How do you like Jacobin Terror? This period in the history of France is unlikely to delight you. And what is your opinion about the Great French Revolution? This event had predetermined European history for over a century ahead, having given birth to a heroic myth which is a hallmark for France of today. Moreover, the French Revolution influenced not only France, but Italy, Latin America, Russia – the countries which absorbed the myth of the French Revolution in their history, culture and perceptions of the republican institutions.

One can take pity on Maria-Antoinette and other French aristocrats sent to the guillotine by revolutionary tribunals. However, even the authors of the touchy royal biographies don’t dare offer the French people to abolish the celebration of July 14, the day which is connected with the Great French Revolution.

The Russian government however has chosen to act just like that. It has tried to abolish history and to eradicate the October Revolution myths from people’s minds, in order to fill the emptied space with something new and more suitable for solving its current problems. This “something” might, for example, be the ideology of the official patriotism or the nostalgia for the empire, purified of touches of the revolutionary messianism and class consciousness.

By the way, the Russian case of the national holidays’ substitution is not unique. Christians built their churches in place of the pagan temples and scheduled holidays for approximately the same dates as the pagan festivities. Later on, the Bolsheviks succeeded in replacing Christmas by the New Year’s Day, which adopted all Christmas rituals, deprived however of all religious symbolism (actually, it is arguable to what extent this symbolism is preserved in the West, where Christmas had been well commercialized).

The Kremlin’s care for our mental health is understandable. If people are not made believe that the existing state of affairs is the only possible one, they might want to change it. But Russian bureaucrats have one irresolvable problem. To create a new myth, new deeds are demanded, as well as heroes performing their deeds in the face of millions of their compatriots. To be more precise, we need millions of heroes performing millions of real deeds – that is how the synthetic images of saints, knights, and great revolutionaries are being created.

The Russia of today has no victories. That is why it can’t have holidays of its own. Seriously, what are we to celebrate? Another anniversary of the Groznyy market-place bombing with the long-range missiles? Or the sacred to all Russians day, when the world oil price had reached $ 60 per barrel?

This is the reason why the Russian authorities are digging in the past in search of dates which would squeeze out the revolutionary holidays. As for November 7, it should be canceled and substituted by something new, which is to be scheduled at approximately the same time slot, but necessarily a bit earlier – otherwise, people will automatically celebrate the old holiday first. Morning-after they might even not catch sight of a new sacred date!

In this case the notorious Russian bureaucratic idiotism has shown itself to the hilt. The search for the red-letter day was very superficial, with no proper penetration into our history. I have way back had a hutch that our patriots in power are not only in dark about the history of our country, but are not interested in it at all.

Anyhow, there came out a confusion with National Unity Day. It was scheduled for November 4 and aimed at commemorating the liberation of Moscow from the Polish intervention in 1612. However, the thing is that there was no liberation of Moscow this very day in 1612. It was just an ordinary day. There was some shooting around Kitay-gorod walls; the Poles were sitting in the Kremlin; Kuzma Minin, future national hero, was busy with financial accounting; Prince Dmitry Pozharsky, another hero, was trying to establish discipline in his noble army. All the participants of the Moscow campaign would probably have been very surprised to find out that their descendants chose this very day as a national holiday: in their epoch, full of dramatic events, there were plenty of other days worth celebrating.

November 4 doesn’t excite minds, and all the pompous festivities only add to the overall feeling of the autumn gloom. It is clear in advance that most people will celebrate November 7 instead, no matter what sum of money is spent on public entertainment or how many extra buses are scheduled to bring people downtown.

The official holiday will be celebrated only by order and only for money, while November 7 will be celebrated as a holiday, because it truly is a big day in history, regardless any likes or dislikes. For those resenting the Bolsheviks there is an opportunity to ignore the holiday. However, with all that, even the most fervent anti-communist will see no sense in November 4 – it’s just nothing to celebrate this day.

Putin’s regime loses the ideological battle with the shadow of the Russian Revolution. Moreover, the authorities feel it. This is the reason why the communists and other representatives of the “red opposition”, who usually hold their meetings on November 7, are promised to have demonstrations banned. The government has to protect the new official holiday with police batons. It looks like the inhabitants of the Kremlin feel themselves just like the Polish “sitters” of 1612, who had a clear understanding of the fact that all their authority was only maintained by force and fear. However the government, which has nothing but blunt force to back up its policy, is likely to achieve only one goal – to provoke violence.

Boris Kagarlitsky is a Director of The Institute for Globalization Studies.

November 3, 2005