Grand Rapids, MI – On November 8, Freedom Road Socialist Organization (FRSO) held an event to mark the 109th anniversary of the triumphant Bolshevik revolution. About 20 people attended the program at Cafe Otono.

The program began with a narration leading up to the cliffhanger of Petrograd coming alive with revolutionary energy. Barbara Howard led the audience through the events of the 1917 International Women’s Day—the February revolution—describing a working class that was ready to end the old way of living. The culmination was the reading of an excerpt from John Reed’s Ten Days That Shook the World, “Petrograd presented a curious spectacle in those days. In the factories, the committee-rooms were filled with stacks of rifles, couriers came and went, the Red Guard drilled.”

Michael Amirault talked about the material conditions at the time. Beginning with an explanation of the shifting class relations, Amirault then talked about political developments, such as the formation of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party, the creation of the Dumas and the Soviets. The split between the Mensheviks and Bolsheviks and the need for a vanguard political party was explained.

Anthony Hegarty then broke down some important developments between February and October 1917.

Eduardo Montiel finished the event evening by highlighting the lessons of the October revolution, and the parallels of the efforts of the Bolsheviks to our struggles today.

Closing out the evening, Montiel quoted V.I. Lenin, “It is more pleasant and useful to go through the ‘experience of the revolution’ than to write about it.”

#GrandRapidsMI #MI #RevolutionaryTheory #USSR #Lenin

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