What remains after 100 years
The Red October of 1917 and Russia
Deutsche Fassung
Abstract
Almost nothing remains of the great promises of freedom of the Russian Revolution. Poverty and injustice are still prevalent, and freedom and emancipation were stalled by Stalinism and the authoritarian-bureaucratic etatism. International relations, too, were not reconfigured, the more so since the global revolution failed to materialise. Communism or socialism of the Soviet type has lost all attraction as a model of political order. The most important legacy of the Red October is that in Russia, authoritarian-imperial institutions and practices continue to exist today, and that in society, the values and norms of “Soviet Man” are being reproduced, even though the Soviet Union no longer exists.
(Osteuropa 6-8/2017, pp. 231–240)