In October 1917, the Bolsheviks seized power under the slogan "Peace, Bread, and Land," shaped by Lenin's April Theses. The revolution toppled the Provisional Government that had succeeded the Tsar and set in motion the creation of the Soviet state. It inspired anti-colonial struggles worldwide and pushed governments toward welfare and social reform. Its enduring legacy is the idea that working people can govern themselves through collective, democratic decision-making.
More than a century later, the world faces another October. European and American leaders are preparing their populations for war against an enemy defined by Russophobia. That fear conceals the failures of market-led democracies, whose politics, shaped by racialised capitalism, have prioritised corporate profit over prosperity, peace, and public welfare.
This month, most European governments, along with the UK and US, are urging households to stock emergency supplies. Britain's "Be Ready" campaign opens a three-year drive to prepare families for war, cyberattacks, and natural disasters. Much of the media amplifies these warnings without asking what emergencies are anticipated or whether the justifications hold up.
Meanwhile, people are told to store water, food, medicine, baby formula, pet food, toiletries, batteries, and torches. Amazon and other platforms now sell "survival kits." Sales of tinned food, medicine, wind-up radios, and batteries have surged, and prices have risen with them. For households already squeezed by the cost-of-living crisis, this is one more burden, and corporations are collecting the profit.
The campaign also serves a political purpose. It diverts attention from the failures of these governments and builds a climate of fear in which questioning the elite consensus looks irresponsible. War and its consequences are choices made by governments, not natural disasters. Fear makes people easier to manage and harder to mobilise.
Is there an alternative? Yes: organised resistance. The future of people and the planet will be decided by protest and mass non-cooperation. The elites plan to wait out any catastrophe in their bunkers while sending ordinary people to war. We should refuse to join their wars and refuse to cooperate until governments commit to open diplomacy and negotiations that end the conflict, the war propaganda, and the conditions that produce them.
The revolution of 1917 reminds us that people can change the course of history when they act together. Peace will not be granted from above. It must be won by saying no to war, and the struggle for peace is inseparable from the struggle against imperialism and the system that profits from it. Mass mobilisation is the urgent task before working people.
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*Academic based in UK
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