Comrade Marxist Bro
17th November 2012, 17:53
I recently came upon a clip of rare historic footage of Soviet workers at an unofficial gathering on November 7, 1991 demonstrating against Gorbachev and Yeltsin on the last anniversary of the October Revolution in the Soviet Union.
The Communist Party of the Soviet Union did not hold an official demonstration, as Boris Yeltsin had declared CPSU activities in the Russian Federation illegal after the coup attempt by some of Gorbachev's ministers in August. The real communists held their own demonstration to celebrate the October Revolution and speak out at the very end of perestroika.
The narration and commentary is very candid. Translation below.
NpmCjzjGyGA
translation
0.00 - 0.43,
Narrator: Moscow, Red Square, 7th November 1991. You must agree this is an unusual picture. In this film we want to show that day as it appeared before our eyes. Let's start from Leningrad - or more accurately, already St. Petersburg. The same square by the Winter Palace where 74 years ago the began the very revolution of which the shot of the Cruiser Aurora informed the entire world.
0.00 - 0.54: Banner: "Long Live the Great October"
0.00 - 0.57,
Narrator: Look into the faces of these people. What brought them here, what compelled them to challenge the public mood and join not just an unpopular but now also a frequently persecuted mode of political thought? Perhaps their speeches can serve as an answer, as at the meeting by the Aurora and by the Red Square in Moscow.
1.28 - 1.48: Footage of workers singing the Internationale.
1.48 - 2.32,
Speaker: "Enough of deceiving people. The fake communists were communists only in words - such 'communists' as Gorbachev and Yeltsin and Popov and Sobchak - and they were capitalists in fact. Today we see who they are giving power to. Today we see how they 'improved' the economy, so that even in Moscow people must wait two to three hours to buy bread and our slogan today, again, is 'Bread to the people, factories and plants to the workers, the land must belong to the working peasants!' Today it has become necessary to repeat the October Socialist Revolution, and the faster the better." (Crowd cheering.)
2.38 - 2.43,
Woman off-camera: "With the president we now have, it seems we will soon be cobbling together coffins by the thousands."
2.43 - 3.14,
Young demonstrator: "We have no future - we simply aren't going to have a future. I am about to graduate college and I have no idea where I am going to work because nobody needs a young specialist like me with this unemployment. So, what am I going to do? Before this, when I was enrolling in 1989, I still had something to hope for - a place where I would work. And what hope is there now - that I can get rationed bread with coupons? That's what we had during the war, and now what? It's fifty years after the war."
3.14 - 3.29,
Demonstrator holding red flag: "The only ones responsible are those who had power during these years. Because in 1985 there was no threat of bread rationing. I am not defending Brezhnev's system, but still, you learn about things by comparison."
3.32 - 3.33,
Narrator: "How do you see Russia's future?"
3.34,
Woman: "Not capitalist, no, not capitalist, we see the future..."
3.41,
Man: "We hope..."
3.41 - 4.08,
Woman: "We hope not, but where the comrades in power - I mean, the gentlemen in power - are taking us, who knows. But we hope that socialist ideas, which were born even before October, in the Middle Ages, when the greatest minds of the human race considered them, laid down their lives for them, we hope that they reach realization in life."
4.11 - 4.17,
Woman in glasses: "I came to the meeting because I want to see restored Soviet power and the movement for socialism..."
4.17,
Man: "...And democracy."
4.18 - 4:22,
Woman in glasses: "...And democracy. I am against dictatorship and troglodytic capitalism."
4.40 - 4.46:
Woman with red scarf: "This is not Soviet. The people are queuing for hours to get bread. Is that normal in our country?"
4.47 - 4.51,
Woman off camera: "They're bastards. And they rewrite our history."
4:51 - 4:52,
Woman with red scarf: "There's no socialism..."
4.52 - 4.54,
Woman off camera: "...Yes, there's no socialism, and you say a word..."
4.54 - 4.58,
Woman with red scarf: "...Just demoralization coming from Radio Russia..."
4:59: White picket sign: "No to capitalism! Down with masters!"
4.59 - 5.05,
Man in hat: "A shame there is no bread. What is this - what have come to? It won't do."
5:05 - 5:06: Cardboard sign: "No!!! to Czar Boris"
5.08: Demonstrators carrying red banner: "Hands off Lenin, Hands off Socialism."
5.06 - 5:38:
Woman speaker: "On behalf of the Workers' Council at Skorokhod Factory, we greet you on a great anniversary of the October Socialist Revolution. We firmly know that the cause of October is invincible, we have tested it by ourselves. Comrades, I came here in order to tell you how to fight the crooks who call themselves the government. They have no power and they will never have it. What did we do at Skorokhod? They sold the factory behind our backs and we did not relinquish it. Festering fascist capitalism will not pass. No pasaran!" (Crowd: "No pasaran! No pasaran! No pasaran No pasaran!")
5.49 -5.55: The Internationale
5.58 - 6.04: People lay flowers at Lenin Mausoleum
6.05 - 6.08: Man holds up a sign reading "Wake up, Ilyich"
6.08 - 6.12 - Portrait of Lenin
6.12 - 6.35 - Crowd at Red Square
The Communist Party of the Soviet Union did not hold an official demonstration, as Boris Yeltsin had declared CPSU activities in the Russian Federation illegal after the coup attempt by some of Gorbachev's ministers in August. The real communists held their own demonstration to celebrate the October Revolution and speak out at the very end of perestroika.
The narration and commentary is very candid. Translation below.
NpmCjzjGyGA
translation
0.00 - 0.43,
Narrator: Moscow, Red Square, 7th November 1991. You must agree this is an unusual picture. In this film we want to show that day as it appeared before our eyes. Let's start from Leningrad - or more accurately, already St. Petersburg. The same square by the Winter Palace where 74 years ago the began the very revolution of which the shot of the Cruiser Aurora informed the entire world.
0.00 - 0.54: Banner: "Long Live the Great October"
0.00 - 0.57,
Narrator: Look into the faces of these people. What brought them here, what compelled them to challenge the public mood and join not just an unpopular but now also a frequently persecuted mode of political thought? Perhaps their speeches can serve as an answer, as at the meeting by the Aurora and by the Red Square in Moscow.
1.28 - 1.48: Footage of workers singing the Internationale.
1.48 - 2.32,
Speaker: "Enough of deceiving people. The fake communists were communists only in words - such 'communists' as Gorbachev and Yeltsin and Popov and Sobchak - and they were capitalists in fact. Today we see who they are giving power to. Today we see how they 'improved' the economy, so that even in Moscow people must wait two to three hours to buy bread and our slogan today, again, is 'Bread to the people, factories and plants to the workers, the land must belong to the working peasants!' Today it has become necessary to repeat the October Socialist Revolution, and the faster the better." (Crowd cheering.)
2.38 - 2.43,
Woman off-camera: "With the president we now have, it seems we will soon be cobbling together coffins by the thousands."
2.43 - 3.14,
Young demonstrator: "We have no future - we simply aren't going to have a future. I am about to graduate college and I have no idea where I am going to work because nobody needs a young specialist like me with this unemployment. So, what am I going to do? Before this, when I was enrolling in 1989, I still had something to hope for - a place where I would work. And what hope is there now - that I can get rationed bread with coupons? That's what we had during the war, and now what? It's fifty years after the war."
3.14 - 3.29,
Demonstrator holding red flag: "The only ones responsible are those who had power during these years. Because in 1985 there was no threat of bread rationing. I am not defending Brezhnev's system, but still, you learn about things by comparison."
3.32 - 3.33,
Narrator: "How do you see Russia's future?"
3.34,
Woman: "Not capitalist, no, not capitalist, we see the future..."
3.41,
Man: "We hope..."
3.41 - 4.08,
Woman: "We hope not, but where the comrades in power - I mean, the gentlemen in power - are taking us, who knows. But we hope that socialist ideas, which were born even before October, in the Middle Ages, when the greatest minds of the human race considered them, laid down their lives for them, we hope that they reach realization in life."
4.11 - 4.17,
Woman in glasses: "I came to the meeting because I want to see restored Soviet power and the movement for socialism..."
4.17,
Man: "...And democracy."
4.18 - 4:22,
Woman in glasses: "...And democracy. I am against dictatorship and troglodytic capitalism."
4.40 - 4.46:
Woman with red scarf: "This is not Soviet. The people are queuing for hours to get bread. Is that normal in our country?"
4.47 - 4.51,
Woman off camera: "They're bastards. And they rewrite our history."
4:51 - 4:52,
Woman with red scarf: "There's no socialism..."
4.52 - 4.54,
Woman off camera: "...Yes, there's no socialism, and you say a word..."
4.54 - 4.58,
Woman with red scarf: "...Just demoralization coming from Radio Russia..."
4:59: White picket sign: "No to capitalism! Down with masters!"
4.59 - 5.05,
Man in hat: "A shame there is no bread. What is this - what have come to? It won't do."
5:05 - 5:06: Cardboard sign: "No!!! to Czar Boris"
5.08: Demonstrators carrying red banner: "Hands off Lenin, Hands off Socialism."
5.06 - 5:38:
Woman speaker: "On behalf of the Workers' Council at Skorokhod Factory, we greet you on a great anniversary of the October Socialist Revolution. We firmly know that the cause of October is invincible, we have tested it by ourselves. Comrades, I came here in order to tell you how to fight the crooks who call themselves the government. They have no power and they will never have it. What did we do at Skorokhod? They sold the factory behind our backs and we did not relinquish it. Festering fascist capitalism will not pass. No pasaran!" (Crowd: "No pasaran! No pasaran! No pasaran No pasaran!")
5.49 -5.55: The Internationale
5.58 - 6.04: People lay flowers at Lenin Mausoleum
6.05 - 6.08: Man holds up a sign reading "Wake up, Ilyich"
6.08 - 6.12 - Portrait of Lenin
6.12 - 6.35 - Crowd at Red Square