(3) Remembering the October Revolution in 2017

Historians don't only look at the events of history. They also look at how history is remembered and commemorated and how those change over time, and why. Anniversaries of major events, occasionally of particularly significant years, often produce special editions for general readers on the topic.

These three major German magazines have published editions on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the Russian Revolution(s) of 1917.

GeoEpoche's version is the most attractively illustrated of the three, including the cover. It's articles are from journalists, which results in a strong focus on events and action, which is helpful in understanding the succession of contingencies and decisions made at the time on the basis of far more limited information than that available to the historian. This is the only one of the three publications that devotes all its articles to the Russian Revolution itself, though some attention is given to the longer-term development of events with the Communist government. The authors also tend to take pains to show their disapproval of the main Bolshevik protagonists in the events they describe. The biographical note on "Der rote Putsch" says, "In light of the violence of the Bolsheviks, GEOEPOCHE author Cay Rademacher (born 1965) really does not regret that most of the leading revolutionaries later fell victim to Josef Stalin." (my translation)

Der Spiegel Geschichte's publication is titled "Russia: From Czarist Empire to World Power." As the cover illustration indicates, they try to cover the entire period from 1917 to today. Their treatment is also journalistic but with more an emphasis on rounded historical accounts than trying to convey a this-is-what-it-was-like-in-real-time feel. Their illustrations are also good and top quality, including an opening piece on Soviet posters. It also includes what to me is the single most helpful illustration, a map of the military status of the country in August 1918 during the civil war, showing the area actually controlled by the Soviet government at that point, which was something like a fifth of the territory of the former Russian Empire. It's hard to understand the sequence of development in the years immediately after 1917 without realizing how desperate the military situation became during the civil war.

Zeit Geschichte takes the approach of looking at a larger picture than just the October Revolution. In their case, they focus on the wider events of the year 1917. This is valuable in putting the Russian Revolution in the context of the First World War. So we get treatments of Woodrow Wilson and the American entry into the world war, conditions on the home front in Germany, division in the German Social Democratic Party (SPD) of the war, Lawrence of Arabia and even Mata Hari.

Zeit Geschichte's articles are the most substantial of the three from my perspective because they are mostly written by scholars in a popular style but dealing with issues more in the mode of a professional historical perspective. That's even true of the concluding article, "Der gefährliche Lenin" by Michael Thumann, a foreign correspondent for Die Zeit, which deals with how contemporaries Russian leaders deal with the memory of the October Revolution.

Thumann also doesn't describe current views as though every public remembrance of 1917 was dictated in detail by Vladimir Putin. As inconvenient as it is for Cold War 2.0 narratives to recognize that Putin is not all-powerful in today's Russia.

Ivan Krastev, Director of the Centre for Liberal Strategies in Bulgaria, argues, "Die Dämonisierung der Revolution – jeglicher Revolution – bildet den Kern der politischen Legitimität des gegenwärtigen Regimes in Moskau" ("The demonizing of the revolution - any revolution - constitutes the core of the political legitimacy of the present regime in Moscow"). (Analogie zum Jahr 1917? APuZ 34–36:2017)

But Thumann views the anniversary of the revolution as awkward for Putin and his political project in a more complex way:

... Putin und Naryschkin [lesen] Umfragen .... Und die beinhalten schlechte Nachrichten für Lenin-Kritiker. Nach Erhebungen des Lewada-Zentrums steigt Lenins Popularirär in Russland Jahr um Jahr. Während 2006 nur 40 Prozent der Russen Lenin als positive Figur sahen, wuchs dieser Prozentsatz bis 2016 auf 53 Prozent. Sehr negativ sehen ihn nur noch fünf Prozent, das ist der niedrigste Wert seit dem Untergang der Sowjetunion. Aller offiziellen Kritik, allen Ausstellungen und allem Stalin-Kult zum Trotz: Lenin bleibt für eine Mehrheit der Russen ein Held.

[... Putin and {Sergey} Naryschkin {head of the Russian foreign intelligence service SWR} read polls. And they contain bad news for Lenin critics. According to surveys by the Lewada Center, Lenin's popularity in Russia is growing year by year. While in 2006 only 40% of Russians saw Lenin as a positive figure, this percentage had grown to 54% by 2016. Only five percent see him as very negative; that is the smallest number since the fall of the Soviet Union {1991}. All official criticism, all the museum exhibitions, and all the Stalin-cultism to the contrary: Lenin remains a hero for a majority of Russians.]

Daniel Wechlin also mentions this in Putin spielt mit seinen Vasallen Neue Zürcher Zeiting 16.11.2016, "Vielen gilt Lenin noch immer als Säulenheiliger; sowjetische Imperiumsphantasien erfreuen sich wieder verstärkter Beliebtheit." ("Many [Russians] still regard Lenin as a saint on a pillar; Soviet imperial fantasies are again enjoying a heightened affection.") BTW, that's an awkward sentence in German, too.

Noting that older voters and pensioners tend to have a higher impression of Lenin as a historical figures, Thumann observes, "Lenin und Putin haben also, bei allen ideologischen Gegensätzen, dieselben Fans." ("So Lenin and Putin, despite all ideological contradictions, have the same fans.") He suggests that with a national election coming up next year, Putin is unlikely to want to irritate those older voters with pronounced anti-Lenin themes during the 100th anniversary:

Vieles spricht im vierten Monat des Erinnerungsjahres für einen sehr vorsichtigen Umgang mit Lenin und der Revolution. Eher stille Verdrängung als krachende Verdammnis. Putin könnte sich dafür den sowjetischen Generalsekretär Leonid Breschnew als Vorbild nehmen. Die Historikerin Juliane Fürst hat jüngst die Revolutionsfeiern 1977 untersucht. Das war jene Zeit, die von älteren Russen als die goldene Zeit der Sowjetunion erinnert wird. Das Leben war geordnet und überschaubar, das Land einflussreich und unangreifbar, der Gastronom-Laden voller Wurst- und Käsesorten. Zum Jahrestag der Revolution 1977 erwähnte die Prawda die Gedenkfeiern noch nicht einmal, sagt Juliane Fürst. Die Erinnerung an Lenin wurde verdrängt, stattdessen rückte die Glorifizierung des Sieges über Hitlerdeutschland ins Zentrum sowjetischen Gedenkens. In den Breschnew-Jahren der Stagnation konnte man auf eine dramatische Vergangenheit zurückblicken, die man selektiv verherrlichte. Ansonsten richtete man sich in der überraschungslosen Gegenwart ein. Eine Zukunft war nicht vorgesehen.

In Putins Russland sieht es ähnlich aus. Die Geschichte wird eingefroren in Ausstellungen und griffigen Warnungen vor Zersplitterung und Chaos. Das konservativ-autoritäre Regime will das Land und seine Bürger vor unangenehmen Überraschungen und Farbenrevolutionen schützen. Revolution ist ein heikles Thema, spaltend, aufreizend, berauschend. Wer wenig darüber spricht, heizt die Sache nicht weiter an. Über 1917 wird man im westlichen Ausland am Ende womöglich mehr diskutieren als in Russland selbst. Für Putin wird es am besten sein, wenn das Gedenkjahr möglichst still und unfallfrei vorübergeht.

[A lot of indicators in the fourth month of the memorial year {April 2017} suggest a very cautious handling of Lenin and the Revolution. More quiet suppression than thundering condemnation. Putin could take the Soviet General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev as a model. The historian Juliane Fürst has recently studied the revolution's celebration in 1977. That was the time that is remembered by older Russians as the golden age. Life was orderly and comprehensible, the country influential and unassailable, the grocery stores were full of various types of sausage and cheese. On the anniversary day of the Revolution in 1977, Pravda didn't even mention the celebration, says Juliane Fürst. The memory of Lenin was suppressed; instead, the glorification of the victory over Hitler Germany returned to the center of Soviet thought. In the Brezhnev years of stagnation, one could look back to the dramatic past, which one could selectively honor. Otherwise, one ensconced oneself in the non-surprising present. A future was not foreseen.

It Putin's Russia, it look similar. History is frozen in exhibitions and catchy warnings of disintegration and chaos. The conservative-authoritarian regime wants to protect the country and its people from unpleasant surprises and color revolutions. Revolution is a touchy subject, divisive, provocative, befuddling. If one doesn't speak of it much, one doesn't rock the boat. It's possible that in the end, 1917 will be discussed more by people in foreign Western countries will than in Russia itself. It would be best for Putin if the year of memory was as quiet as possible and passes accident-free.]

As with all such generalizations, observations like "a future was not foreseen" in 1977 Russia have to be evaluated with a critical eye.