Bolszewicki mit października 1917 roku
The Bolshevik myth of October 1917

Summary/Abstract: Bolshevik mythology presented the events of October 1917 as an effect of the operating laws of history, i.e. a necessary phenomenon through which the sense of history manifested, and, at the same time, as an effect of the activity of the masses led by the Bolshevik Party, an act in the power struggle. The Bolshevik myth of October 1917 was a founding myth; it created an impression that there had come a “new era in the history of humankind”, ending “all forms of exploitation”. It legitimised the government established at the time as one rooted in the revolution opening this new era and representing the most profound interests of a class that was to abolish the most tragic division in the history of humankind — class division.The myth of October had to have its collective and individual heroes. From this point of view its content was described in the most succinct manner by the following formula: the Great October Socialist Revolution was carried out by the working class allied with the poor peasantry led by the Bolshevik Party headed by Lenin. The cult of Lenin was primarily a cult of a victorious revolution and party leader that had led the masses to a triumph. Almost identical formulas were used by Stalin, Khrushchev and Gorbachev. However, the real heroes of the revolution were the Bolshevik themselves, their party and their leaders. In Stalinist times the main protagonist of the October myth was the “Bolshevik Party of Lenin-Stalin”. The leading role in the party became a crucial element of Bolshevik mythology, independent of political transformations and turns in the USSR.

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