November 7 of this year marks the centenary of the Russian Revolution. The major contribution of Russian Revolution is to establish that liberty cannot exist without equality and to bring forward a better order than archaic capitalism. How poor children were made to work as chimney sweeps in the UK after the Industrial Revolution (Who can forget Oliver Twist?) bears testimony to the fate of the poor when a state is limited to take care of only law and order and leave the general people at the hands of the market players.
That was the reason why socialist states emerged from the darkness human exploitation to take care of the huge potentialities in every human being. However, human evolution again discarded socialist states as it had earlier thrown out police states. It is human greed that spoiled both market raj as well as dictatorship of the proletariat. Now, modern welfare states with mixed economy have come to balance between liberty and equality as well as between the state power and the power of private players.
However, a welfare state – even the United States of America cannot deny the contributions of socialism in its policy of social security like health care and handsome allowance for the unemployed. A welfare state which ensures freedom of an individual and at the same time guarantees his or her social security is a synthesis of the thesis of capitalism and antithesis of socialism.
As a matter of fact, a truly welfare state is more inclined to socialist states than caged police states. This is the reason why Indian Constitution has absorbed the spirit of socialism in its very Preamble as well as in the Directive Principles of State Policy to make India a welfare state and “to secure a social order for the promotion of welfare of the people” (Article 38). But why must we be socialist? Swami Vivekananda had given a very clear answer, – “I am a socialist not because I think it is a perfect system, but half a loaf is better than no bread.”
On the occasion of the centenary of the Russian Revolution, we should also remember what Sri Aurobindo had said, “It would look ridiculous and also arrogant if I were to say that I worked for the success of the Russian Revolution for three years. Yet I was one of the influences that worked to make it a success.”
