Fascinating longish read about why Russia is not celebrating the February Revolution of 1917.
“For one group of people, the revolution was the death knell of Great Russia — it was ‘Brexit,’ when we stopped our development in Europe,” said Mikhail Shvydkoy, Mr. Putin’s special representative on cultural matters, in an interview in the wood-paneled cafe at the Central House of Writers, a prerevolutionary mansion. “For many other people, the Soviet past was the best time of their lives.”
Mr. Putin strives to unite the country, he said, whereas “any festivities on the state level would deepen those divisions.”
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The president shunted the anniversary off into the realm of academia, appointing a special committee to organize seminars and the like.
Previously, the official narrative was an essay written by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, in which he argued that deep distrust between the court and the educated elite along with German meddling brought about catastrophe.
The latter fits the Kremlin narrative that Russia has long been besieged by foreign aggressors and that the West strives to implant friendly governments everywhere by sponsoring “color revolutions.” Columnists have been lumping 1917 among more recent color revolutions in places like Georgia and Ukraine, naturally listing the United States among the suspected agitators.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/10/world/europe/russian-revolution-100-years-putin.html
