The Forgotten Coup

Americans have a love affair with people who keep trying and trying. A larger-than-life statue of Rocky Balboa stands in front of Philadelphia's Veterans Stadium. The hard-luck Joads of John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath are among the most beloved families of American fiction. In some parts of the country William Jennings Bryant, despite his three failed attempts for the White House, is still a populist hero.

In Harvard Square we have our own version of such characters. We probably have all seen the Spartacists, that group of people who spend their time distributing such materials as The Socialist Worker and The Workers' Vanguard, bashing the usual targets--U.S. imperialism, Israel, white males. Communism has recently been the New England Patriots of ideologies, but that doesn't faze these activists. They press on, against all odds.

Not long ago they had a party. A poster near Au Bon Pain (presumably placed there illegally) read "Celebrate the 75th Anniversary of the October (Bolshevik) Revolution. Saturday, November 7." (Imperial Russia used the old-style Julian calendar, so the "October" Revolution actually occurred in November.)

The celebration was held at Revolution Books, a place with a curious history. The JFK Street store has had a dubious arson and a bomb scare in the last few years, and it recently did a very rare thing for businesses--publicly displaying posters which, rather than encouraging purchases of their merchandise, actually asked for donations.

A side from the aforementioned locals and some diehard ex-Communists in Russia, practically no one noticed the 75th anniversary of the coup which for seven decades gave the Bolsheviks and their progeny control of the world's largest country. My core class on the Russian Revolution joylessly began its midterm 75 years to the hour after the coup got underway. Almost no one there even sensed the timing.

It's not as if our society doesn't make a big deal out of major anniversaries. This year much attention, politically correct and politically incorrect alike, has been given to the 500th anniversary of Christopher Columbus' arrival in the New World. A little over a year ago, a dramatic ceremony commemorated the 50th anniversary of the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor. For God's sake, it wasn't too long ago that there was a gala ceremony to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Spam.

Those are pretty American events, so it might be an unfair to expect Americans to notice this supposedly Russian event. However, Americans probably should have been more aware of the 75th anniversary of the Bolshevik coup. Of all 20th century events, none had more profound long-range consequences.

In the former Soviet Union, the Bolshevik coup led to massacres of tens of millions of citizens, as well as psychological terror and state interference on a scale unprecedented in human history. Before World War II the threat of the Bolshevik regime played a major role in rallying Germans to the Nazi Party, bringing obvious dire consequences for the rest of the world. After World War II, the arms race between the Soviet Union and the United States brought the world to the brink of nuclear war several times.

Such dire results of the Bolshevik coup are what make it so delightful to observe the bitter realities now facing the world's remaining Marxist regimes. Along the southern coast of the People's Republic of China, near Hong Kong, an outburst of capitalism is taking place. And the Miami police force has enacted a working plan to handle celebrations to follow the overthrow of Fidel Castro.

I suppose it means something about the resiliency of the human spirit that Harvard Square's self-appointed voices of the proletariat can still find reason for celebration. Oh, well. As for me, what President Reagan called the Evil Empire is history. That's worth celebrating.

Adam D. Taxin '93 is an editor of The Crimson. He is not, nor was he ever, a member of the Communist Party.