1917 Revolution ‘Most Important Event of Last 2,000 Years,’ Russian Culture Minister Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, August 30 – Russia’s culture minister Vladimir Medinsky says that the 1917 revolution in Russia was “the most important event of the last two thousand years” and that is one of the reasons why it is critically important that the authorities block those who want to blacken that event or its results.

            In an interview with “Rossiiskaya gazeta,” Medinsky says that Moscow must win “’the war of history’” and that means opposing those who try to denigrate what the Soviet Union accomplished by pointing to shortcomings or challenging official interpretations of key events (rg.ru/2015/08/26/pravda.html).

            Indeed, the Russian culture minister said that “one must relate to epic Soviet heroes … in the same way as one does to canonized saints in church.” That, he continued, “is my human and civic position,” and any attempts to denigrate these figures or minimize their contributions “must be taboo.”

            He added that “it would be correct to organize work” on the 100^th anniversary of the Russian revolution in the same way Moscow marked the centenary of the beginning of World War I because that will reinforce the truth that these events are “a full part of our undivided history.”

            Medinsky’s remarks perhaps offer a way of putting Vladimir Putin’s insistence that the demise of the Soviet Union was “the greatest geopolitical tragedy of the 20^th century.” For the culture minister, in contrast, the revolution of 1917 is the most important event since the time of Christ.