Anti-revolutionary revolution remembrance policy
Russia’s regime and the spirit of the Revolution
Deutsche Fassung
Abstract
Throughout 2017, the Russian leadership has been faced with a major challenge: It must integrate the memory of the October revolution into a historical narrative that rejects revolutions as a matter of principle. Its core message is one of reconciliation. However, the area of concern is not the civil war of 1917-1920. The past is merely a pretext. The real purpose is to have all criticism of the current regime branded as a threat to social peace, stigmatising criticism as a destructive revolutionary activity. The October Revolution is to be forgotten, to be replaced by a national patriotic commemoration of the social order that was toppled in October 1917.
(Osteuropa 6-8/2017, pp. 7–17)