A holiday that is always with us — even if it is not a holiday. Some way to describe the role that the day of November 7, plays in the collective consciousness of the Russians after 102 years after Lenin’s Communist revolution.
photo: AGN “Moscow”
Familiar to all former Soviet people the festive surroundings — organized at the state level demonstration on red square, the calls and slogans of the CPSU Central Committee to the anniversary of the Great October revolution, solemn oath to continue the revolutionary achievements — are long gone. But the revolution refuses to disappear. She is firmly stuck in our heads and not going anywhere. And you know what? I’m sure it’s good. Russia in any case should not forget about the revolution of 7 November 1917. If such oblivion when something suddenly happens, then the country will have to pay for it is unbearable high price.
Looking for today’s Moscow with its shining shop Windows, available at any time of the day all kinds of service and other attributes of the Western lifestyle, I occasionally find myself thinking: all this is unreal, all is superficial, all that can disappear at any time.
Where are these sensations? Partly from memory of what I saw with my own eyes in the days of Brezhnev’s stagnation, Gorbachev’s perestroika and the period that Naina Yeltsin, dubbed “saints of the nineties”. But this is not the only and perhaps even not the main source of my fears. Their main source is the genetic memory of the former Soviet people that he had experienced since 1917: universal chaos of universal poverty, fratricidal civil war, the terrible dictatorial regime based on the principle of “without my permission to anyone nothing is impossible”.
Yes, modern Russia is very much nostalgic for the days of the USSR. But it’s nostalgia for a large and United country, not generated by the revolution political regime. No doubt, the political regime that existed in Russia before the revolution, too, was not perfect — so perfect that the society welcomed its violent overthrow. But after this seemingly happy event level of horribleness, tiranical, the irrationality of the political system has risen to dozens, if not hundreds of times.
That is why Russia has no right to forget about the realities of the revolution of 1917. Who one day put your finger to a hot stove and got burned badly, do not want to repeat the experience again. The memory of the events that symbolizes the day of November 7 is our insurance. Insurance and the guarantee that something similar will never happen again.
But how reliable is this “revolutionary insurance guarantee”? My heart ardent supporter of the evolutionary path of development eager response “100%”. But my brain is a political realist does not allow even much less optimistic assessment. New generations of Russians it is difficult to imagine in principle the possibility of empty shelves. And, on the one hand, for a country inhabited by people who have no negative psychological baggage of previous generations, can only rejoice. However, on the other hand, for the country is frightening.
It is difficult to say to what extent this is the fault of the 1917 revolution and what followed it. But in modern Russia the ideas of an evolutionary way of political development have not yet managed to put really deep roots. As a result, new generations of Russians have not only a negative experience of their parents and grandparents, but vaccination against the revolution, understanding that fire better not to play.
This, of course, in any case, it does not follow that we will surely have a new revolution. But the lack of fear of what necessarily to be feared, weakens our society, making it more vulnerable. Ahead of the Russian period of the change of power and therefore of great political uncertainty. And uncertainty is the perfect breeding ground for a wide variety of ghosts, including the specter of revolution.
We certainly hope that the Ghost will pass through Russia, and then all will go into his supernatural realm. But for this, our country needs to carefully look into their history, not gradually forget it as it is happening now.
I’m against extravagant ideas like the removal of Lenin’s body from the mausoleum. It is not necessary to split the society, impose on him a virtual political agenda in a period when our real political agenda and so filled to the brim. Big words and nice gestures can interfere with healing. However, the healing should not be accompanied by loss of historical memory. 102 years ago, according to the new style in our country took place the Bolshevik revolution. It has already happened. This will not change. You can only change the value of this fact for the future of Russia. The memory of what happened in 1917, can move the country forward, but can – ago. Similar choice has not been made. However, to avoid Russia in the future just will not succeed.
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