December 2016: Vladimir Putin delivers the Annual Presidential Address to the Federal Assembly. Source: Kremlin.ru.Late last year when Russian president Vladimir Putin was about to deliver his State of the Nation address, commentators expected he would devote a large part of it to the 100th anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution. Yet Putin limited himself to just a few sentences. “We need history’s lessons primarily for reconciliation and for strengthening the social, political and civil concord that we have managed to achieve,” he said. “It is unacceptable,” Putin added, “to drag the grudges, anger and bitterness of the past into our life today, and in pursuit of one’s own political and other interests to speculate on tragedies… Let us remember that we are a single people, a united people, and we have only one Russia.”
Reducing the meaning of the Bolshevik Revolution — a series of events that had enormous impact on Russia and the world — to its significance for national unity is well suited to Putin’s nation-building project. After the disintegration of the Soviet Union, Russia’s territory shrunk, its sphere of influence was gone; its economy was in permanent downfall, and its politics torn by fierce rivalry that led twice to state coup attempts. When Putin became Russia’s acting president in 2000, he saw his mission in consolidating political power and improving economic development.
Russia needed to build a new state identity after its imperial statehood was lost. It is hardly surprising that concern about national reconciliation and unity has been fairly high on Putin’s list of priorities since very early in his presidency.
