Gennady Zyuganov, Communist Party leader, came up in heated protest against official plans to cancel November 7 public celebrations. "No one can bury Great October!" he exclaimed, and confirmed a previously announced Communist demand for a referendum to settle the matter.
Mr. Zyuganov called "every Communist to bring an energetic young man dedicated to Bolshevik ideals to join the party", and appealed to party members to fund it. Communist activists made a subscription in party favor-as never before within recent years.
The speakers came down on "the anti-popular regime", as they always do. One fulminated against the Church top for approval of a parliamentary idea, on which the November 7 festival is to be abolished and replaced by November 4, day on which the miracle-working icon of Our Lady of Kazan is worshipped, to become secularly known as Peace and Unity Day.
Many rallies were picnicking on Theatre Square lawns-sheer pleasure in this sunny day.
The rally gathered an amazing 40,000, said the organizers. Police patrols are of a contrasting opinion-there were six thousand, at most, they said.
No breaches of order have been reported. That could be expected, what with extraordinary safety measures. All central squares and thoroughfares along Left-wing demonstrators' route were rimmed with iron barriers, so no sympathetic gazers could join in. Each who wanted to appear on Theatre Square had to get through metal detectors.
