A hundred years ago, in the backdrop of the First World War fought among the European imperial powers, two revolutions had rocked Russia in 1917. The first one in March (February, as per the old Julian calendar used then) saw the end of the autocratic monarchy of the Russian czar, who had wreaked havoc in the country by fighting imperial wars, precipitating acute economic hardship and food crisis on the one hand and unleashing heavy repression on protesting workers and political activists on the other. This had brought in place a provisional government headed first by Prince Georgy Lvov and, later, by Alexander Kerensky which sought to introduce domestic political reforms but continued with the war. However, with the return of the Bolshevik leader, Vladimir Lenin, to Russia from exile in April, a more radical idea gained momentum within the soviets (councils) of workers and disaffected soldiers, who were at the forefront of the political movement against czarist rule. Why stop at piecemeal political reforms and continue with the devastating war, which had impoverished the Russian masses? Why should the workers' and soldiers' soviets not seize power themselves, put an end to the war and undertake radical political-economic changes?

It was this struggle that was waged through the months of 1917 which culminated in the Bolshevik revolution of November 7 - October 25 by the old calendar - when the provisional government was overthrown and a proletarian State established for the first time in human history. The Bolshevik government ended Russia's participation in the World War and established its rule amidst violent opposition, through a bloody civil war fought for five years, eventually leading to the formation of the Soviet Union in 1922. This inspired subsequent socialist revolutions in the twentieth century in China, Cuba and Vietnam.

These socialist regimes took radical steps to redistribute land and resources in order to eradicate the abject poverty associated with feudal land relations, made massive public investments to build modern industry and infrastructure, developed indigenous scientific and technological institutions and created gigantic welfare states, which provided access to education, healthcare and social security to the bulk of their populations. The transformations brought in these societies attracted global attention and, till the 1970s, most newly independent third world countries - including India - opted for socialism in some form or the other.

However, when the political and socio-economic conditions started changing in the post-war period, the socialist regimes struggled to adapt; failing entirely in the case of the USSR, or progressively moving away from Marxism in practise while maintaining a 'communist' pretence, like in China or Vietnam. Cuba has managed to cling on so far, but the socialist project of the twentieth century has clearly run out of steam across the globe.

Why did this happen? The renowned physicist, Albert Einstein, while championing the cause of socialism in a celebrated essay in the inaugural issue of the Monthly Review (May 1949) had raised doubts regarding the over-centralization of power inherent within the socialist systems in the following words - "the achievement of socialism requires the solution of some extremely difficult socio-political problems: how is it possible, in view of the far-reaching centralization of political and economic power, to prevent bureaucracy from becoming all-powerful and overweening? How can the rights of the individual be protected and therewith a democratic counterweight to the power of bureaucracy be assured?"

The inability to resolve serious problems related to the democratization of the State and society - and combining it with economic dynamism - lies at the heart of the failure of twentieth-century socialism. The nature of the economic alternative under socialism, therefore, needs to be re-envisioned today, given the failings of the centrally commanded economies. Economic planning needs to be decentralized. It should be participatory from below and remain open to diverse forms of ownership, especially cooperative forms, in order to foster technological innovations and creativity. Ensuring the environmental sustainability of economic development should be a central concern of the planning process. The economic processes under socialism also need to be accompanied by a thorough democratization of the State and political structures which would not only break extant capitalist oligopolies but also refrain from creating new ones. In sum, instead of a top-down proletarian dictatorship, which the Bolshevik revolution eventually led to, we need a bottom-up proletarian democracy, where a vigilant and empowered people will become active participants in the decision-making processes.

This vision of democratic socialism has already gained much traction across the world, from the Latin American left regimes to the new left alternatives thrown up by the anti-austerity movements in Europe, particularly Greece and Spain, and, more recently, the platforms of Bernie Sanders in the United States of America and Jeremy Corbyn in Britain. This belies the prognosis regarding the death of Marxism and socialism and the 'end of history' that was made by scholars and propagandists in the wake of the USSR debacle. This revival of a new socialist politics has happened in the backdrop of the economic crisis of 2008-09, which was a direct fallout of the workings of neo-liberal capitalism.

It is not only the ideals of the Bolshevik revolution, however, that are at stake today, but also the ideals of its precursor, the French Revolution - liberté, égalité, fraternité - which are under attack in the very bastions of liberal democracy from a global upsurge of far-Right forces, embodied by the likes of Donald Trump, Marine Le Pen, Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Narendra Modi. Terrorist outfits like the Islamic State and al Qaida represent the other side of the same coin. This globally ascendant far-Right counter-revolution breeds on the politics of hate and irrationality, racism, xenophobia and religious fundamentalism. It is indeed ironical that at a time when biological science has mapped the human genome and the answers regarding the origins of the universe appear to be knowable, politics is getting hegemonized by bigotry and obscurantism. The self-destructive outcome of such an onward march of unreason can be seen in wars, terrorism, genocidal violence and hate crimes. In this gloomy backdrop, both the progenies of Enlightenment - the French and the Bolshevik revolutions - need to be steadfastly defended against counter-revolution in the interests of reason, freedom and justice.