Protesters Block Moscow Tank Drill
Local officials joined protesters Saturday to block tanks rehearsing for the Nov. 7 Revolution Day parade in Moscow, the Soviet daily newspaper Izvestia reported.
The demonstrators jumped in front of the tanks as they drove down Moscow’s Ring Road, which had been cleared of traffic for the overnight rehearsal.
One man, Lev Shemaev, a leader of the radical Moscow Voters’ Assn., lay down in front of the column of tanks. Neither he nor anyone else was hurt.
A Moscow military commander ordered the demonstrators to clear the road, Izvestia said. They did so after about half an hour.
“We cannot put up with tanks rolling in Moscow,” Alexander Osovtsev, a member of the Moscow City Council, told Izvestia. The protesters also included deputies from the Russian Federation parliament, the report said.
The radical Moscow City Council has refused to finance the capital’s parade this year, leaving the Soviet national Parliament to provide the money.
Revolution Day, which celebrates the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, is the most important holiday on the Soviet calendar.
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