October for Americans means the World Series, which will start tonight, Columbus Day , which has passed,  and Halloween, which will continue uuunfortunately  for the next year in the Republican presidential campaign. 

 October is almost over, and work of various kinds has kept me from this month's Marxist IQ.  But better late than never and next month Marxist IQ will be, barring unforeseen circumstances, on time.

  In the world through the 20^th 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.   It still means the October Revolution for many. This month’s Marxist IQ is a tribute to  the ongoing significance of that revolution

1. Before the October Revolution, Czarist Russia was seen by Socialists and Progressives as

1. The center of great literature, music, and poetry

2. A "totalitarian" power  threatening "democracy"

3. A semi-feudal empire which served as the "policeman of Europe" and the" prison house of the peoples"

4. The country with the most advanced working class movement

2.   The Russian Revolution of 1905

1. Was influenced by both the suffering of the masses and Czarist Russia's disastrous war against Japan

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

3. Saw the Czarist autocracy use anti-Jewish massacres or pogroms after the revolutionary wave subsided

4. All of the Above

       3. In  the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party, the supporters of Vladimir Lenin, called Bolsheviks  after 1903 differed from  their factional opponents called Mensheviks by

    a. Their support for liberal elements of the Czarist Bureaucracy as against the Conservatives

    b. Their support for  a constitutional monarchy on the British model

     c. Their  support for a revolutionary "vanguard" party of workers and intellectuals who would organize and coordinate the struggle of the working class in all areas  while educating the working class for socialism

    d. Their support for world revolution to be advanced through revolutionary wars

     4.In they years immediately following the October Revolution one saw

1. Soviet Russia announce its support for a policy of progressive capitalism

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

3.  Soviet leaders call for a policy of restructuring(perestroika) and the integration of Soviet Russia into a common European homeland

4. the rapid development of revolutonary parties and movements through the world and the formation of a new third or Communist International(Comintern) to advance their activites

      5.  In its seventy four years of existence, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics

             a. built the first publically owned planned socialist economy in history

              b. inspired and supported revolutionary movements through the world to fight to both win national liberation struggles against colonialism and advance socialist policies in the industrialized countries

             c. Made the principle contribution to the defeat of the fascist Axis in WWII and the defense of the gains made for all people through that victory  against the U.S-NAT0 cold war bloc from the end of WWII in 1945 to its last years

            d. All of the Above

Answers to Last Month's Marxist IQ

1.d

2.d

3.c

4.d

5.c