Ahead of centenary, Putin calls 1917 Bolshevik revolution ‘complex’

MOSCOW (AFP): Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday that the 1917 Bolshevik revolution had “complex” results, as Russia approaches the centennial of the history-changing event.

Speaking at the annual Valdai club conference of international experts, Putin said: “revolution is always a consequence of a deficit in responsibility”.

“Today, I want to draw attention to the lessons of the events that happened a hundred years ago, to the Russian revolution of 1917,” Putin told the conference.

“We see that its results were complex. We see how tightly knitted the negative (results) are with, one has to admit, the positive consequences of these events,” Putin said.

“Was it not possible to develop not through revolution, but via the road of evolution,” he said, “without paying the price of destroying statehood and ruthless breaking of millions of human losses but via the road of gradual, consistent moving forward?”

Next month, Russia marks a hundred years since the seismic Bolshevik takeover.

Putin has rarely commented on the centenary and the Russian government has not announced major plans on how to mark the anniversary. Putin’s critics have called the centenary uncomfortable for the Kremlin.

Putin, who has been in power in Russia since 1999, is expected to run for a fourth presidential term next year.