Marxist IQ for October by Norman Markowitz

by: Thursday 2 October 2014

October for Americans means the World Series, Columbus Day and Halloween.  In the world through the 20th century, October meant for billions of people the “October Revolution,” The Soviet Socialist Revolution both revered and reviled as no other revolution had been in all of history.  This month’s Marxist IQ is a tribute to that revolution

 

1.       As they completed their lives  and  work in the last decades of the 19th century, both Marx and Engels saw Czarist Russia as

a.       A place where socialist revolution was impossible

b.      A dangerous power threatening “Western Civilization”

c.       A semi-feudal empire on the brink of a bourgeois(capitalist) revolution

d.      A nation whose working class would soon establish socialism

 

2.       The Russian Revolution of 1905

a.       Ended with the establishment of a liberal constitutional monarchy

b.      Saw the formation of peoples councils(Soviets) that served as a “dress rehearsal” for the October Revolution

c.       Led the Czar to proclaim religious freedom and the separation of Church and State

d.      Was led by Japanese agents seeking victory for Japan in the Russo-Japanese War

 

3.       The October Revolution(1917) followed the February Revolution in which

a.       The masses forced the abdication  of the Czar

b.      Soviets were established along with a provisional government led by bourgeois groups

c.       The provisional government continued Russia’s involvement in WWI, its payment of its debts  to its allies and opposed the land seizures and factory occupations  of the masses

d.      All of the above

 

4.       The differences between the two major   Russian Marxist parties, the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks  in the aftermath of the  February Revolution was that

a.       The Mensheviks  supported the capitalist provisional government as a necessary stage  in the revolution and the Bolsheviks  opposed the provisional government and called for the establishment of a revolutionary government of the Soviets

b.      The Mensheviks supported  Russia’s continued involvement in the war to protect the revolution while the Bolsheviks called for Russia’s withdrawal from the war, an imperialist war, to save and advance the revolution

c.       The Mensheviks believed that a transition to socialism was impossible because of Russia’s backwardness and the Bolsheviks believed that  a transition to socialism was both possible and necessary to  prevent a counter-revolution which would end either in Czarist restoration or military dictatorship rather than any capitalist democracy

d.      All of the above

 

5.       The October 1917 revolution ended with

a.       Support from the victorious allied powers and new League of Nations

b.      Rejection by Workers and Peasants who  demanded free market capitalism

c.       The formation of the  Third International (Comintern) and the  rapid globalization of ideas and parties influenced by  the Soviet revolution and an updating of Marxism,  known everywhere as Marxism Leninism

d.      The defeat of the revolution through foreign military intervention,  civil war and general isolation

Post your comment

Comments are moderated. See guidelines here.

Comments

  • For clarification:
    The first sentence the previous comment should have been written:
    Marxism-Leninism, by its very nature a creative scientific endeavor of "art in science", as revealed in Norman Markowitz's question 5, showed itself in the merging and converging of multiple socio-political movements-even in the Americas.
    Further, let it be clarified that joining the CPUSA by Du Bois had nothing to do with, necessarily, joining the world communist movement, in the sense that there is or was a monolithic movement of communists without the finely honed art and science associated with the activities of the communists in every country and continent, according to that country's history.
    On the contrary: W. E. B. Du Bois's joining the CPUSA demonstrated that the developed specificity of working class movements in each country which is necessary to connect with its scientific essence. Thereby the long, fruitful and productive activities of those Communist like Du Bois can now be abundantly continued in their splendid authenticity and integrated power.

    Posted by E.E.W. Clay, 10/15/2014 1:54pm (10 years ago)

  • 1. c
    2. b
    3. d
    4. d
    5. c

    Marxism-Leninism, a, by its very nature a creative scientific endeavor of "art in science", as revealed in Norman Markowitz's question 5, showed itself in the merging and converging of multiple socio-political movements.
    One of these, was the manifestation of our W. E. B. Du Bois, an early supporter of the Soviet revolution, who formalized it in 1 OCTOBER 1961, applying for member in the CPUSA.
    A scientific genius, spanning the social sciences, and scientific literature, revolutionizing sociological science, especially history, but psychology, philosophy, law, and political science; Du Bois, in many ways started his activist/academic career with his seminal Suppression of the African Slave Trade, the first number of the Harvard Historical Series-which he did extensive addition work on while in his eighties as a monumental American and international scholar-what an additional milestone for October.
    We can celebrate this as a stepping stone to supporting his advocacy of political equality by working to get the maximum number of African Americans and all workers to the polls, 4 November 2014.

    Posted by E.E.W. Clay, 10/15/2014 1:20pm (10 years ago)

RSS feed for comments on this page | RSS feed for all comments