Following is the address, Comrade Ranjit Dhar, veteran member, Polit Bureau, SUCI (C ) delivered in Bengali while inaugurating the Exhibition on the Great November Revolution at the concluding programme of yearlong celebration of centenary of this historic event in Kolkata on 17 November 2017.—Ed. Board
Comrade and friends,
To observe the centenary of the Great November Socialist Revolution in India, the march that we had set out with the inaugural meeting in Delhi on 7 November 2016, is culminating today in this mass meeting on 17 November 2017 at Dharamtala (Esplanade) in Kolkata. It is as a part of this concluding ceremony that this exhibition has been set up. Here, on one hand, there are pictorials, depicting the glorious history of the Great November Revolution. With those, we have tried to present in this exhibition, invaluable teachings of the great leaders of the world communist movement. It must be clearly spelt out, that Marxian science found its concrete application in the November Revolution on the soil of Russia. While concretizing the science and teachings of Marxism in the then Russian and changed international situations, there cropped up some contradictions between the general guidelines of Marx and Engels on one hand, and the concrete situation of Russia on the other. It was a kind of contradiction that is sure to crop up with different concrete situations. To comprehend this contradiction correctly and on that basis, to determine the strategy of revolution of a country and give effect to that in reality, each country requires a Marxist leader of its own emerging through revolutionary movement on that soil. And here lies the contribution of great Lenin. It was him, who concretized the teachings of Marx-Engels successfully in a way as was required in Russia. And by correctly resolving the contradiction between the general and the particular, he contributed invaluable teachings and knowledge in the treasure of Marxism. These make what we know as Leninism. And, as unfailing comrade-in-arms of Lenin and after his demise, upholding the lessons of Marxism-Leninism correctly, it was great JV Stalin, who built Russia into a powerful socialist state. In the way Marx cannot be comprehended without understanding Lenin, similarly Leninism cannot be precisely comprehended without the teachings of Stalin.
We, from our Party, had two objectives in this centenary celebration. First, not learning the history of November Revolution by rote, we aimed, instead, at developing in SUCI (C) leaders and cadres the correct realization about the concrete application, i.e., concretization of Marxist- Leninist science with which this history is impregnated, the concepts of revolutionary theory and philosophy which the history is permeated with. In other words, to know and realize these aspects of the history of the November Revolution, we wished to launch intense ideological struggle to heighten the standard of ideological consciousness of all of us in the Party, our leaders and cadres.
Secondly, we had the goal of carrying the message of the November Revolution, its history and lessons, to the people. We have been continuing this task through the last one year. We have set up November Revolution Centenary Celebration committee in localities one after another involving people there. The response at our call that we met with from people is, in one word, stupendous. Our experience shows that the people still bear an innate natural attraction towards leftism, towards Marxist revolutionary ideology. By the activities of pseudo- Marxists, there might have been some confusions created in this regard, yet people look for leftist politics, search for the genuine revolutionary Party.
With these words, I declare this exhibition open for you.
