Translated material
Faithful to Lenin's body
Russian communists have only two demands left for power
Russian communist rallies can be compared in their relevance and topicality with the filming of historical films or documentaries. This was clearly demonstrated by the rallies that took place across the country yesterday in honor of the 88th anniversary of the October Revolution. The communists of all cities united in only two demands to the authorities, which can be classified exclusively as historical and educational.The first of them, naturally, was the demand to return November 7 to the people as a holiday in memory of the Great October Revolution, and the second was to preserve Lenin’s body in the Mausoleum. Only the St. Petersburg communists brought a little variety with their calls “For the revival of the USSR” and “For the nationalization of property and land,” which were heard yesterday on the Champ de Mars.
As the head of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation Gennady Zyuganov honestly admitted at a rally in Moscow, “we have never had a greater holiday.” “We must remember that holidays are not established by decrees, but are born by the people in pain,” he said, addressing the monument to Karl Marx on Theater Square. And he asked everyone to “swear an oath not to allow Red Square and the memory of the Great October Revolution to be desecrated.”
The communists of Yekaterinburg also demanded that the government, the president and the State Duma restore November 7. “The fourth of November, declared the Day of Unity, is a contrived holiday imposed by the clergy who on this day celebrate the day of the icon of the Kazan Mother of God,” Vladimir Krasnolobov, first secretary of the Sverdlovsk regional committee of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, told the crowd of 1,500. “For the sake of fairness, it is worth saying that the Poles left the Kremlin not on November 4, but on November 7.” The Ural communists called on the people for a new revolution and the dictatorship of the proletariat. “The whole world will rise up unambiguously” and they promised to arrange all this if Lenin’s body was removed from the Mausoleum on Red Square and buried.
In Novosibirsk, about one and a half thousand communists, as well as representatives of the Agrarian Party and the Rodina party, came out to the main square of the city yesterday. The main demand of all protesters was the return of November 7 to the status of a public holiday. The communists also demanded that attempts to remove Lenin's body from the Mausoleum be stopped. However, Novosibirsk residents themselves explain such heightened party attention to the holiday date by the upcoming elections to the regional council on December 4. And indeed, many of the speakers who spoke at the rally introduced themselves as parliamentary candidates.
The rally was quite lively on Lenin Square in Bryansk, where about two thousand people gathered. Ex-State Duma deputy from the Bryansk region Vasily Shandybin gave this meeting a genre of spontaneity. Unlike many speakers who preferred communicating with a live audience, he turned directly to Vladimir Lenin, whose monument stood behind him, and said: “Great Lenin, even the dead are afraid of you! Lenin is still alive today!
In Yaroslavl, for the first time, a demonstration in honor of the October Revolution was held in the evening. The local first secretary of the regional committee of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, Stanislav Smirnov, believed that the late start increases the number of protesters. However, it was still not possible to gather more than 800 people. Participants of the action marched along Svoboda Street from Truda Square to Volkov Square, carrying red flags and posters with the slogan “Hands off Lenin” in the dark.
The Vladivostok communists promised each other not to give up and celebrate the holiday of the revolution as long as they are alive. In their opinion, National Unity Day, which the country celebrated on November 4, is alien to the people and cannot symbolize the unification of the country. The protesters expressed distrust of the current leadership of the country, adding to the grievances over Lenin and the “undeservedly forgotten November 7th” dissatisfaction with high housing and communal services tariffs and meager pensions.
The “holiday” was the quietest in Krasnoyarsk. About 200 supporters of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation said at their small rally that the majority of citizens do not support the abolition of November 7 as a holiday and, therefore, the holiday should be returned.
And the communists of the city of Vladimir expressed themselves least logically. They gathered on the city's Cathedral Square to pay tribute to the revolutionary holiday and protest against the pro-church November 4th. They also demanded that extreme measures be taken in relation to the remains of the leader of the revolution: if the communists of other cities only wanted to leave Lenin where he was, then the residents of Vladimir called on the authorities to suppress any further discussions on this issue.