#5
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Youth Against Revolution (Izvestia)
People's attitude to the Great October Revolution of
1917 has been the same for the last 7 years
By Georgi Iljichev
November 7, 2001
Vn the eve of the Great Russian October Revolution anniversary that since 1996 is called in Russia the Consent and Reconciliation Day sociologists from the Public Opinion Foundation have traditionally conducted a research with an aim to study what Russians feel about the anniversary.
Most of those participated do not have any particular opinion about the date, it does not carry any kind of ideological flavor for them or "does not mean anything" (23 percent). The same number of people (23 percent) consider this date to be just another holiday, a day off. In 1999 22 and 27 percent respectively were of the same opinion and in 1997 - 20 and 22.
At the same time there is a considerable number of people who still consider this day to be the anniversary of the revolution (around 40 percent). It is worth mentioning that these are people from senior groups, those who are 60 and older.
The most curious fact is people's feelings about the possible rename of the holiday back into the Revolution Day. This idea is backed up by 43 percent of those participated, this number includes 54 percent of those who are Gennadi Zuganov's (Russian Communist Party leader) supporters and those who are in their 50s and older.
One third of all participants did not like this proposal (36 percent), especially those who represent young generation (41 percent of those participated were younger then 35) and those who support Vladimir Putin (42 percent from the total number of participants).
Regardless this theoretical data in practice less than 10 percent of Russians (mostly young people) celebrate this holiday.
According to the Puplic Opinion Foundation, correlation between those who were positive, indifferent or negative about what happened in October 1917 has not changed much in the last seven years. The ideological connotation of November the 7th, however, is fading and this could mean that in several years from now Russians might have one holiday less.
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