The Permanent Revolution (Thinking about the Russian Revolution)

Abstract

The author of the article reflects on the Russian revolution of 1917 in the context of the main trends in the development of world history at the end of the 20th and 21st centuries. Conflict of ideologies, distrust of the masses toward political institutions and other problems of modern society in a new “globalized” world make the idea of a “permanent revolution” again urgent. This idea, however, is developing in new forms which are different from those of the 20th century. Considering some modern Western concepts of development and Russian philosophical and religious thought, the author raises the question of “anthropological catastrophe” and the possibility of new apocalypses in history. That is why in the centennial anniversary of the Russian revolution, special attention should be paid to the essence of the events that took place. The collapse of tsarism eventually led to the victory of Bolshevism because of the lack of reliable alternatives. The true lesson of the Russian revolution was the impotence of democracy and liberal ideology, which proved to be insufficient for understanding reality and lacking those models that could be applied to the Russian situation. Populism and rude propaganda against culture and religion won. The intelligentsia turned out to be the biggest category that was defeated. The new government was actually organized as the “overturned religion” of denying God and as the “Red Church” of the party-helmsman. Today there is a new populist rhetoric and a new religion typical of the third millennium which deifies no longer the party, but the “people” in the fragmented and virtual form of the world of the information revolution. “The mysticism of the revolution” has come to life in the second decade of the 21st century, and much of what was as a perspective hundred years ago has arisen in modern Russia.