Interfax: Russian Communists celebrate 1917 revolution, call for dismissal of government

(Interfax – November 7, 2013) The Communist Party of the Russian Federation (CPRF) marked the anniversary of the 1917 October Revolution on 7 November with rallies in Moscow and other towns of Russia, privately-owned Interfax news agency reported the same day.

The CPRF has collected over two million signatures asking for the dismissal of the government, the leader of the CPRF, Gennadiy Zyuganov, has said. “Two million on the streets and 150,000 in the Internet,” Zyuganov  told
journalists ahead of a rally in Moscow. Later at the rally Zyuganov said he hoped that “in the near future this figure will double”. The organizers of the rally on Teatralnaya Square in the center of Moscow estimated that about 5,000 had gathered by the beginning of the event.

Communists in St Petersburg marked the anniversary of the revolution with a procession in the center of St Petersburg and a gathering with fireworks near cruiser Aurora, a symbol of the Bolshevik revolution. According to organizers, about 1,000 people took part in the events.

In Novosibirsk about 1,000 people turned up for a procession and rally to mark the anniversary, Interfax learnt from a representative of the local mayor’s office. During the meeting, a State Duma deputy and the first secretary of the regional organization of the CPRF, Anatoliy Lokot, criticized the economic policy of the current Russian government, describing it as “strangling”, as well as the law on the reform of the Russian Academy of Sciences, and called for the government to be dismissed.