Newsgroup: it.politica.internazionale
Titolo: Per il novantesimo anniversario della rivoluzione d'ottobre!

Questa e' l'ultima pagina della "storia della rivoluzione Russa", di
Trotsky.  Incredibilmente attuale, IMHO.
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"Who would believe," wrote one of the Russian generals, Zalessky,
expressing his indignation at this, "that the janitor or watchman of
the court building would suddenly become Chief Justice of the Court of
Appeals? Or the hospital orderly manager of the hospital; the barber a
big functionary; yesterday's ensign the commander-in-chief;
yesterday's lackey or common labourer burgomaster; yesterday's train
oiler chief of division or station superintendent; yesterday's
locksmith head of the factory?"
"Who would believe it?" They had to believe it. It was impossible not
to believe it, when ensigns routed the generals. when burgomasters,
from the ranks of common labour put down the resistance of yesterday's
lords, train oilers regulated transport, and locksmiths as directors
revived industry.
The chief task of a political régime, according to an English
aphorism, is to put the right people in the right positions. How does
the experiment of 1917 look from this point of view? During the first
two months Russia was ruled, through right of monarchic succession, by
a man inadequately endowed by nature who believed in saints' mummies
and submitted to Rasputin. During the next eight months the liberals
and democrats attempted from their governmental high places to prove
to the people that the revolution had been accomplished in order that
all should remain as before. No wonder those people passed over the
country like wavering shadows leaving no trace. From the 25th of
October the man at the head of Russia was Lenin, the greatest figure
in Russian political history. He was surrounded by a staff of
assistants who, as their most spiteful enemies acknowledge, knew what
they wanted and how to fight for their aims. Which of these three
systems, in the given concrete conditions, proved capable of putting
the right people in the right positions?
The historic ascent of humanity, taken as a whole, may be summarised
as a succession of victories of consciousness over blind forces - in
nature, in society, in man himself. Critical and creative thought can
boast of its greatest victories up to now in the struggle with nature.
The physico-chemical sciences have already reached a point where man
is clearly about to become master of matter. But social relations are
still forming in the manner of the coral islands. Parliamentarism
illumined only the surface of society, and even that with a rather
artificial light. In comparison with monarchy and other heirlooms from
the cannibals and cave-dwellers, democracy is of course a great
conquest, but it leaves the blind play of forces in the social
relations of men untouched. It was against this deeper-sphere of the
unconscious that the October revolution was the first to raise its
hand. The Soviet system wishes to bring aim and plan into the very
basis of society, where up to now only accumulated consequences have
reigned.
Enemies are gleeful that fifteen years after the revolution the Soviet
country is still but little like a kingdom of universal well-being.
Such an argument, if not really to be explained as due to a blinding
hostility, could only be dictated by an excessive worship of the magic
power of socialist methods. Capitalism required a hundred years to
elevate science and technique to the heights and plunge humanity into
the hell of war and crisis. To socialism its enemies allow only
fifteen years to create and furnish a terrestrial paradise. We took no
such obligation upon ourselves. We never set these dates. The process
of vast transformations must be measured by an adequate scale.
But the misfortunes which have overwhelmed living people? The fire and
bloodshed of the civil war? Do the consequences of a revolution
justify in general the sacrifices it involves? The question is
teleological and therefore fruitless. It would be as well to ask in
face of the difficulties and griefs of personal existence: Is it worth
while to be born? Melancholy reflections have not so far, however,
prevented people from bearing or being born. Even in the present epoch
of intolerable misfortune only a small percentage of the population of
our planet resorts to suicide. But the people are seeking the way out
of their unbearable difficulties in revolution.
Is it not remarkable that those who talk most indignantly about the
victims of social revolutions are usually the very ones who, if not
directly responsible for the victims of the world war, prepared and
glorified them, or at least accepted them? It is our turn to ask: Did
the war justify itself? What has it given us? What has it taught?
It will hardly pay now to pause upon the assertions of injured Russian
proprietors that the revolution led to the cultural decline of the
country. That aristocratic culture overthrown by the October
revolution was in the last analysis only a superficial imitation of
higher western models. Remaining inaccessible to the Russian people,
it added nothing essential to the treasure-store of humanity, The
October revolution laid the foundation of a new culture taking
everybody into consideration, and for that very reason immediately
acquiring international significance. Even supposing for a moment that
owing to unfavourable circumstances and hostile blows the Soviet
régime should be temporarily overthrown, the inexpugnable impress of
the October revolution would nevertheless remain upon the whole future
development of mankind.
The language of the civilised nations has clearly marked off two
epochs in the development of Russia. Where the aristocratic culture
introduced into world parlance such barbarisms as czar, pogrom, knout,
October has internationalised such words as Bolshevik, soviet and
piatiletka. This alone justifies the proletarian revolution, if you
imagine that it needs justification.
GT

 imagine that it needs justification.
E NON NE HA NESSUN BISOGNO, COMPAGNO!