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Many of my guests see the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution as a negative – some would say a catastrophe. Globetrotting filmmaker-journalist Andre Vltchek, author of The Great October Socialist Revolution, begs to differ. He argues that the Russian Revolution was a triumph of the human spirit:
“Perhaps no other single event in modern history brought so much hope for humanity, as the Russian ‘Great October Socialist Revolution.’ During those late autumn days of the year 1917, the entire world shook to its core. All previously accepted and incontestable foundations, on which the basic old perceptions of morality, justice, and also hope, faith and love were resting, began trembling, cracking and collapsing.”
But is trembling, cracking, and collapsing necessarily a good thing? In this case, Andre Vltchek says yes:
“Everything changed: from how people walked, to how they smiled, how they addressed and greeted each other, how they perceived their elders or how they begged for pardons. Songs and rhythms also changed, and the way people danced. Colors and shapes altered and often, in such places that were once covered by an impenetrable darkness, a bright light now appeared suddenly and unexpectedly. Russia, a deep but oppressed and fatalist giant, suddenly found itself at the epicenter of a grand explosion of colors and sounds, at the vanguard of the outstanding epic struggle against nihilism and backwardness. For centuries it went through hell and against hell it arose resolutely. The greatest revolution in human history began.”
Andre Vltchek argues that the failures of the Revolution—authoritarianism, paranoia, persecution of dissidents, and so on—were the result of the big powers’ merciless efforts to “strangle the Bolshevik baby in its cradle.” To this day, he says, the enemies of humane socialism use their money to buy tidal waves of propaganda aimed at convincing us that war is peace, freedom is slavery, and ignorance is strength.
Today, Andre says, the same forces that smeared and ruined the Russian revolution are crushing Southeast Asia, humiliating Malaysia, destroying Afghanistan, and turning once-beautiful Borneo into a wasteland. But at least they’re on the run in Venezuela!