Historical Events of the Revolutionary World Movement

GERMAN NOVEMBER REVOLUTION

On the international significance of the November Revolution

in Germany

9th of November 1918 - 9th of November 2018

The first imperialist world war produced the first international proletarian revolution, which began in Russia and continued in Germany.

The November Revolution became the outpost of the October Revolution.

With the November Revolution, Bolshevism was transformed into World Bolshevism, that is, "as a tactic for all" - as Lenin put it.

If this tactic of the October Revolution would be correctly applied to the November Revolution, the November Revolution would have been as invincible as the October Revolution.

Formally, both Russia and Germany were a national revolution, but by their very nature these revolutions went far beyond their national borders, they were part of one of the same revolution, the world socialist revolution.

The significance of the November Revolution in world history is that it provided evidence that the October Revolution had spread beyond its national borders, ushering in the world socialist revolution that we will victoriously bring to an end. At the same time, the November Revolution defended and consolidated the October Revolution, thus placing it at a higher international stage of development, namely as the basis and lever of the world socialist revolution.

After 100 years one can understand the November Revolution not otherwise than as the spreading of the October Revolution on German soil. Without the October Revolution, there would have been no November Revolution. The October Revolution gave the November Revolution its practical internationalist character, making it a significant part of the beginning world socialist revolution. Under conditions of today's globalization every revolution has (more or less) a growing "domino effect" within the whole world imperialist system.

In this assessment of the November Revolution, the Comintern (SH) differs from all other parties in the world. Our assessment is based on the dialectical recognition that the world socialist revolution has a common international content and different national forms, that the world socialist revolution is the chain with chain-links of socialist revolutions in all countries of the world. This global development process emerges from the decay process of world imperialism in the individual countries.

Our assessment is based on Marxism-Leninism, according to which the imperialist chain could nowhere else break away, than first in imperialist Russia, that is, at its weakest link. Consequently, the imperialist chain could only be further torn apart on its second weakest chain link, that was, in imperialist Germany. Through the (albeit failed) breaking away of this second link of the imperialist world-chain, the November Revolution turned into the new main chain link of the world revolution.

At any rate, this was the opinion of Lenin, who even went so far, as to consider a victory of the November Revolution in highly industrialized Germany would mean a sufficient precondition for the development of world socialism (!)

Is it possible to assess the international significance of the November Revolution higher than Lenin has done it ? Surely not.

And if the November Revolution had triumphed in all countries which had lost the First World War, then this victory would also be a driving force for the socialist revolution of the working class in those other countries which had won the war.

The world revolution transforms the war between the imperialists among themselves into the global civil war against the entire world imperialism, and thus everywhere into a war against the internal enemy - against the socialist revolution of the working class in one's own country.