People don’t understand that western countries overthrew feudalism in the fire of revolutions a hundred years prior, but for other countries liberation from feudalism or colonialism happened under the banners of communism.

But it was the same process of purging the same old system, purging of serfdom and of people being property

Land reform, not revolution, is the key to unlocking modernity.

However where feudal land ownership is entrenched revolution may be necessary.

Don't know about all the countries, but since you're answering a comment on Russia, I must say, it reads comically out of touch.

Yeah, the old system was purged alright, but calling it a liberation is disrespectful to the lives of millions of common Soviet people driven to hungry death, being forcefully moved around the country, killed in internal squabbles or purges or otherwise "collectivised".

And it all happened despite the fact they hadn't exactly been property for more than 50 years by the time tsarism was overthrown.

Appropriate comparison would be French Revolution and napoleonic wars that followed. The whole mess lasted for decades.

Tsatism was indisputably a tyrannical system, and many peasants were still not free until they paid for their freedom

‘Most former serfs had to pay a land redemption fee (redemption payments were not abolished until 1907’

Except for the last paragraph of your reply, what’s different today?

Today there is a middle class (by Eastern European standards) and there is no hereditary nobility. Outside of penal colonies, forced labor isn’t a thing. The government isn’t constantly fumbling for control against political agitators (in fact it went too far into totalitarianism). Casual physical abuse of soldiers isn’t at least as widely reported on so I would assume that it isn’t an everyday norm in every unit. Pay inequality between officers and soldiers isn’t measured in how many orders of magnitude.

Russia is not on the brink of three revolutions and a civil war in the span of a year. It isn’t a good place but it is very different than how it was 100 years ago.

Hereditary nobility doesn't exist in Russia since 1917. What's your opinion on sending thousands and thousands of people to the front lines in Ukraine? Is it not true it's often forced? Or lied about where they are being taken to? What do you think about recent influential people in Russia falling out of a window? Or state-sponsored propaganda, how much of the free press remains in Russia? What happens to a regular middle class person when they speak up against the government? Can people go and protest against the government without repression? How has the Russian mentality changed in the last 60 years?

I am in no way defending Russia. As a Ukrainian I am appalled at its government’s actions.

What I am saying is that 2024 Russia is very different from 1917 Russia:

1917: weak government, 2024: strong government

1917: lots of protests, 2024: no protests

1917: class system (if you are born a peasant, you remain a peasant), 2024: you can sell hotdogs then become a billionaire, then have a mercenary force, then be shot out of the sky

1917: widespread income inequality, 2024: billionaires but a Lieutenant doesn’t make 1000x what a soldier in his command does.

1917: mercenary groups are a normal part of life, 2024: they are officially outlawed and unofficially there are only a few.

There are lots of other differences. Again, this isn’t to say that Russia is good or doing good things. They aren’t. But you can’t say nothing changed. That is simply ignoring history. There are similarities in that Russia is still a shitty place to live.

If you want a perspective, check out Antony Beever’s Russia for a history of the 1918 revolution.