It's the 100^th anniversary of the Bolsheviks taking power in Russia. Here are some of my thoughts on it:

1.The revolution did not fit Marx's idea of what a socialist revolution should be. He thought that:

No social order is ever destroyed before all the productive forces for which it is sufficient have been developed, and new superior relations of production never replace older ones before the material conditions for their existence have matured within the framework of the old society.

This was probably not the case in Russia then. And he feared - rightly as it turned out - that a premature revolution would lead to continued struggle. As G.A Cohen wrote:

[Marx] thought that anything short of an abundance so complete that it removes all major conflicts of interests would guarantee continued social strife, "a struggle for necessities and all the old filthy business". It was because he was so uncompromisingly pessimistic about the social consequences of anything less than limitless abundance that Marx needed to be so optimistic about the possibility of that abundance. (Self-ownership, freedom and equality, (p10-11)

2. The revolution was not predictable. As Paul Berman says, it was "a matter of chance... predicted by no one at all." It's far more an example of the role of emergence than of historical determinism. The rise and fall of communism teaches us that social orders might be more brittle than we think.

3. The idea that the Soviet Union was destined to collapse contains a massive hindsight bias. For much of the mid-20^th century, communism was seen as not just a viable system but a serious challenger to capitalism.

4. Rightist attitudes to communism are hypocritical. For example:

- They follow Popper and Berlin in deriding the notion of historical determinism (perhaps rightly) but claim that it was inevitable that communism would descend into tyranny.

- They claimed (rightly) in the 70s and 80s that a big defect of Communism was its restriction of freedom of movement - for example banning dissidents from leaving. Yet today, many of these support for immigration controls. They cheered when Reagan told Gorbachev "Tear down this wall", and also when Trump proposed to build one.

- Many cold warriors attacked the USSR's lack of freedom, whilst supporting the illiberal regimes of Apartheid and Pinochet's Chile.

5. The revolution had ambiguous effects on the western left. On the one hand, it greatly weakened it by associating socialism with tyranny and by splitting the left not just between Communists and non-Communists but between those with different diagnoses of the USSR's failings. On the other hand, though, the threat of communism might well have reined in western inequality by forcing capitalists to buy off discontent. It might be no accident that inequality was low during the cold war but has increased since the collapse of communism.

6. We leftists have learned the lesson from the failure of communism. Hardly any of us now believe in undemocratic top-down central planning. We envisage alternatives to capitalism as being various forms of market socialism or participatory economics. Supporters of central planning can still be found - but in the boardrooms of large companies. In truth, the issue here is one of transactions cost economics (pdf): to what extent are transactions better (pdf) done decentralized (by markets or other forms of cooperation) or by hierarchy? The answer, of course, is: it depends.

7. We have also learned what a revolution should not be. It's not the violent seizing of the state by a handful of people. Instead, it requires the building of mass support, and the creation of building blocks - small non-capitalist behaviours and structures that can grow.

8. The Bolshevik revolution was the seizing of power through a mix of tactical skill, foreign help and a loss of authority by an incompetent regime. It led to social division and confusion as the Bolsheviks did not know what to do with their victory, and ultimately to failure. In this sense, there are perhaps parallels with Brexit.