Once a year, the ruling Soviet politburo ascended Lenin’s mausoleum on Red Square for a ceremony that marked the November 7 1917 Bolshevik revolution’s anniversary. Revolution Day was a public holiday, ostensibly a festive occasion. But as they peered at the tanks, guns, missiles and soldiers below, the Soviet leaders were unaccountably stony and unsmiling.
In my experience — I lived in Moscow in the 1980s — the average Russian did not have strong feelings about Revolution Day. It was nice to have a day off work. But the bombastic communist slogans that accompanied the annual Red Square event were empty of meaning for most people, including, as the years passed, party members.
In stark contrast, Russians felt powerful emotions on another Soviet public holiday — Victory Day, which commemorated the defeat of Nazi Germany on May 9 1945. This anniversary was full of meaning for the people, communists or not. A quarter of a century after the Soviet Union’s demise, Victory Day is still a public holiday and Russians still take pride in their triumph in the second world war. This victory is a touchstone of their modern identity. It represents a rare episode of national unity in a 20th century scarred by revolutions, civil war, dictatorship, state-directed terror, man-made famine and other extraordinary hardships.