But without the annual box office returns

November 7 saw another day of Red rallies in Ukraine. This time they demanded not so much the president’s resignation as the liquidation of “hateful capitalism” as such. And well they should, for the occasion was quite significant: the 85th anniversary of the Bolshevik coup in Petrograd, one of the most dramatic events to influence the destiny of Ukraine.

The Left started to celebrate the anniversary traditionally the day before, holding a gala meeting at what they still refer to as the October Palace in Kyiv. As usual, the first to take the floor was Communist leader Petro Symonenko. In his extensive speech he lamblasted the current regime, sparing no epithets, and the results of eleven years of Ukrainian independence. He said that what had happened 85 years ago was “the most bloodless and successful revolution in world history.” He listed noted personalities approving of it, among them George Bernard Shaw and Winston Churchill, and explained why the CPU was cooperating with all those “bourgeois” parties. Petro Symonenko referred the audience to history; Lenin also cooperated at first with the Mensheviks, Social Revolutionaries and “other petty bourgeois elements. But you comrades remember what happened afterward. We will follow suit; we will first take advantage of their support and then...” All quite a convincing analogy. In fact, no one had expected unity from the Left “G-4” on that date, as a week before they had nominated different candidate premiers.

In Kyiv, the November 7 rally turned out to be on a mass scale. Outwardly, there seemed as many people gathered in European Square as during the so-called tribunal on October 12. Various estimates placed the number at between five and ten thousand. There were Communists and Socialists present, but Oleksandr Moroz was not at the podium and Valentyna Semeniuk seemed the only Socialist people’s deputy in attendance. Competent sources insist that there were several hundred Socialists in all. The Socialist leadership apparently has more important things to attend, including the pending premier saga. When asked by The Day, Valentyna Semeniuk said that their faction had not as yet worked out an approach to the premier vote. Oleksandr Moroz’s faction would perhaps support someone on certain terms (once upon a time it was their votes that made Anatoly Kinakh premier), meaning that shouting at rallies against the regime would be a waste of energy they might soon need.

The first to address the crowd on European Square, it should be noted, was not Petro Symonenko but Deputy Mykhailo Rodionov, first secretary of the CPU Kyiv City Committee. He also presided over the rally (as he had done at the gala meeting the previous day). It would be premature to discuss him as the new CPU leader, but the fact remains interesting. We all know that Sovietologists in the West considered the placement of Soviet leaders on the Mausoleum podium in Moscow one of main indicators of what was going on inside the Kremlin... Then came the rally in Kyiv, after the meeting a column formed and marched through Khreshchatyk to place flowers at the foot of the Lenin statue.

The CPU has to be credited for organizing the rally, for it was graphic evidence of how the opposition produced the effect of mass character on previous occasions. Apparently, the technique is well practiced. Simultaneously, one could not help but notice the absence of new ideas in what the Communist leaders had to say, just the well-worn assortment of accusations addressing the head of state, his cronies, and the “bourgeois” system as a whole. There was no answer to the question what is to be done, except that the hateful regime should be smitten. The Ukrainian Leninists ought to have better prepared for the anniversary, thought up something interesting, and worked out a fresh information approach. They did not because they could not. As a result, many media paid little attention to the November 7 Red festivities. The impression was that the revolutionary date found the Communist Party too busy with pressing issues such as Rise up, Ukraine, goings on in the parliament, the premier saga, and so on. Naturally, the Reds celebrated the important date, but they are not likely to have won any political dividends this time.

The Progressive Socialists, Russian Bloc, and Justice [Spravedlyvist] held their rallies separately from CPU and SPU, gathering on St. Sophia Square. Their meeting looked more like an anti-Communist, anti-Socialist, and anti-imperialist retro action than one commemorating the “Great October Socialist Revolution.” Suffice it to quote their slogans: “Ukraine without American Agents Yushchenko, Moroz, Tymoshenko, and Fake Communist Symonenko,” “Kravchuk and Kuchma Yesterday, Moroz and Symonenko Today,” “Kuchma, Yushchenko, and Tymoshenko Must Stand Trial!” “Down with Killer Bush!”, “USA and NATO, Hands off Iraq!” Volodymyr Marchenko, former lawmaker and member of the Progressive Socialist Party, said prior to the event that, since the Communists were involved with “pro-fascist parties,” the PSPU and its allies would not march “side by side with politicians that have profaned the ideas, slogans, and symbols of Soviet power.” Progressive Socialist leader Natalia Vitrenko denounced CPU and SPU participation in the Rise up, Ukraine campaign. Although the rally on St. Sophia Square numbered some 200 persons, those addressing the really had more spark in them than the orthodox Left on European Square.

Previous Great October celebrations were marked by confrontations among those taking part in the rallies. In other words, the Right — primarily Rukh — staged their “alternative” demonstrations simultaneously with the Left rallies, anathematizing the Communist ideology. This did not happen this year. Perhaps the joint Rise up, Ukraine campaign has helped the Right turn their attention from past Communist crimes. It is also possible, however, that the Tymoshenko bloc and Our Ukraine, aware of their current potential, thought better than stage rallies, lest they look ridiculously smaller than the Communists. Evidence of this is the fact that the Right did act against the Communists, but it was not a mass event, just the final sitting of the International Public Tribunal condemning the Soviet Communist Party for crimes on the territory of Ukraine and against Ukrainians.