Network States

The Russians didn’t expect the Bolshevik Revolution. Sure, there was growing radicalism. Yes, they were losing a war. But Russia had such potential. It had so many great men! It didn’t deserve communism.

But sometimes the bad guys win.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B01MZDZAE8/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?ie=UTF8&qid=&sr=

When I went to St. Petersburg, I talked very excitedly about the October Revolution with some of the locals. It is seen as a good thing in my part of the world. The Russians there told me pretty clearly that it was a coup. The “personality cult” I saw there was of Peter the Great, not Lenin or Marx. It looked like they actively wanted to remember the era of the tsars rather than that of the Bolsheviks. 

Also, 1949 may end up being a more consequential date rather than 1917. The USSR did not live long enough to see a hundred years. PRC probably will. The latter is already preparing for that anniversary.