Putin’s plans for Russian Revolution centennial: None
MOSCOW – Tuesday marks the centennial of the Russian Revolution, one of the most significant political events of the 20th century. Yet President Vladimir Putin’s government is barely acknowledging it — apparently because anything to do with “revolution” hits too close to home.
Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said the Kremlin has no plans to commemorate the centennial, which ushered in seven decades of Communist rule. “What is there to celebrate?” Pravda.ru quoted him as saying.
Some scholars say a government that has increasingly suppressed political freedoms does not want to plant the idea of revolt in its citizens.
“There was no way it could pretend the centennial did not exist, but the last thing an authoritarian regime feeling its foundations wobble wants to do is celebrate revolution,” said Mark Galeotti, an expert on Russian politics and security at the Institute of International Relations in Prague.
While Putin has embraced nationalist fervor recently and longs for the days when Russia was a superpower before the collapse of the Soviet state in 1991, he recently became critical of repression under Communist rule.
There have been mass protests recently in support of opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who plans to run against Putin in next year’s presidential elections despite government moves to keep him off the ballot. Navalny has been arrested several times, and his supporters are routinely detained, beaten and harassed.
A still-active Communist Party is holding its own commemorative events across the country.
“It’s clear that to celebrate or even seriously discuss this topic is undesirable for the Kremlin,” said Oleg Smolin, a senior party lawmaker. “To me this is wrong: We should learn lessons from past revolutions.”
The Russian Revolution began in February 1917 with a mass revolt against the oppressive rule of the czarist dynasty and forced Nicholas II to abdicate in March.
A second revolution on Nov. 7 (according to the modern Gregorian calendar) that was led by Vladimir Lenin overthrew the provisional government and transferred power to the Soviets, or workers’ councils.
The revolution triggered a civil war that claimed millions of lives and ended in 1922 with the establishment of the Soviet government.