About

The month of October has special significance in the revolutionary calendar. In 1917, it marked a turning point in the Russian Revolution. The October Revolution was the culmination of a months-long struggle between thousands of workers’ councils across Russia, which represented a deeply radical experiment in democracy, and the old regime, which promised reform to the workers, but couldn’t deliver it.

Red October, as it came to be called, was the moment when workers gained the upper hand in this struggle, seizing control of the state and consolidating their power–the first and only successful revolution led by workers themselves.

It is against this historical backdrop that the Spring Socialist Network is hosting its third annual conference, Red October, which takes place from Friday, October 24 to Sunday, October 26 at the Toronto Metropolitan Student Centre in downtown Toronto.

From Trump's trade war and Carney's austerity to the genocide in Gaza and growing climate chaos this year’s conference is taking place at a moment of deep crisis in our world. 

Now more than ever, we need to come together and strategize about how to build working-class unity and power. And that’s exactly what we aim to do at Red October: A conference of socialist ideas in action.

Like last year’s conference, this one has three goals: 1) To connect with, and contribute to, the best revolutionary socialist traditions, from the Russian Revolution to the present day; 2) To create a platform for leading activists to share their insights and experiences; and 3) To develop our own collective sense of revolutionary politics, on a wide range of issues.

The Spring Socialist Network aims to put socialist ideas into action.

In a world of escalating climate disasters that are inflicted most on those least responsible, we want a new world of climate justice. In a society that divides people by race, sexuality, gender, ability, religion and nationality, we want a new society free from all forms of oppression.

In an economy based on extracting profits from human labour, we want a new economy based on democratic control by workers. In the context of the Canadian state, based on colonizing Indigenous territories and oppressing Quebec, we support Indigenous sovereignty and national liberation.

In this same manner, we are internationalist: for workers of the world to unite, we need to break the chains of immigration control, and create a world free from war. We fight alongside those who want to make the world a better place, by building movements based on self-emancipation and solidarity.

We make use of parliamentary elections to raise the profile of movements for change, recognizing that real change comes from below through collective action. As a revolutionary socialist organization, we seek to learn and apply the lessons of past and ongoing struggles, to help movements through the challenges and victories ahead, from the reforms we can win in the present to the mass transformation we need in the future. 

Socialist ideas

Spring aims to learn from struggles, apply their lessons and socialist politics to building movements, and through the process build socialist organization.

As Egyptian revolutionary Hossam El-Hamalawy explained, “the process of journalism is a process of organization… you sending a report means that you are engaged on the ground at the same time as you are connected to the rest of the members of the movement… correspondence with the site is not a luxury or only the responsibility of the small number of comrades who run the site, but should continue to be the task of the largest possible number of comrades, if not all of them.”

In action

Changing the world starts with the fight for reforms in the here and now. As Polish revolutionary Rosa Luxemburg explained, “between social reforms and revolution there exists an indissoluble tie. The struggle for reforms is its means; the social revolution, its aim.”

We seek to build movements based on working class struggle and anti-oppression. We also build our own events to raise the profile of socialist politics, and our own meetings so we can discuss and debate our next steps.