After the outbreak of the October Revolution in Russia, how the Chinese media introduced it at that time

The victory of the October Revolution in Russia, the establishment of a socialist state under the leadership of the proletariat for the first time in the world, and the opening of the curtain on the expansion of the class struggle from within the state to the world.

The October Revolution had a tremendous impact on the formation of proletarian consciousness in China: first, it provided the Chinese working class with a cosmopolitan consciousness, so that its understanding of the Chinese labor movement began to transcend the scope of the state and regard itself as part of the class struggle in the whole world; second, through the propaganda and organization of early communist intellectuals, the proletarian party consciousness of establishing a proletarian party to lead the socialist revolution came into being.

On the third day after the outbreak of the October Revolution, the Shanghai "Republic of China Daily" introduced it with "The Sudden Russian Coup". After that, the Times, the Declaration, the Morning Bell, the Pacific, the Labor, and the Oriental Magazine reported on the process of the October Revolution, the labor regime, the basic anti-landlord and anti-capitalist policies, and the foreign policy of peace and friendship.

The victory of the October Revolution powerfully inspired Li Dazhao. He wrote vigorously on the fronts of the "New Youth" and "Weekly Review", and successively published a large number of articles and speeches propagating the October Revolution and Marxism-Leninism, such as "Comparative View of the French-Russian Revolution", "The Victory of the Common People", "The Victory of Bolshevism", "My Marxist View", "On Problems and Doctrines", and initiated the organization of Marxist theory research associations, enthusiastically praising the victory of the October Revolution, and taking a clear-cut stand in criticizing reformism.

Li Dazhao pointed out that the Russian revolution is a revolution based on socialism, heralding the advent of the socialist era and the dawn of a new civilization in the world. He stressed that the victory of the October Revolution was a victory for democracy, a victory for Bolshevism, and a victory for the working class of the world, and declared that Bolshevism would surely be victorious throughout the world.

Simply put, Bolshevism is an doctrine that represents the will of the majority of the people and embodies the rights of the majority of the people. According to Li Dazhao, it is "revolutionary socialism" with "Marx as the suzerain" and the aim is to "break the system of production in which the capitalists have exclusive interests."

Li Dazhao believes that the proletarian socialist revolution in which "red flags are flying everywhere and labor unions are being established one after another" is the trend of world history and "a great social force majeure." Emperors, aristocrats, warlords, bureaucrats, militarists, capitalism, "when they encounter this irreproachable trend, they all fly to the ground one by one like dead yellow leaves meet the bitter autumn wind."

Li Dazhao's articles and expositions had a major impact on the aspiring youth of the time. It was during this period that Mao Zedong began to have a concrete understanding of the October Revolution and Marxism in Russia, and then firmly embarked on the revolutionary road.

From 1918 to 1919, the worldwide strike movement and the national independence movement attracted the attention of the Chinese people. For a time, the October Revolution and its wave of world revolution further became the focus of discussion at all levels of Chinese society. Luo Jialun called for setting up sails and oars to be a "tide maker" in the world, which is quite representative.

In this regard, the feudal warlords and the landlord class regarded it as "radicalism" and "red calamity". However, the bourgeois revolutionaries represented by Sun Yat-sen saw from this the important role of a strong political party in the revolution, which laid the foundation for "uniting with Russia, the Communist Party, and supporting peasants and workers."

(The authors Yao Han and Pan Le are members of the Red Cultural Resources Series Research Project of the Institute of Chinese Marxism, Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences)

Column Editor-in-Chief: Gong Danyun Text Editor: Xia Bin Caption Source: Xinhua News Agency Infographic Photo Editor: Xiang Jianying

Source: Author: Yao Han Pan Le