When I was growing up®, everyone knew a poem that started with:

Day of 7th of November

Is Red Day in your calendár

or something like that.

People who read this blog for a while are well-versed in the holidays that were celebrated in the USSR and the 93rd Anniversary of the Great October Socialist Revolution is not an exception. A whole generation has grown up without seeing a real parade on the Red Square in Moscow but the 7th of November is still remembered by many people around the world and celebrated at a least one suburban dwelling in the Kansas City Metro.

The events of November 7th 1917 (old style October 25th) were portrayed in the movie October released in 1927. The following clip depicts the storming of the Winter Palace – former residence of the Russian Tsar.

Recent revelations completely discredit this version of the events, and the heroic chronology of the Revolution the Soviet People were required to study for 70 years. Winter Palace was not well defended and at the time was serving as a hospital for up to a thousand soldiers wounded in WWI. The role and the scale of the attack was hugely exaggerated, and the influence and support of Lenin by Germany was censored out of the official history.

Nevertheless, every November 7th the Soviet people either participated or watched the celebrations on TV. Here are some photos from 1959.

Lastly, probably the most symbolic image of all.

And now we dance: “The battle continues!”