The Last Soviet Red Square Military Parade took place in 1990 – James Kinnear looks at the reasons for its demise
‘The highlight of the November parade was without doubt the very last weapon system to be paraded through Moscow’s Red Square’
In 1918, the year following the Russian Revolution, the fledgling Red Army staged its first military parade at Khodynka field in the north west of Moscow in celebration of the 1917 ‘Great October Revolution’. The following year a military parade was held on Red Square in central Moscow, and from that time until 1991 military parades were an annual event, with the exception of the mid war-years of 1942-44. There was a military element to the May 1, Workers and Peasants Holiday parade in most years until as late as 1968, with the Great October Revolution parades being held on November 7 due to the Soviet Union synchronising its calendar with international standards. This was the main annual military parade during the entire Cold War period.
The RSFSR (Russia) was joined by three other formerly independent countries in 1922 to become the Soviet Union, with other republics joining in later years. In the 1920s, as European powers began to diplomatically recognise the n…
