Pavel K. Baev
The end of World War I has never been a significant anniversary in Russia because the Bolshevik government signed a separate peace with the Central Powers in March 1918, thereby breaking its commitments to the Allies. Instead, Russia celebrates “National Unity Day” on November 4 to commemorate the end of the “Times of Troubles” in the early seventeenth century, which has scant meaning for the majority of Russians (Izvestiya; TopWar.ru.
The Kremlin’s war against Ukraine has already continued longer than the Russian Empire’s involvement in World War I, which was a central cause of its collapse in 1917 (Kommersant, November 15). Exhaustion and anger about World War I led many elite groups to demand and support the abdication of Tsar Nicholas II in March 1917. The resulting provisional government’s inability to bring the war to an end catalyzed the Bolshevik Revolution in November 1917, followed by the Russian Civil War, which ended on the European front when the last ship carrying the survivors of the White Armies left Sevastopol on November 16, 1920 (Novaya Gazeta, November 11, 2020). These historical comparisons raise the possibility that some present-day elite groupings may internalize the strong preference for ending the war in Russian society and act as promoters of a peace deal (Levada Center, November 11).
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