Daily Archives: November 3, 2005

Though den’ Revoliutsii (November 7) is no longer an official holiday (it was replaced by People’s Unity Day which is on November 4), Russian pollsters continue take an account of how Russians view the Revolution of 1917. Mosnews has provided some interesting percentages of opinion. According to a poll taken by the All-Russian Public Opinion Center (VTsIOM) 70 percent of elderly and 54 percent of younger Russians view the Revolution positively. Only 8 percent of Russians sympathize with Nicholas II, while 21 percent support the Bolsheviks. 32 percent said that both had equal mistakes and truths. The majority of respondents felt that poverty was the main cause of the Revolution.

These polls on how Russians view their past are interesting for a number of reasons. They chart the ebbs and flows of memory; memories that seem to differ by generation, social class, and political position. Communists, who are mostly elderly, ..read more

I’m not sure how to take or what do to with yesterday’s Izvestia’s article (Mosnews has an English summary here) which reports that the slain leader of the Chechen nationalist movement, Alan Maskhadov believed Shamil Basaev was taking money from Boris Berezhovsky to wage war against Russia in the interests of the US and England. This information comes from statements from one “Maskhadovtsy” named Vakhit Murdashev and his lawyer Baiali El’murzaev. According to their statements, Maskhadov wanted reconcile with Moscow because he viewed that the US and England’s geopolitical interests in the Caucuses posed a more dangerous threat to Chechnya than the Kremlin. According to information Murdashev provided Izvestiia, “Aslan Maskhadov feared that Shamil Basaev fell under the influence of Berezovskii, and worker for him for money, and could lose sight of the idea of independence and go under the sway of the West. If this was correct, [it could] work ..read more