The myth about a bloody October Revolution

by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

Red_OctoberTime and again the myth is being perpetuated, especially in the American media, and during the Cold War (and still today) also in Britain, Germany and other countries, that the Bolshevik Revolution of October 1917 (according to the then calendar of Russia even though it was, theoretically in the early days of November of that year) was bloody and cost many lives during the “storming” of the Winter Palace. The truth is that the Bolshevik take-over was an almost bloodless coup. But that again could not make for a good scare story against communism now, would it.

In his book, which was later also made into a film “Ten Days That Shook The World”, American journalists John Reed, then a correspondent for the “Daily Worker”, makes mention of the fact that the Bolshevik take-over, backed by the workers, soldiers and peasants, was almost bloodless and he was there when it all happened, and a direct witness.

Not that those lies are anything new as far as popular revolutions are concerned. The Sandinistas were being demonized – and probably still are – the the powers-that-be in the US – when they had (and again have) the power in Nicaragua.

According to CIA and others the Nicaraguan Sandinistas were supplying the “rebels” in El Salvador with weapons via a land route. The problem that there was Honduras slap bang in the middle was no excuse to continue to perpetuate this lie and pressurizing people into believing it.

I am not saying that things did not go wrong in the Soviet Union after the death of Vladimir Ilyitch Ulyanov-Lenin, and after Stalin (Ioseb Besarionis dze Jugashvili) and Beria wrested control unto themselves, and turned the USSR into a fiefdom run by two Gerogian warlords, namely himself and Beria running the NKVD.

In the beginning even western journalists, and not just John Reed, commended the Soviet Union as a workers' and peasants' paradise. It was Stalin and Beria turned into a nightmare from 1924 onwards. But, nevertheless, the capitalist powers of Britain, America and Japan, et al, attacked the USSR and let lose the counter-revolutionary forces that did serious damage to the young country, the world's first workers' and peasants' state.

The fact that the country was turning into a workers' and peasants' paradise was an anathema to the capitalist powers-that-be and thus every effort was made to destroy the Soviet Union and to strangle the child. All manner of lies and falsehoods were concocted to discredit the October Revolution and the country that it gave birth to. While still imperfect in that it still used a government, more or less, from above it was a start to free the people from poverty and especially wars.

But the powers-that-be could not permit the latter to happen as capitalism needs wars to work, to all intents and purposes, in order to perpetuate itself across the globe.

It is true that many of the so-called communist states that followed the USSR followed the Stalinist model and were nationalist and state capitalism rather than true workers' and peasants' states, and this includes the German Democratic Republic, especially under Honecker, though it began under Ulbricht, others did not follow the Stalinist model but were still being attacked on all fronts by the USA and other so-called free countries. And that more or less simply because they were interfering with the capitalists and their aims.

Nicaragua and El Salvador were the operating ground of United Fruit Company with its own army which was, basically, a CIA force and the same goes for Cuba and other Central and South American countries where the people wanted to go a different route to that prescribed by the USA, such as Chile.

The dangers that were painted were but non-existent as regards to the peoples of other countries but were just dangers to the interests of the capitalists and those of the United States and nothing has changed as far as the United States and its global interests are concerned, any country that stands in the way will be attacked and “liberated” using lies and false intelligence in the same way as they were going to liberate the Soviet Union just born from the joke of communism during the counter-revolutionary years.

The massacres that were carried out by the Whites were never mentioned and only the Reds, according to the West, did things wrong. And this story continued and continued well into the late 20th century until the collapse of the entire socialist bloc. Now all those countries are nicely in the capitalist fold and many are turning fascist, just as the powers-that-be have intended. Any country that steps back – so to speak – towards the old way is being threatened in the same way as any country heading towards that way, such as Venezuela and others in Latin America. And the CIA, in the pay of the capitalists of the USA, does not stop at murder either, not even that of priests and bishops, such as the murder of Archbishop Oscar Arnulfo Romero at the steps of the Cathedral in San Salvador. If anyone is for the poor, for the people, he or she is an enemy of American interests and it appears that they will have to be eliminated or, as referred to in CIA jargon, “terminated with extreme prejudice”.

Lies and falsehoods are still being perpetuated against those that want to establish a system by the people for the people as soon as this interferes but in the slightest with the interests of the capitalists and the United States. Be this Venezuela, Cuba or any other country, whether in Latin America or elsewhere. The sphere of interest of the USA seems to be everywhere in the world where they decide it to be and they will go to any length to protect those interests and anyone who stands in the way, individual or country, is to be eliminated.

And America stands for what? Freedom and democracy, we are told. Yes, sure, as long as it fits into their ways of thinking and the same goes for some other countries, Britain included. The latter which still has not grasped the fact that it no longer has an Empire and who was also very instrumental in painting the October Revolution in blood. The blood came, however, only during the counter-revolution and not during the revolution per se, and the British support for the White Guards was instrumental in that.

The world has been lied to then and is still being lied to. The problem is that the majority of the people are either too dim or too brainwashed to understand this fact.

© 2013