I found myself watching this scene a number of times and thinking about the ARA in Minsk only a few years later.
Shortly after there is a wall in another scene with a decree from this body. Until recently I’ve just been glancing over this sort of thing. Realize the years between the events in the film and 1965, when the film was made, was about the same timespan separating today from the governments of Yuri Andropov and Ronald Reagan. I remember those years.
It occurred to me this morning that there are several aspects of Dr. Zhivago which make it a sort of time capsule showing 1960s social/political thought was opposed to late 1970s and after: Kinski’s cameo as anarchist is one. Another is Alec Guinness as Yevgraf, Zhivago’s Bolshevik half-brother. Today’s younger generations know Alec Guinness as Obi-Wan Kenobi. In the film there are very brief, but very salient summations of significant events and issues of Russia 1905 to after the revolution, while Star Wars is escapist fantasy starring robots and futuristic weaponry.