Russia's tryst with destiny

100 years of tumultuous change yields a Stalinist czar

There is some irony that Vladimir Putin, Russia’s president, has acquired the status of Great Satan in American politics in the centenary year of the October Revolution. Indeed, it is fair to say that for Russia, history has come full circle. To explain it in a line: The czars are dead, long live the czar. There is good reason the centenary commemorations of the October Revolution — actually, it occurred in November, according to the widely used Gregorian calendar, which was 13 days ahead of the Russian one — have been muted in Moscow. They raise an uncomfortable reminder about