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 CHAPTER X

SOME CONCLUSIONS

The Russian bourgeois revolution of 1905 stands out in one respect as a unique turning-point in the world's history. In one of the most backward capitalist countries, a strike movement developed which was unprecedented for its extent and strength. During the first month of 1905, the number of strikers was ten times the average yearly number for the previous ten years (1895-1904) and, from January to October, 1905, strikes grew continuously and in tremendous dimensions. Backward Russia, under the influence of a great many quite peculiar historical conditions, was the first to show to the world, not only the wave-like growth of the activity of the oppressed masses during the revolution—a feature common to all great revolutions—but also the importance of the proletariat, infinitely greater than its numerical position in the population. It showed the world the blending of the economic and political strikes, the latter transforming itself into armed insurrection; it showed the birth of a new form of mass action and mass organization of the classes oppressed by capitalism—i.e., the Soviets.

The February and October revolutions of 1917 brought the Soviets to complete development on a national scale, and subsequently to their victory in the proletarian Socialist revolution. And, less than two years after, the international character of the Soviets revealed itself in the spread of this form of organization over the world-wide struggle of the working class. It became apparent that the historical mission of the Soviets was to be the grave-digger, the heir and the successor of the bourgeois parliamentarism, and bourgeois democracy generally.

Furthermore, the history of the working-class movement