100 years ago, an event occurred that had a massive impact on the 20th century. I am referring to the February and October revolutions of 1917 which caused the rise of communism in Russia. We in the West tend to remember these events, as they had a profound impact in World War 1 and beyond that, until even today, to some extent.
Russians remember these events as well (this was in their home country after all). It was a big event. So can you imagine that on the one hundredth anniversary of this event, Russia is doing… nothing to celebrate this. This mostly has to do with the country’s current leader, Vladimir Putin. To put it simply, he wants his country to forget about the Soviet Union experiment that occurred inside Russia during the 20th century.
There are a couple of reasons for this, the first being that Putin wants people to forget that an uprising took down the empire of the Russian Tsars. It is not hard to see why Putin himself would not like this, he would see this toppling of an empire as leading to a period of instability, which is right considering that after the October Revolution, Russia went into several years of civil war. Another reason Putin might have held off on the celebrations is because of the current political climate in Russia. Earlier this year there were protests in the streets which Putin cracked down on.
There is also his political opponent, known as Alexei Navalny, who wishes to run for president in 2018. Due to the political situation, Putin understandably would not want to potentially inflame things further by reminding people of a legendary uprising resulting in the leader being forced to step down. Putin seems to be a man who values order in the way of things and the revolutions of 1917 do not reflect that value.
While Putin may be trying to forget the revolutions, there are still some people, such as a group known as Project 1917, who wish to remember November 17th 1917 and wish for the past to be remembered.
