NEWSLINK: “From Russia with love – lessons for today from a revolution 100 years ago” – Ottawa Citizen/Paul Robinson

“One hundred years ago this week, a protest about food shortages in the Russian capital, Petrograd, turned into the violent revolution that overthrew Czar Nicholas II and brought the Romanov dynasty to an end. The liberal-minded provisional government that assumed power did not last long, succumbing to another revolution eight months later, which inaugurated 70 years of Communist rule. It was not meant to be like that. The initial revolution of March 1917 succeeded not so much because the mass of the Russian population wanted to overthrow the czar but because very few were willing to defend him. Three years of war had thoroughly tainted the government’s reputation and it was widely believed that the state was in the hands of pro-German traitors who were deliberately sabotaging Russia’s war effort. In the eyes of many, the purpose of the revolution was not at all to shatter the existing economic or social system, let alone to take Russia out of the war ….”