The international scientific conference "Centennial of Russian Revolution of 1917" continues in the Moscow State University.
"Revolution is always a serious wound for the nation. The scar from this wound remains and hurts for a very long time. This pain still continues today. Today's Russian society still has polar views on the events of 1917," Director of the Russian History Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences Yuri Petrov said during the conference.
According to him, the same sentiments accompany the Great French Revolution, which happened more than two hundred years ago: "When its bicentenary was celebrated in 1989, French society was split. Some people remembered this revolution as an era of equality, brotherhood and freedom, others remembered Vendee, the Jacobin terror, blood. Nevertheless, the Great French Revolution paved a new road for the entire world community. It was the reason why world historiography has a concept of long 20th century. This is the century that began in 1789 and ended in 1914. Accordingly, the 20th century is called short century, since it began in 1914 with the First World War and ended in 1991 with the collapse of state that was born as a result of the Russian revolution."
Yuri Petrov suggests to proceed from the fact that this revolution must be viewed not as an event, but as a process: "This process includes several successive phases, such as February, October, and the civil war. There's an analogy with the Great French Revolution. Every great revolution has its own internal logic, which leads to gradual radicalization of sentiments and events. Liberal Girondins lost power to radical Jacobins, and they lost power to military dictator, Napoleon. Stalin played his role in Russia. The context of the revolution should also include the civil war, which started because of the revolution. During the Soviet era, national split was emphasized due to ideological reasons, since it was a period of "triumphal procession of Soviet power," which was allegedly prevented by the civil war that began because of counterrevolutionary initiatives. Now we understand that the situation is much more complicated and we can't blame only one side. Both sides are to blame. The civil war became a continuation of the revolution in a bloody and cruel form."
