So I don’t know quite what to think of this, and I haven’t listened to the speech yet, but according to Alexander Mercouris – who isn’t a communist by any stretch of the imagination – Putin was referring, not to the events in October 1917, but in February of that same year. That is, he sees power plays within the Russian government as a key factor in the Tsar being "manipulated"into resigning, which of course led to the Provisional government and the Kerensky regime. This view of history may be a bit suspect, but it also isn’t explicitly anti-Bolshevik (you could, under this interpretation, view the Bolsheviks as a strong force which seized control in the middle of chaos and prevented Russia from becoming a western fief).