October, October, here you are again!
Bright, sunny days. Crisp, chill nights. Views of turning leaves, smells of burning leaves. Football weather. Harvesters’ weather. Apples-mashed-into-cider weather.
I love October. Perhaps because, here in Wisconsin, it’s apt to be the last gasp of glory before the hammer comes down. Cold and snow are just around the corner.
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October means many things to many people.
If you’re German, especially if you’re Bavarian, it means beer and pretzels. Oktoberfest is so well loved that it starts in September! The Müncheners like to get, you know, a running start.
But suppose you’re Russian? A different story—one which lacks the essential element of gemütlichkeit. October 1905 was the height of Russia’s “first revolution,” which began with workers’ protests the preceding winter and swelled over the following months. By October, Tsar Nicholas II was so weakened that he issued an “October Manifesto,” pledging to create a legislative assembly, halt censorship and violations of freedom of association, and expand the right to vote.
The Tsar’s promises defused the immediate crisis, but revolutionary urges kept on simmering. Partisans who wanted to implement the Tsar’s reforms were called Octobrists. Their opponents were Kadets, or Constitutional Democrats, who sought a fuller reform program. In the ensuing squabbles, all political order broke down until 1917, when Vladimir Lenin’s Bolsheviks launched a new revolution in St. Petersburg—the second revolution that year.
Lenin’s revolution started on 7 November, but since Russia was still on the old Julian calendar, the date has always been commemorated as 25 October. The Octobrists of 1905 were steramrolled by another October only twelve years later. Octobrists turned out to be not the bright dawn of a new order, but the last harrumph of the old.
The new order, which began in October 1917, was not all that happy. It spelled death for tens of millions and great suffering for Russia and many neighboring nations.
On the bright side, the Communist revolution gave fledgling author Tom Clancy a great title for his debut novel: The Hunt for Red October.
Another October victory for Russia was the launch of Sputnik, the first artificial satellite, on 8 October 1957, near the fortieth anniversary of the Soviet state. Perhaps you’ve seen the film October Sky about the “rocket fever” induced in young American students by the successful flight of Sputnik. It’s even referenced in my own middle-grade book Izzy Strikes Gold!
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What about us? Does America have any October phenomena to compare with those of other countries? I nominate the good old American “October Surprise.”
With major elections held in early November, we’ve developed a national tradition of low, desperate trickery. If your candidate trails in October, what beter time to cause public mayhem to which your opponent must respond, or drop some obscure besmirchment on your opponent’s reputation, one that’s difficult to understand or pin down? Dropped late enough in October, the October Surprise works because the targeted candidate doesn’t have enough time to make an appropriate response to the situation or marshal exonerating facts.
The thing is, with large numbers of ballots being cast and submitted in the months before Election Day, the October Surprise is losing a lot of its electoral punch. It may go the way of the dodo bird, and then we’ll have to fall back on Jack-o-Lanterns for fun.
Maybe that’ll be better.
Blessings,
Larry F. Sommers
Your New Favorite Writer
