatized, and in dire conditions. It also hit seven big cities and 1,950 villages in the Kermanshah province. Officials said 12,000 houses had been completely destroyed and a further 15,000 damaged (The Guardian, 11/14). Over 70,000 need emergency shelters.
The earthquake and the government’s actions have affectively increased poverty and suffering of the working class. Communism will prevent the social devastation of earthquakes by putting the lives of the workers first.
Instead of using its resources to support employment, equity, and to sufficiently fund 70,000 working class families in need of emergency shelters after the earthquake, the Iranian ruling class spent billions of dollars on its ballistic missile programs and other military and intelligence projects (NYT, 8/13). Other funds are being used to support the Assad regime in Syria. The Iranian government wants to protect their investments in Syrian oil. The ruling classes are always concerned about their profit margins and their ability to stay in power. The needs of the working class mean nothing to them.
Mass Disaster Preventable
The country lies on dozens of fault lines. The 1990 Manjil–Rudbar earthquake killed in northern Iran killed 35,000 to 50,000 people. The 2003 Bam earthquake in the southern Kerman province killed at least 31,000. In 2012, a double earthquake killed 300.
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, president from 2005 to 2013, initiated a program to build low-income housing in regions that had long history of earthquakes. Housing was knowingly created along the fault lines.
Similar to the lies told by the ruling class in the U.S after Hurricane Katrina (which killed over 1800 working-class families) the rulers’ mouthpieces in Iran said, “nothing could have been done”(NY Times, 11/13). PLP knows, from our study of what the Bolsheviks achieved, that a better world is possible! It is possible to protect the lives of the working class.
After the earthquake, many people blasted the government on social media for failing to provide resources in a timely manner. “Iranians from across the country pitched in to gather water, food and tents and transported the aid with their own cars to the disaster zone” (NY Times, 11/26).
Iran-U.S. Tension
The rivalry between the U.S. and Iran to see whose ruling class will dominate the energy-rich Middle East has already killed hundreds of thousands in Iraq, Syria and Yemen and threatens to be much bloodier in the future. Imperialist wars benefit the ruling classes of the rivals, because they are the ones who profit from control over trillions of dollars of raw materials, markets, labor and investments. But the price of these deadly wars are paid for by workers, as they are used as cannon fodder and as massive military spending crowds out spending on vital social programs.
U.S. government complaints about the Iranian theocracy are pure hypocrisy. The U.S. has sold hundreds of billions of dollars worth of weapons to the Saudi ruling family. Its criticism of Iran’s involvements in Syria and Lebanon is also hypocritical given the U.S. record of occupations and support for dictatorial regimes in the region, including Iran itself. (The CIA worked to overthrow the secular leader Mohammad Mosaddeq in 1953 who sought to nationalize oil, the U.S. armed the torture regime of the Shah of Iran, and is currently funding terrorist groups in Iran.)
Problem with Nationalism
Iran is preparing to confront the “threats, malicious, hegemonic and divisive activities of America in the region” (NYT, 8/13). The bosses use nationalism and patriotism to pit workers against workers in order to build profit-driven wars. There are reports of rising mass national unity against U.S. president Trump and Saudi Arabia, signaling more tension. However, capitalist-caused devastations such as the earthquakes in Iran that increased poverty and homelessness, and recent tax bill in the U.S that indubitably affects the poor, make it difficult for them to do so. Be it Iran, Saudi Arabia or U.S., the working class suffers, either through death due to war, death due to environmental cuts that increase “natural disasters” or death due to cuts to healthcare and other social services.
Under communism, workers’ needs will always be primary, because we won’t have a need for profit. Even as the 70,000 workers in Iran remain homeless the international working class is constantly reminded what’s important to the ruling classes everywhere. Our fight is more important than ever. Are you ready to fight for a better world? Workers of the world unite!

MEXICO

To celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia, members of Progressive Labor Party held an international communist school over this past long weekend. On the first day, a large group of education workers studied political economy. Everyone was very receptive to our communist ideas, advancing their understanding that they are part of the working class and that the purpose of education under capitalism is to prepare new generations of exploited workers, and that educators play a role in that. For the working class to win a world free of exploitation—communism—educators have a different important role to play, teaching young people to resist the capitalist ideas of individualism, racism, and sexism, and turning them into ideas of collectivity and struggle.
We talked about how the problems these educators face in their communities, unions, and classrooms are related to capitalism’s need for profit, fascism, and war. Cutbacks in funding, stronger control of education, and fascist tactics against workers and to reign in members of the capitalist class are some of the bosses’ tools to get prepared for wider war. The education workers recognized that capitalism permanently attacks the living conditions of the working class and that their struggle has been key to fight these attacks. We asked them to read CHALLENGE, and other PLP literature, to join our study groups, and to fight the capitalist system that exploits us and replace it with a communist society.
Next, we met with a group of industrial workers, where young PLers gave a presentation explaining what communism is and what a communist society would be like. The discussion was very spirited, with discussion on such ideas as how products would be distributed and what education would be like. There was input on the necessity of developing communist leaders  within the working class.
The third day we went to a community were workers are fighting against excessive prices on electric energy. When comrades mentioned the need for communism, everyone showed their anger at the capitalist system and talked about all the attacks their community has suffered for years. They showed interest in fighting against the government and the criminal capitalist system. Some asked about the difference between socialism and communism, and if Cuba is communist. We explained many key aspects of our line and the necessity of creating an international party and fighting directly for communism—the lack of both were serious weaknesses of past revolutions. These workers showed interest in joining study groups in the area and we are working on it.
The weekend-long school for communism showed the great potential of the working class to understand and practice communist ideas and of PLP in developing working-class leaders capable of leading the struggle to end the capitalist system and build a new communist society. This was a very good way of honoring the Russian communists. Despite the dark night, a spectre is haunting the capitalist world: the spectre of communism!

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OAKLAND

Over 50 comrades and friends celebrated the Bolshevik revolution with a dynamic dinner. Friends who attended said the event inspired hope for the future. We raised funds for our brave comrades who fought the Klan in Anaheim. It was a success!
To kick off the event, a comrade gave a speech about the problems in the world, from deadly climate change to racist police killings to sexist harassment and violence in our jobs, schools, and homes. He explained why capitalism is to blame, and showed that the Bolsheviks understood this. He explained the Bolsheviks encourage us, not because they fought back. As long as there is class society, there are brave fighters who struggle for class liberation. The Bolsheviks encourages us because they took the next step, and actually took state power. Because of this, they were able to take society light years into the future.
After the speech, people discussed at their tables what they have heard about communism, whether they think we can fix capitalism, and other interesting questions. Some comrades made the point that the Bolsheviks didn’t fail. In fact, they were able to transform life for millions of workers, bringing them anti-racism and anti-sexism. Rather, we need to learn from their mistakes of why they were unable to maintain a socialist society and become communist.
A Multimedia Spread
Someone performed a rap against identity politics. It was about being a worker above all else, not a man or woman or Black or white person. Another woman performed a song about Hurricane Katrina and the racist treatment of the working class of New Orleans.
A video about the 2014 Ferguson rebellion demonstrated how the working class is still fighting back today. We discussed the successes and failures of the Ferguson rebellion and why we need working-class consciousness.
Every table received a collection of pictures from the Soviet Union, China, Cuba, and Vietnam. The pictures showed different ways the pro-worker governments promoted antiracism, anti-sexism, built infrastructure for workers, and used art and propaganda to change the culture of society. Each picture had information on the back to explain different facts about each country, and people shared out what their picture was about. People learned about history in a hands-on way.
A Party for Youth and Golden Agers
The event closed with a speech from a new comrade about the need to build the Party and fight for communism. Overall, participants loved the dinner. People commented that they never felt bored throughout the night. People loved how dynamic the material was and thought we did a good job at breaking the mold for how education must work. One person commented on how multigenerational the crowd was, because they heard that “communism is just for young people” and that “real adults know that communism can never work.” She said she was inspired “to see people who have truly dedicated their lives to the movement.”
The event made people feel like they could learn about history and working-class struggles. Many commented that they want to get more involved in the Party. The young leaders, especially women who organized the event, felt empowered and humbled. May this event give us momentum to continue in the class struggle and building the Party in the Bay Area.

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CHICAGO

Celebrating the Bolshevik Revolution inspires us to keep fighting for the communist world we know is possible and necessary. Chicago’s recent multi-racial, multi-generational event of over 50 people included drama, table conversations, songs, and great food. The event highlighted the hard work and persistence involved in mobilizing and politicizing for the Bolshevik Revolution.
One hundred years ago, workers overthrew the Provisional Government and announced that from now on, the profit system would not control the lives of workers and peasants.
Today, we are still fighting for that world. In the meantime, we have learned that the fight for an egalitarian society is more complex than workers and communists thought at the time. The capitalists have learned as well and have created new ways to exploit, ideologically disarm, imprison, and kill members of the working class.
Antiracist Reenactment
In this age of instant information, we are deluged with how the bosses want us to think. It was refreshing at the Chicago celebration to see a dramatic re-enactment of a little-known chapter in U.S. history from the 1920s, a time when workers, white as well as Black, took up arms against the Ku Klux Klan. The organization was called the Knights of the Flaming Circle, and they fought fire with fire.
Immigrant communities, particularly Italians, Catholics, were also part of it, since the Klan was both anti-Black and anti-immigrant.  In Ohio, the Klan’s cars were overturned and the racists were beaten with bricks, bottles, and clubs. The school board elections were an area of struggle between the antiracists and Klan in New Mexico. These workers had good ideas, but without a goal of eliminating the whole capitalist system, they were a temporary force.
Learning from the Giants
PLP’s analysis of the accomplishments and mistakes growing out of the October revolution is presented in Road to Revolution IV (see plp.org). Socialism, as it turns out, is not a stage on the way to communism. Instead, it leads back to capitalism. By making material incentives, rather than social incentives, the basis of work, the Soviet Union developed capitalist ideas and practices that undermined the goals of their revolution. We learned from the pioneers’ mistakes (see page 8 about the Soviet’s New Economic Plan).  
For some, it may be a sad fact of history that the Bolshevik Revolution did not live up to its potential to wipe capitalism off the face of the earth forever. The reality is that change is doesn’t happen in a straight line. Today, as the world’s workers are beset with wars and fascist governments, what we have learned from that first attempt to bring about communism on a mass scale makes it more likely that the next attempt will be successful.
Today’s potential communists are often embroiled in reform movements. One day, they will develop the forces to overthrow the government, as the Bolsheviks did. Progressive Labor Party is bucking that trend by keeping communism alive and winning more potential fighters every day.