There is someone to take power here

Historian Lev Lurie draws parallels, comparing the 1917th and 2017th

Reflections on the events of 1917 do not release both professional historians and everyone who is interested in the history of Russia, its past and future.

Today, many tend to draw parallels between the events accompanied by the February and October Revolutions of 1917, and the processes taking place in modern Russia. And this can be understood: a hundred years - a magical date that makes you look for coincidences, re -calculate the possible options for what happened. We are talking about the revolutionary 1917 in the light of today with historian Lev Lurie .

One hundred years - a magic date forcing to look for coincidences, re -calculate the possible options for what happened

- Lev Yakovlevich, now many draw analogies, comparing today's rise in political activity with the events of 1917. Do you think there really is a similarity between 1917 and 2017?

-Something seems to the prefire moods-it is obvious to a decrease in power. But I must say directly that Putin and his environment are much more viable and much better imagine life in the country and abroad than the late sovereign and his environment. The sovereign received his post simply as the eldest son of Alexander III, and Vladimir Putin is the son of the October Revolution, because his father is a worker, and under the previous regime he had no chance to take such a position. This is, if not true, then the meaning of October: he released a certain constrained mass, which otherwise would not receive any development. So we can say that Vladimir Putin is the last prone of the October Revolution.

-And if you look at the parties-at all these cadets, Socialist-Revolutionaries with their slogans-is there something in common, or are the current parties in comparison with them in its infancy?

- We have a completely different society. The meaning of the revolution is that it from an agrarian country made industrial, urban.

- And this was the revolution, and not the entire course of the economy before the First World War?

- At such a pace, this was done by the revolution. Of course, this passed through the blood - collectivization, forced expulsion of the excess population from the village, the death of the village. And the revolution made the country competent. Before the revolution, Russia is much more than now, was the country of African, a third world country. Now Russia, at least the capital and millionaires, is a country at the level of Eastern Europe. Still, it is necessary to understand the degree of wildness of the country until 1917.

Something is like the prefires of mood-it is obvious to be a decoration of power

The greatest achievement of the last decades can be considered that Russia has become a country of relatively pure toilets. The revolution is the history of dirty toilets, the story of an ink that does not know how to use urban amenities, which bursts into the city and is gradually assimilated. And the children of the Sharikovs are already quite transformed. Therefore, I think that important events await us.

I remember one revolution in my lifetime - this is the 1991 revolution. It must be understood that Putin came from the Maidan, and if not for which they now love to reproach the 90s so much, then our head of the Legislative Assembly Makarov would still have taught the history of the CPSU at the Mozhaisky School, Medvedev would work in a criminal investigation or a people's judge, and Putin would have been retired and would have caught the sand for somewhere in Karelian Isthmus. They became those who they became, they became only thanks to the 1991 revolution.

And why should I think that the next revolution will be worse than the 1991 revolution? And it was pure joy. Of course, then the impoverishment, the collapse of the USSR, the tragedy of Russians who remained in the national republics, but all this cannot be compared with the tragedy that covered Russia in 1918-19.

So, in this sense, now we have a little similar to February, and I think that the future inevitable revolution may well happen peacefully, as it happened in the Soviet Union: we can simply tell us that the president has retired, that he was simply not there, he went somewhere in Tuva. Some Constituent Assembly is going, all this is shown on TV ... The options can be very different. 1917 and 1991 Cleaned a lot.

-February 1917 or October?

Revolution is a history of dirty toilers, the story of an ink that does not know how to use urban amenities

- Of course, October. This is also a sad lesson that our like -minded people should be learned. Marx was right: productive forces affect production relations, it is impossible to fly out of the illiterate in the vast majority of society Finland or the United States. Russian emigrants poke their compliance with the rules of the road, personal hygiene rules, the presence of elections and the lack of corruption - why should we look like Finland or France? We have nothing for this.

We need to compare ourselves with those countries with which we always go to our nose - with Turkey, Persia, partly with Poland. Russia has never lived richer than Poland - why should she live richer than her today? When Putin during his first brilliant period set the task of achieving the level of Portugal, this was wonderful sobriety. In the end, the level of human happiness does not depend on the standard of living in his country. We have a lot of other advantages - the same Russian language.

So I have no great alarm. Of course, there may be some Latin American convulsions, but when I look at the faces of the guys from the National Guard on the Marse Field, comparing them with the picture of Serov "Soldiers, brave guys", I prefer the national guard to soldiers with nagikes who knocked their eyes.

- They say that the police warned the detainees on the Marse field that this arrest would seem to them flowers compared to the following.

- I say: we do not live in Finland. It is necessary to compare their fate not with the position of protests somewhere in France, but with the situation, for example, Soviet dissidents or even the National Bolsheviks ten years ago. And those who entered the Field of Mars should understand that these are not jokes.

Lev Lurie

- And if you still return to the analogies with the events of a hundred years ago, which today seems to you the most important?

The future inevitable revolution may well occur peacefully, as happened in the Soviet Union

- Bulgakov has such a character in Bolbotun - Petliurian coronet or Yesaul, who is part of Kyiv. Bulgakov writes that a year ago he was a rural teacher, but Napoleon was sleeping in his chest - and now he woke up. Either some electrician of the mine Nikita Khrushchev, or non-commissioned officer Chapaev, or sailor-stroke Pavel Dybenko, or unknown emigrants Lev Trotsky and Vladimir Lenin, or a rather unpleasant exiled Joseph Stalin.

The most important thing: 1917 is a moment of awakening in a person sometimes beautiful, sometimes terrible. Revolution is always a change of elites. It is always wildly painful, but fruitful for culture. All this is very difficult. I understand the skepticism of many people (this does not concern) in relation to the heritage of 1917 and the condemnation of everything related to Bolshevism. Bolshevism lasted for so long, and we won the Great Patriotic War, because the army did not enter Berlin, not the Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolaevich the youngest and General Evert , but there were no soldiers' children of Zhukov, Rokossovsky and Konev, and there was no such army in tsarist Russia.

- That is, you do not think that those who love to say so much today are that there are no leaders in Russia, there is no opposition, and you think that all this will suddenly appear - like in 1917?

-We have an opposition-albeit not in the Duma, but not in Magadan, we saw on the events of Marta-June that it appears in completely unexpected places. We saw how in St. Petersburg an almost unsystematic opposition (though with the support of local lawmakers) managed to stop destructive processes in the field of culture. We see a colossal figure of Navalny. We have people who can take power, it will not fail.

And among other things, we have a business school that taught people to survive without listening to teams. These people, who created their restaurants, store networks, construction trusts, know how to manage people. I hope that at the right time this enlightened bourgeoisie will save the country.

1917 is a moment of awakening in a person sometimes beautiful, sometimes terrible

I would not neglect the security forces at all. Now social elevators are working slowly, and for a capable boy from somewhere in the underground the only road, maybe the police school is. But this does not mean that he is completely unscrupulous, that he was exhausted by all the good that Russian literature and parents instilled him. This can change at any moment - it has always been so.

- And if you return by 1917 - is there such a straw that can be covered so that one party does not win again? And why did the Bolsheviks won at all then?

- The revolution is always a violation of the law. She first involved a soldier of the Petrograd garrison into her funnel, then the deputies of the State Duma, then workers who introduced working control, then peasants who burned estates and estates, then soldiers who killed their officers.

And then there was a force that told all of them: guys, you are not criminals, but heroes. They were the only ones who combined the idea of indulgence and strength. Some poor Blok felt this in them. And even the bourgeoisie for some time believed that Bolsheviks were better than all these mumbled. The Bolsheviks did not chip with some bandit and rapist, but then put him on the wall, only no one understood that this could affect themselves.

The revolution is always wildly painful, but fruitful for culture

The 1991 revolution just forgave everyone, it was very gracious, and why should we think that the new one will be more bloodthirsty? Russia resembles Eastern Europe, and there, except for Romania, there was no bloody end of the Communist power. And then, we only saw a passage through the Maidan in Ukraine twice. We are closer to Ukraine and its example, and comparative-and only this can be predicted-I am more optimistic. But the authorities, of course, are afraid of the 17th year.

- Today we so want these analogies also because the issues raised by February are still not resolved, and October too. It’s just that the Bolsheviks deceived everyone - because the Earth was never transferred to the peasants.

- Nobody gives anything just like that. I think that if farmers managed to reach the authorities, they would have received more concessions. This is the lesson of the revolution: whoever achieves, he receives. If the truckers had not protested, the Plato system would be much more rigid. We would have broken the whole city if the city defenders had not acted. And this applies to absolutely everything. No one gives anything just like that.

-And yet-why in 1917 they did not give the land to the peasants? After all, they not only believed the Bolsheviks, but also took up their weapons, fought for them, and they deceived them.

We have an opposition-albeit not in the Duma, but not in Magadan, we saw by the events of Marta-June that it appears in completely unexpected places

- The peasants returned to the community - they ravaged the landowners, as well as the farmers and brans who appeared under Stolypin, and began to live their community, "Lada", as Vasily Belov called it, but they did not learn to unite. The cooperation that Bukharin dreamed about did not work out. They did not energetically defend the party of the Socialist -Revolutionaries, expressing their interests.

The Bolsheviks did not really hide that they hate the peasantry, but you remember - this is the mood of all literature of the beginning of the 20th century - the mood of Bunin, Chekhov, Gorky. They treated them like Bulgakov to Sharikov. I think Gorky therefore supported Stalin. The man is dark, not to refract him - it means that he must be destroyed, this is the only way to fight wildness. And the peasants suffered collectivization - after all, the most active part of them went after the Bolsheviks and became the Bolsheviks. There were no real violent ones - they all went to the Red Army.

Peasants near bags of grain found at the fist

-It seems that Antonov-Ovseenko put forward the theory why the peasants followed the Bolsheviks-because they promised to give them to rob their own neighbors. Do you agree with this?

- Partly - yes. This also has Platonov in the "foundation pit", he is not lying. All this was laid in their mythologized picture of the world - about nature, about equality, the myth of which was an important part of the village ethics. And the fists were probably not so pretty.

- And yet why did the Bolsheviks won, inconspicuous, compared to the same heroic Socialist -Revolutionaries?

The Bolsheviks did not really hide that they hate the peasantry

- Because the Provisional Government did not resolve a single issue, it stood on the basis of the law, but there are times when to adhere to the law criminal towards their own people. For example, I believe that in 1993, Yeltsin completely correctly shot the parliament - this happens. I think that Bialowieza agreements from the point of view of law cannot withstand critics, there are simply such times when everything breaks. So, it was necessary to conclude the world, to leave the First World War, to tell the landowners: run from the village, there will be black redistribution.

After all, the Bolsheviks stole a program from the Socialist -Revolutionaries and accepted it, and the Socialist -Revolutionaries were terribly whining and complained. Well, it was impossible to wait for the Constituent Assembly. I think Kornilov had a chance, and that would be Russian fascism. There are two ways of an industrial coup - fascist and communist. But the Bolsheviks were more agile, and the whites were organized much later and, with all the heroism of the Volunteer Army, shamefully lost the war.

- They say that the Constituent Assembly was not going to too long - is that true?

- Yes, it was necessary to collect earlier, but they all politicians. Although I’m not at all sure that it had to be collected, it was a very complex form, it was necessary to establish a directory. The February Revolution took place mainly on a false platform - that the current government cannot defend the country, that everywhere German spies, that the sovereign, that the sovereign, that Rasputin ... were difficult for them to neglect the promises of the French and withdraw from the war. They took an oath, but it was necessary to forget it, there was no other option. It was necessary to take dictatorial powers and get out of the war - but it was unlikely that this was possible with the mood of society.

This was done by Lenin. Such a difficult blooming and many talking substrate, like the Russian intelligentsia, was not ready for lightning and decision -making. Lenin called the February revolution the bourgeois-democratic, but it was not bourgeois-it was intelligent-Lumpenskaya.

- That is, its driving force was the very workers that you wrote about in your book "Petersburgers"?

The Bolsheviks quickly took off foam from all classes, gave a chance to those who had no before

- They were her element, as will be football fans in the future Russian revolution. From childhood, these guys were not afraid of violence and felt that the old regime did not give them any chance. There is such a Sam Ramer, a friend of Brodsky, who said that the Russian revolution is a revolution of paramedics, folk teachers, and a lower intelligentsia, which did not have any chances in a status society, like workers.

“At first they didn’t seem to want any atrocities.”

- They did not want to remain in their class. The Bolsheviks quickly took off foam from all classes, gave a chance to those who had no had no one before.

-Can it happen that today's Russian political fermentation will come to something Bolshevik again?

- No, I do not see such bitterness. Another thing is that Russia, as Lenin said, is a multistract country. We know one Russia, but there is another. It is difficult for me to imagine what will happen there in the Oryol or Kursk region or in the Krasnodar Territory, and especially in the Republic of Chechnya. But I do not see the prerequisites for, as they like to say now, lawlessness in St. Petersburg, Moscow and other Sverdlovski. There is someone to intercept power, and there is no such animal bitterness of the mass.

- As for the summer of 1917 - what points, milestones should you remember, first of all?

Another thaw comes - not yet April, but already March

- You and I have a rather unpleasant, but strong and flexible power, which still has a resource. Unfortunately, we are ruled by the president who is very well prepared for this, so in this sense the situation is not very similar. My hope is that you and I live almost in 1986. It seems to me that another thaw comes - not April, but already March. This can be seen in the cinema, according to social networks, on the story with the public library and the Isaac's Cathedral, in the way the events that the authorities did not plan to take place without any permission, according to the way the instruments that the authorities have, such as television, begin to play a smaller role: their blow turns into a cotton blow, as during the time of Andropov and Chernenko.

It is impossible to build an ideology on complete cynicism. You know, when Brezhnev came to the cottage, where Bovin and Arbatov wrote his speeches, he cut off pieces from the moose whom he shot, and said: "Guys, just do not have to quote Karl Marx - who will believe that Lenya Brezhnev read Karl Marx?" Here he was the same Marxist as these are our believers. And Lenin was a communist, Stalin was an ideological person, and the famous line of Brodsky about thieves and bloodsucker, of course, refers to Stalin and Dzerzhinsky. А здесь впервые в истории России к власти пришли люди, которые скорее ворюги, чем кровопийцы.

– Как вы тогда представляете будущую революцию?

– Как всегда, революция происходит тогда, когда власть уходит. Ты засыпаешь, просыпаешься – ее нету, как это было в 1991 году.

– Но там все-таки было трехдневное стояние.

Невозможно построить идеологию на полном цинизме

– Ну, вот примерно так и произойдет. Не знаю, что произойдет с Владимиром Владимировичем – может, он не станет переизбираться, а может, заболеет болезнью Альцгеймера – не дай бог.

– В 1917 году все-таки постреляли в народ – кажется, и сейчас уже готовы.

– Ну, может, и постреляют в народ. Другое дело, сколько времени и в каком объеме силовики смогут это делать. Вы знаете, это очень тяжело, вот лейб-гвардии Волынский полк пострелял один вечер в народ, а на следующий день убил штабс-капитана Юркевича и организовал революцию. В этом смысле февраль довольно многому учит.

А в Октябре силовики вообще не принимали участия. Октябрь был организован волей большевиков при участии каких-то там латышей, рабочей молодежи, то есть хулиганов и братишек, которые поубивали своих офицеров и которым не было пути назад. У нас нет полууголовных элементов, с которыми власть иногда заигрывает, – вот разве что казаки да те, кто обливает зеленкой оппозиционных деятелей.

Но власть, у которой высокое ощущение опасности, вообще не любит самодеятельности, даже погромной. Неслучайно националистов преследуют гораздо серьезнее, чем либералов. Футбольный болельщик – это тот элемент, которого власть боится. Ему ведь нет смысла грабить хипстера, он от него ничего не получит, и если он пойдет грабить, то Рублевку. Такие эксцессы бывают, но надеюсь, что президент Навальный будет держать это под контролем: временный комитет в составе Навального, Кудрина, Ходорковского, ну и, например, Полтавченко. Это же всегда бывает очень странная коалиция, – отметил в интервью Радио Свобода историк Лев Лурье .