Soviet Parade Marches to an Upbeat Tempo

The Soviet Union celebrated the Bolshevik Revolution today with an annual military parade that also featured upbeat music and posters with slogans that touted profits and fashionable fabrics, not anti-American propaganda.

Tanks, missiles, floats and marchers, watched by President Mikhail S. Gorbachev and other Kremlin leaders, moved through Red Square in light snow and temperatures just below freezing.

All the NATO ambassadors or their top representatives also attended the Revolution Day parade for the first time since the Soviet Union sent troops into Afghanistan in 1979.

71st Anniversary of Revolt

The parade marked the 71st anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution, when Vladimir I. Lenin led the Bolsheviks against the Russian provisional government.

The T-72 tanks and small missiles still clanked across the cobblestones this year, but the atmosphere was significantly lighter, with popular melodies replacing solemn dirges.

Marchers carried balloons and paper flowers, and there were portraits of Lenin and Karl Marx, but none of the usual pictures of the Politburo members.

Posters focused on internal politics, rather than foreign aggression. There were none of the fear-inspiring slogans warning of the dangers of capitalism, or comments on specific East-West disputes such as Nicaragua.

Instead, posters promised “War on the Bureaucracy,” one of the targets of Gorbachev’s economic reform efforts.

Other placards proclaimed “We’re behind perestroika, “ and “We’re going to raise profits by 1.2 times.” Until recently, the word profit was unacceptable.

Some banners had slogans that sounded a lot like Western advertising.

“Our fabric is in the best taste!” promised one factory. “Video! Fantasy!” promised another.