[Russia] Trade unions, Communists march through Moscow on May Day

from The USA Today

Tens of thousands of people marched through central Moscow on Monday to celebrate May Day in peaceful demonstrations organized by pro-government trade unions and Communists nostalgic for Soviet times.

About 25,000 trade union members called for a "social state," holding balloons and flowers, according to police spokesman, Viktor Biryukov, quoted by ITAR-TASS news agency.

Several thousand Communist Party supporters also marched from the Lenin monument on October Square to a bust of Karl Marx near Red Square, carrying red flags and portraits of Stalin, an AFP reporter at the march said.

"Putin resign!" and "Our homeland is the USSR," chanted participants, who also held up banners reading "Stop the Arbitrary Laws of the Oligarchs against the Workers" and "The Break-up of the USSR has Condemned the People to Poverty."

"I've come to protest against the state of things. The people are being crushed from the moral, cultural, historical and above all material point of view," said Valentin, a 68-year-old pensioner.

Ivan Klyuchenko, a 17-year-old starting university this year, said: "Our industry is in ruins and wages are pitiful. A lifetime of work is not enough to buy a room in a Moscow suburb."

Galina Petrova, 67, who carried a bunch of red carnations, protested against cultural decadence in modern Russia."Television is against the people. They don't show us the masterpieces of Russian and Soviet literature but pornographic films that spread animal instincts among young people," Petrova said.

The demonstrations took place amid high security, with ITAR-TASS news agency reporting 7,000 police officers deployed in the streets of Moscow.