RUSSIAN communists marched through Red Square yesterday and laid wreaths at the Lenin Mausoleum to mark the 103rd anniversary of the Russian Revolution.

Communist Party leader Gennady Zyuganov said Russian TV coverage of the holiday had made him gasp because, while commemorating the famous military parade of November 7 1941, when Red Army troops marched straight into battle against the Nazis from the parade ground, presenters did not even mention the reason the parade was held in the first place: to mark the revolution.

“There has been nothing more magnificent than Great October,” he said (the revolution is called the October Revolution because of its date in the old Julian calendar used in 1917). “The issue was decided in favour of working people. Before that, the possessing classes and the wealthy ruled. [In 1917] for the first time, under the leadership of Lenin, Soviet power triumphed.

“We call on all citizens of the country to fight for a strong, modern and socialist Russia. For the USSR!”