Interpretation of the Russian Revolution has always been politically contentious, in the West as in the Soviet Union and its successor states. But the centenary, coming only a few decades after the collapse of Communist regimes in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, finds Western scholars at a loss – and in Putin’s Russia it is an outright embarrassment. At this lecture, organized by the Revolutionology research project, Neubauer Collegium Visiting Fellow Sheila Fitzpatrick (Professor of History, University of Sydney; Bernadotte E. Schmitt Distinguished Service Professor Emerita of Russian History and the College, University of Chicago) considered the ways the event should be commemorated. This event is co-sponsored by the History Department at the University of Chicago.