Great October Day of National Unity: the fourth of November defeated the seventh

I remember in the era of state atheism they exposed the “cunning of priests and missionaries”: they supposedly set church holidays on dates familiar to pagans. Kupala Day – the day of John the Baptist, Triglav – Trinity, Maslenitsa – Cheese Week, the birth of Kolyada (the baby-sun, after the longest night) – Christmas… By some inertia, National Unity Day (November 4, introduced in 2005), explain, overshadowed the days of the Great October Socialist Revolution (November 7–8).

Actually, I have already published several essays about the revolution in MK, and I answered about it in an interview – they have also accumulated over the years. Something new, I hope, can be seen precisely in the combination of those November (without taking into account the old-new styles) events of 106 and 411 years ago. In contrast to the blitz capture of the Provisional Government in the Hermitage, the Poles in the Kremlin surrendered for several days, which gave rise to a wave of experts, joyfully, as in Shukshin’s story, “cutting off” the state innovation: “On November 1, the Minin-Pozharsky militia took only Kitai-Gorod, On November 5, the Poles signed a surrender, surrendered on the 6th, and nothing happened on the 4th specifically. This is a stretch for the day of the Kazan Icon of the Mother of God.”

But the “extension” of National Unity Day to the day of the expulsion of the Poles from Moscow then caused a flurry of anger on the banks of the Vistula, poking at “Russian revanchism, militarism, imperialism…” so strong that even our well-known column No. 5 (not to be confused with ward number one more) muttered in bewilderment: “So what did we need: not celebrate the expulsion? or not to expel them at all?

For the Day of the People, namely Unity, the following, in my opinion, is said.

Unity. The fact is simply incomprehensible to Eurocentrists, and therefore pushed into a dark corner of History. Only 60 (sixty! – alas, and we underestimate the amazing fact) years passed from the capture of Kazan by Ivan the Terrible to the liberation of Moscow in 1612 by the militia of Prince Pozharsky and Kuzma Minin. In 2014, Putin said: “The militia was led by an ethnic Tatar, who gave up all his property and collected money to save Russia.” There is some debate about the origins of Kuzma Minin, but there is no doubt about the detachments of 20 Tatar Murzas in the militia, there is no doubt about the Murza of Isker-Tobolsk, whose “Russian experience” was 25 years (!) and who nevertheless came to liberate Moscow two and a half thousand kilometers away.

Nationality. A forgotten fact (perhaps “discrediting” the military level of the militia?) – Pozharsky could not take the Kremlin by storm. No siege equipment, no military skills. Yesterday’s peasants and townspeople are not professionals. All that remains is the simplest folk trick: to impose, to starve. From the memoirs of the Poles: “Lieutenant Truskovsky ate two of his sons, the other ate his mother. Whoever was healthier ate that one.”

The fate of the Kremlin garrison was decided on September 1: Khodkevich’s detachment coming to them with provisions was defeated in Zamoskvorechye with the decisive participation of the detachment of yesterday’s merchant Minin. A characteristic detail: Khodkiewicz did not bring 400 carts of provisions from Poland – they were confiscated in Russian regions. Lisovchiki, the most brutal Polish “Sonderkommando” in the history of Europe, reached Perm, Kholmogory! In a few hours of massacre in Moscow, 7,000 citizens were killed. There are documents: descriptions of Europe’s sighs of relief when those bandits left for Russia. Here one cannot help but be distracted by the “crying over the three partitions of Poland”: if at least one of the three (and they deserved all 33) partitions had passed with the total cruelty of the Lisovchiks, there would have been no one to cry.

The conclusion concerning us is known: suffering, threats to existence included the mechanism of National Unity. And the threats and suffering of 1612 were the most extreme. The militia marched to Moscow under the icon of the Kazan Mother of God, so nothing special was “drawn” to November 4th. We just remembered.

Regarding the said attraction to the dates of other people’s holidays, I would suggest counter-ironically: what if it was the Day of the October Uprising that was attracted

to the liberation of Moscow? Lenin’s famous words about the storming of the Winter Palace: “Today is early, the day after tomorrow is late. So, tomorrow,” suddenly the leader was guessing for the old holiday? So that even in the event of a radical change in ideology there would be a non-working day: to celebrate the “Aurora salvo”? Such jokes only remain a reaction to the current “objective historical” analysis of the Great October Socialist Revolution… For thirty years, in the well-known formula of that event, critics have left only the calendar parameter unquestionable, all except “October” have received their “anti”, antonyms. But they did not add clarity.

In two books I tried to go through the two centuries of preconditions for the collapse of 1917, as well as the work to prevent it. Specifically regarding October and Lenin, I would venture to say: accusations of the collapse of Russia are absurd. The state disappeared in February, and only the inertia of the huge space-population prevented it from being noticed. The official abolition of local government, military discipline in the warring army, the cowardly unofficial abolition of the most important condition of life in the country – the state monopoly on violence. Free as smoking, cracking sunflower seeds in the streets, shooting at officers. Amnestied criminals are slaughtering gendarmes, peasants are burning estates, dividing up land. The October “Decree on Land” did not “open the socialist era,” but covered (this, it turned out, was the strength) had already been done in the countryside (in a rural country!) without any decrees, as in the pre-state era.

Did the Great October Revolution save or kill Russia: the answer depends on political views, but there must be simple, arithmetically provable facts? “Medical,” as O. Bender put it. For example, transfer of a specific amount of money here or there, or no transfer. Read all the pros/cons of German money for Lenin’s party. If you deliberately, well, at least as an experiment on yourself, let into your head all the mutually exclusive “facts, documents” collected by historians, bipolar is guaranteed. Or it will seem: historians must bring all these mutual exclusions to their logical conclusion, fight a duel. Then whoever survived – the facts are more factual, and the documents are more documentary.

But no, historians argue… for example, with a qualitative artistic study of the issue. I’m talking about the film “Parvus Memorandum” by Vladimir Khotinenko. One of them writes: “Lenin with Parvus at the opera listens to Wagner, cries, uttering the phrase about “inhuman music.” But every schoolchild knows: the phrase attributed by Gorky to Lenin was uttered by the latter about Beethoven’s music”…

Did you cut it? Alas, the “historian” is not in the know: the dramatic principle of “unity of place, time, action” requires concentration, and Lenin’s only known words (yes, about the Beethoven sonata) are transferred to the plot meeting in the opera. Wagner’s operas reigned supreme in Germany at that time, and soon they would become a fact of politics, earning mention in Nuremberg and being banned in Israel.

And the “cutter” missed the true discovery of the film, which is important precisely in the chaos of mutually exclusive “historical facts”: the Parvus memorandum, which was actually handed over to the German government, is still an effective instruction for the “color” revolution. And it is less important: whether Parvus (Boris Berezovsky of the early twentieth century) stole all the money, or gave something to the Bolsheviks. The main thing is that the dramaturgy is guessed, arranged – once again! – figures.

And the whole difference in the results of the parties is from the fact that 411 years ago there was National Unity, and 106 years ago there was everything (Russia in the spring of 1917 was even recognized as the most democratic country in Europe), except for National Unity…

PS (mystical): If the logic of combining two dates seems dubious, another set is available. On the same “fateful” days of November, a year later, the revolution broke out in Germany (and the recipients of Parvus’ memorandum had an equally hard time). And even then, Guy Fawkes’ “gunpowder plot”, the “Stockholm blood bath”, Hitler’s “beer hall putsch” and even the death of Wolf Messing happened (he probably knew when it was necessary).