October 2017 is passing but the Russian evolution has passed

Oct 28, 2017 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

October 2017 marks one hundred years of one of the greatest events in human history. The Russian Revolution has left an inerasable stamp and indelible legacy on the world. In any discussion on the Russian Revolution the inevitable question is asked – what would the world have been like all these years if there wasn’t the impact on the Russian Revolution?
Revolution has been a recurring decimal in the history of civilization. There have been hundreds of them some of which were so phenomenal that they have permanently changed the face of civilization. But there this nagging question – have the contours of each revolution justify the right to revolt. In other words have revolutions really carried out the principles on which they were fought?
If one looks at the seminal revolutions throughout history, this question is pregnant with endless arguments. Edmund Burke, one of Britain’s foremost political thinkers and politicians hated the French Revolution. What started out as a cry for class justice descended into a reign of terror ending with the absolutist rule of Napoleon, the Emperor. The American Revolution was fought against the harsh impositions of colonial rule. The history of US foreign policy would reveal the cruel interventions of America to quell the very freedoms that drove it to its war of independence against Britain.
Few people who rejoiced at Castro’s defeat of Batiste in Cuba would have believed at the time that Castro would go on to rule Cuba months short fifty years and curtail many of the freedoms that the Cuban people fought for against Batiste. The Iranian Revolution toppled a Western oriented ruler and replaced him with an all powerful theocrat. The freedoms enjoyed under the Shah of Iran have been completely removed under its current theocratic monarchs.
Some of these revolts descended in utter depraved rulership as the world saw in Libya with the removal of King Idris. In no other country in the 20^th century and in the 21^st century is the labour of the proletarian classes more exploited than in China. It is unthinkable when you think that in 1949, the Communist Party fought a revolution in China to free the proletarian classes from capitalist exploitation. There isn’t a capitalist country anywhere on Planet Earth that exploits with vicious cruelty the labour of the working masses as in China today. What history has documented with oceanic proof is that a majority of revolutions ended up being far more sadistic, imperial, and oppressive that the old order they removed. A theory that revolutions in themselves are inherent failures could yield efficacious results.
We speak of the permanent legacies of the Russian revolution but some may want to question where they are today. Today’s Russia bears no resemblance to the Russia that became a communist country after the violent overthrow of Russian monarch, Tsar Nicholas. All the communist named cities have been renamed some even back to Tsarist days; for example St. Petersburg. The Communist Party in Russia has not ruled the country since the dissolution of the USSR.
The story of the Russian revolution is a sad one simply because under the Russian revolution, too many people died. The largest numbers of deaths in any country other than Nazi Germany was the USSR under Stalin. It was Stalin himself that devoured the revolution. By the time he tightened his grip on power, Stalin had executed most of the leaders of the Bolshevik Party that actually made the revolution.
The Russian revolution was doomed from the beginning because once a revolution turns its back on the very liberties it fought for then it cannot guarantee its citizens freedom. It will end up taking away those very liberties as we see in Iran. China, Cuba. One of the earliest ironies of human history was the reign of terror under Stalin that had no comparison with the Tsar that Stalin helped to overthrow. It is doubtful the Tsar’s state would have executed so many high profile Russians as Stalin did.
Some scholars claim that the Russian revolution went astray when Lenin died and Stalin took over. But that is a myth. The fact that someone like Stalin could have emerged as leader so early in the revolution tells you that from the start things were not revolutionary at all. It was under Lenin that the people who disagreed with the Bolshevik party were rounded up and executed. If you do not have time to read a book on the Russian revolution and how it went astray perhaps you can spend two hours watching the great classical movie, Dr. Zhivago.

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October 2017 is passing but the Russian evolution has passed

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