Not Just in Moscow or Not Just for Security, May Day Parades Cancelled Across Russia

Paul Goble

            Staunton, May 1 – Putin’s decision to cut back in the size of the May Day parade in the Russian capital has attracted international attention, but most cities in the Russian Federation has done at least as much or more often cancelled such actions altogether and quite clearly not just for reasons of security at least in the usual sense.

            The GoGov.ru portal provides the most comprehensive list available of cities where parades either weren’t planned or were cancelled and reports that only in a few places did the parades go forward in anything like the size that they did in the past. In all cases, these reductions were also taken in the name of security (gogov.ru/articles/1may26-demonstration).

            But the Tallinn-based regionalist portal Region.Expert suggests that these cancellations like the reduction of the parade in Moscow were not about the security of the population given the threat of Ukrainian drones but rather a political decision to protect the Putin regime against protests (region.expert/1may-cancelled/).

            “In reality,” the portal says, “the cancellation of May Day demonstrations in many Russian cities stems from the authorities' fear that citizens might use these legally sanctioned marches to voice protest slogans—against the war, internet and messenger blockades, tax hikes, and so forth. Historically, empires have often crumbled precisely because of social protests.”