british prime minister to resign may have to use his rush of threatening the international order at a time of deep crisis within government. the only group you can remove. the us president wraps up his five nation tour of asia offering to mediate international disputes promoting u.s. arms exports. to the south the french government pushes for tougher laws on sexual consent is acquitted on eleven year old girl. morning stories do go to our website dot com across talkers next on the legacy of that revolution that shook russia one hundred years ago.

hello and welcome to crossfire all things considered i'm peter lavelle one hundred years ago russia was consumed by revolution and unprecedented violence it is not an understatement to say the russian revolution or bolster big coup d'etat was the defining moment of the twentieth century how did it change russia and the world. cross talking the russian revolution i'm joined by my guest here in moscow geoffrey robertson is a professor of history at university college cork and a member of the royal irish academy we also have marc sloboda he's an international affairs and security analyst and of course we have bob and she's a political analyst with sputnik international all right gentlemen as always crosstalk rules in effect that means you can jump in anytime you want and i always

appreciate it. geoffrey robertson we go to you first here one hundred years on i will the most obvious question was it worth it was it worth it yes i think it will . because what the revolution showed was that it was possible to. get nine hundred seventy eight was that the people in to bathe in history fundamentally change the course of world history but there are those that say that it was a coup d'etat that the bolsheviks didn't represent the people that represented a very very. well here ideology. and there was a popular revolution the bolsheviks came to power. on the wave of revolutions for russia that won a revolutionary movement over a ball civic revolutionary mood what were. revolutionary. a majority when they seize power will but they were very strong minority and they actually had a majority or indeed majority in in the open there was some sort of point you know

but it wasn't just the. insurrection and russia there was a revolution and the bolsheviks were the beneficiary of it and the part this revolution rocks but it was to you know not to just bring to power a particular group of people it was all real much in the future you know trying to find completely but but the people paid a very high price for that view of the world mark i can see your position quite clear you know there are no same questions are very very nuanced i don't not consider myself a communist maybe a post my wife is a card. and it's. not a postmarks as opposed to an honest. i want to speak perhaps is i our theorist on the international relations level what the soviet union meant to the world it meant the end of western colonialism and imperialism without the soviet union the ability of the third world to achieve independence certainly within the time frame

it did it simply wouldn't have been work you could make the same argument to the end of the first world war saw the end of the western empires the russian. said the seeds of it eventually did decades later we just had the collapse of the russian empire one cannot say that that was necessarily part of the same process that when they were in the eighty's nelson mandela who was supported by the soviet union and himself was a communist of sorts was still opposed by western governments the united states the united kingdom up until he succeeded and then suddenly he's become you know the hero rather that's the whole point the myth that's the whole point it's not just about the soviet union it's about ideology and that is the biggest outcome of that political transformation you can use revolution you can use whatever you choose but

the fact of the matter is the rest of the century or almost the rest of the century was defined by the the ideology that eventually took power in russia there is absolutely no doubt russian revolution played a role in the major role that went the century history and most of that the influence sports. maybe not on russia itself but on the wall and in general definitely positive but what i think is important and what i think is not discussed in russia and in the west we see so traits of this revolution the warst was very revealing themselves very clearly in the west right now what destruction of morning means more polarization. of science and the media controlling speech control in speech. the man you're all finding spice not only for inspires but people who don't fit a certain ideology at home so these are scary things if you ask me about the most

negative aspects of the russian revolution i can refer to the more than west to the united states and the e.u. and you will see a lot of them talking about their revolution as a whole you know i think we can agree on something i will suggest to an image you know the russian revolution was like an adequate in the dark room that three fourths of us three wise men try to touch you know if been blind to describe one of them touched the leg and said different is like a cord on the one touch the trunk and said it is more flexible the third one touched the tail and said it's like a rope so if you ask me about the russian revolution was it a tragedy for russia with millions of people dead that dramatic fall in living standards for the majority a huge majority of the population will say yes in the in the living standards were pretty low absolutely absolutely then you ask me it was a popular uprising with people basically supporting the bolsheviks during that civil war orbiting for their own government and not. a position with the

west yes was it the van that positively influence the western countries that that kind of encourages them to introduce their social safety net books yet workers' rights women's rights isn't a literacy for it's like an elephant you have positive things and negative lines but the negative ones are no evidence in the you know. what i was trained as a historian one always has the in a way for this they weave the sense of historical inevitability but why did the bolsheviks when there were more than one revolution that year ok they were different trends they were overlapping simultaneously why did they win was it just violence. not to look for greatness firstly to have popular support secondly because i played the lead in leadership and thirdly because the revolutionary events took place in the context of the first world war i'm talking about the baltics and one nine hundred seventy they were the anti war party they would have peace party that was enormously important to the pope to popularity they often have

to remember of course is that when they seize power in russia they don't see themselves as just being involved in a russian revolution they see their actions as part of a broader world revolution they see the russian revolution see leading to a global revolution. from the bullshit point of view. the whole future of humanity was extatic in their actions in russia so mark what role because you are all saying this is very idealistic it was very painful it was very very costly but we ended up with. just a chair that was the civil war and the foreign intervention and that's what went wrong and that's why and when that's the context in which the revolution begins to teach an iraq in which bolshevism which was a kind of popular revolution or move movement begins to take all these kind of bureaucratic forward terror and repressive features which become embedded in the soviet union so extended it became betting that it is this is a civil war it's a very important road to supply foreign intervention by western capitalist states

trying to strangle i want to going to add to the causes of the bolshevik success just a little bit i agree completely with what jeffrey said especially the. anti-war party aspect the bolsheviks when he ran skiing the provisional government sea of power after the february right and that preceded the bolshevik revolution they wanted to continue the war this war that many russians russia had already suffered some six million casualties at that point the country was suffering from famine they were exhausted they couldn't understand why they were fighting what they saw as an imperialist war between a paralysed european powers they wanted out another thing the bolsheviks were. doubly disciplined as a party they understood power they knew how to take control of railroad stations telegraph stations they understood the nodes of power in communication to make society work and how to take their photos they were. opposed to each other as well

and they had to send a sense of unity to the third thing i would say is they had the support of the military and this was crucial particularly the navy. defections from the military at this point where thirty four thousand a month and they were flocking to the bolsheviks because the bolsheviks were promising the end of the war and they supported the bolsheviks all through the february revolution until the culmination with the october revolution and without that crucial military support i'm not talking officers i'm talking the rank and file soldiers particularly in the navy the kronstadt sailors the aurora and so on they were crucial to to being able to take power on the streets and hold government buildings. is the ideology is violence and bedded in the ideology or is just the political tool to make to keep to maintain power because he you know i

think there conflicting trends are there this is an idealistic movement a lot of things that you know that we heard in the one thousand century in the socialist labor movement here but once it comes to pass when you come to power you don't want to let it go and you have to you know for the good of the people or the good of the party or the good of the ideology and i think that's also a look at the civil war but once once they had a foothold they would do anything it took to keep it well i would say that violence is akin to all ready to go i go it just including now liberalism and it really was a dream i greatly agreed and the mechanism of depression is very simple with radical ideologies we're. right on the food stamp. what's happening for the whole world and who is preventing us from claiming that just two million people in donbass smash them you know these are whites in syria. kill them this is their attitude over the west and that was the attitude of the bolsheviks not from the very beginning you know i think it's

a very important question why the bolsheviks came to power two reasons first the fabric evolution you know now in russia we don't separate these two things where you don't think about the violent revolution not about the backdrop and we're going to tell right we're going to talk about that i think it's right because without february there will be no worked at all but what happened in february was that a bunch of liberal revolutionaries came to power and revealed themselves absolutely unfit to govern we have very similar people now opposing put and they were very good at propaganda western supported propaganda against that sort of happiness yet ninety percent of the russian population in fabry one hundred seventeen were convinced that transport and slept with the empress that she was a german agent that she was a traitor all this norm sounds you know that's big news for you the big news of the revolution the good point my own faith you have said was much more important because if you talk about the economic situation the economic situation in fabric one thousand seven hundred not to make you believe egypt people were eating i have

a better than to go to your heart zero after our break we'll continue our discussion of the russian revolution staying with our. they all. help. solve. all of this is all the proof. live live.

live . welcome back to crossfire all things considered i'm peterbilt remind you we're discussing the russian revolution one hundred years on. ok david go ahead and finish it people saw the first reason why water is king was the inability of liberals to govern after every nineteen seventeen and the second reason was that when the civil war really broke out more store that saudis generals russian pederasts the took the side of the rats this is something that is not often

mentioned but there was this one of the protection of the state the people because it certainly could have been ideology i think i can give you a very good personal example. the famous general who defeated the austrians in the first world war when the army officers asked him would show we do you know there is a civil war going on he said going to come and go all russia states serve the government that we have the reds because they are otherwise the is without witness from abroad they are not able to govern they want to return to them forced to eat alternately. years old an age of death for twenty years in one thousand twenty six haven't written a book which was written by a patriot and a morning cast but in which he praised. ok well i don't want to going to translate ok jeffrey i want to ask you something because i think this is with something whatever you are serious i live here and you know this is the hundredth anniversary

and. not much excitement i don't hear a lot of conversation certainly academics and pundits and commentators on the whole it's not a big deal there's a lot of ambivalence. there's probably more discussion going on in iraq. about the revolution that than you might imagine. russian public opinion was divided about the revolutions that you know some people the population picks on the fifty six percent and the other half or whatever it's forty four percent i don't even want to know what to google i mean i wouldn't describe then if i don't know your as a russian how do you feel about it because i actually look at have serving study that i have to say have extra remember the lessons too and i think that's the word the problem is that the. more passions in the west than in russia i thought i know this is why i thought so and i know it in sections so i completely misguided it as you compare it to the tsar and say that he doesn't want to celebrate this because

he is afraid of sharing the fate of nicholas but this is too. much of it is that right now the west reminds me of the times of the third international the idea that we can't have the broke up that is only in the united states and the you would have to spread it all with a wall or we would be smashed that's a completely bolshevist idea great the destruction of moral immense. looking at history of these viewpoint and saying that these goebbels of slavery was a racist it's the same thing what we should be one thing we're going to. go into any city and town in this country you're still probably going to find a statue of lenin they're still there you know more that's nice what. history we already heard that was the civil war was imbedded in the ideology but to tell a tarion strain that culminated in stone because the great argument is we've

already heard about. it in the could have been different variants different paths i'm not convinced of that i think it's a very totalitarian ideology. i'm not a big fan of the word totalitarian i think that itself is the ideology that was there was created in the west in the wake of. the world war two to try to equate fascism and communism which i believe is this is a false equalization i think the rodent's. i think. we have to remember that the soviet union was was born not only in internal struggle but it was from the moment of its creation it was attacked by drum they can't understand it wasn't this is left out of a lot of western history books that in one thousand nine hundred eighteen the western powers and japan. most european countries the united states they invaded the nost and soviet union in the middle of the civil war to try to strangle the

village in the cradle in the cradle and i mean we're talking one little incident that you know just in the past few years been recognized by the british press the guardian and others churchill was a military commander of the british expeditionary force he used chemical weapons on russian pounds and that attack from outside helped solidify the support of the russian people with the threats with the reds the bolsheviks and help there was a siege mentality there was a paranoia that there in the soviet union but with good reason but perhaps like a question we posed a recent challenge the policy challenge. there were purges they were heard you know people it was obvious. that the wisdom of nine hundred seventy eight is not the same as the post them. printed said because of the civil war and because of the proceeds of the see this is the historical argument is this deal for terrorism

totalitarianism of posters and hair and its ideology as well conservation is its personalities or as a result of peace or cold circumstances. my view is that it's shaped by that the circumstances to go but you have a question about about some power if he was never just a father for her own sake it was. some power in the pursuit of utopia and it's really important to understand you know the radical utopian of the post revolution of the soviet protests in retrospect would you say that was a dangerous goal to have utopia. i think that that's one of. the negative is what lessons are. you know idealism is not practical politics revolutions do that you did to get their children you know so so you have to be careful what you wish will but that's not to say. it is themselves you know the idea that it was done if you can inherently wrong with it one interesting things

about western coverage of the of the hundred pound of the story the predominant theme he's ok year there were all these negative consequences arising from the russian revolution. but actually the ideas of the revolution yes to spot the revolution remind relevant for to can irrelevant to. them is experiencing such a crisis and there is a need to try and imagine alternative so much and different futures to. different things you know the russian revolution the you know the soviet experience as a whole as let's put it both neck and that probably explains why russians are very very adverse to revolutions in real magic political change what i don't like about numbers of people today in today in russia fifty six percent of people regret the passing of the soviet union but only twelve percent would like to see it restored as it was in eastern europe and central eastern europe apart. a recent poll by the

european bank of reconstruction and development says that over half some fifty four percent of people would like to see the return of a command economy and we've seen repeated polls and romania and hungary that say their lives were better off under the soviet system in the united states millennialists millennialists a majority of them something fifty one percent. prefer to leave any socialist or communist country as this is you go and of the total u.s. population thirty four percent would love rather let you know where he would reminds me of when i was a graduate school at berkeley you know and i was going back and forth between communist poland in berkeley and i read told people in poland that there are more communists in berkeley than the fall of poland here. i mean they should they should if we could send them back and let them live in albania and united states ok they don't know what they're talking about well i think there are very important question was violence like in eight in and i thought well i would say that any

utopia and you're great if you. can spawn while look at pol pot i don't know is that you probably don't only pull port there you can have something like like encouraging feminism in afghanistan that's an exploding idea which has been realized or the right to realize it for twenty years the idea of radical change in ukraine making it and email russia destroying all of the communist party in ukraine that's what i'm hearing saying you're. having absolutes and extremism you need violence to make it absolutely get them in a way in a way you know any change any dress we can agree that the russian revolution probably took the west in the past more than it talks the soviet russia so the west avoided all the all the mistakes but there are a few things. the russians fluent and we have a lot like immunised these are all ideas from the beginning for example let me give

an example of the idea that a right could be made better or was by his origin you know in the soviet union writers of are divided into proletarian ones and bush wants so now when russians hear about women's rights. even we have a very skeptical waited and we see big. to be a woman to be good right happens to be believe god made own world could learn something from. the environment so sure there are certain. immunizations. and one of them is that without any kind of religious you know rapidly running out of time you know from one of the things i think is very interesting is during the cold war we had this captive nations concept in the west you know a lot of people don't understand how much the russians suffered during the revolution during the civil war during the second world war and you know when one could make the argument that the entire breadth of the soviet union its culture it

was culture was attacked and it was it was. destroyed destroyed in many ways i mean i'm thinking of the orthodox church ok lot of people don't understand how much russian survived because of the pursuit of utopia in an ideology or. culture was destroyed but. an alternative was put in place yes i mean that was we're still here ok it was a return it was a reconstruction of culture a culture. which wasn't completely out of me which actually persists. and i personally i don't believe in utopias and i don't think that communism is the answer today's problems today but i personally don't want to live in a world where we stop fighting to create a better world that's a really good point and i want to just a quote here perhaps you'll recognize real quick if you just think at a time people no longer obsess over the accumulation with things we've got limited

hunger want the need for possessions we've grown out of our infancy that's the famous communist explorer and commander john carr of the starship enterprise. we need star fleet in gentlemen we've run out of time absolutely fascinating discussion watch the extended version of our tease you tube channel many things were against him. in moscow and thanks to our viewers for watching us here arche see you next time remember last time pools. presuming that africa is going to be a come to our house i think is going to be the twenty first century winner in the crypto world because they're already on a mobile phone already exchanging and dealing on the currency is already light years ahead of america europe india africa baby that's one thing about moving to africa now any part of the revolution in africa.

apply to many clubs over the years so i know the game inside guides. the ball isn't only about what happens on the pitch for the final school it's about the passion from the families it's the age of the superman each kill the narrowness and spending student twenty million and one player. who gets an experience like nothing else not to because i want to share what i think of what i know about the beautiful guy but great so will more chance with. the piece this morning. theor who thank you thank you for

humor through whom you. feel. yes. yes. so much on the.

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wall for baghdad. which will be a lot i'll get obama some not. so usual wishing me all that idea with. the new. year for what it will not so help obama in time and see all that when you . know that intense is out most of all. kinds it's out of there and so a lot older than the law is what it shows are offensive with a this is the washington fifield on going. to. the hall for cups. president was a little boy. your boys your whole vibe with their trouble but mostly you understand that albany you gotta believe it.