MAY DAY

Evening Star, Issue 19855, 2 May 1928, Page 9

MAY DAY

CONTINENTAL CELEBRATIONS NO SERIOUS OUTBREAKS Press Association —By Telegraph—Copyright. LONDON, May 1. (Received May 2, at 12,30 p.m.) May Day was relatively quiet in Europe. In Germany and Russia it was an excuse for a holiday. In Paris the chief feature was the entire absence of taxi cab riots, which the Communists had prophesied. They failed to materialise, probably, owing to the strong display of police, but these were not required. In Berlin it is estimated that 1,500,000 workers absented themselves from work. There were enormous demonstrations by Socialist and Communist organisations parading the streets with bands and red Hags. The keynote of the Vienna demonstrations was a demand for the release of Bela Kun, otherwise the city was quiet, thanks to showers of rain and the fact that the Socialist and Communist demonstrations were widely separated. In Warsaw two persons were killed and fifty, injured in a fight between Communists and Socialists. All the shops in Moscow were closed for forty-eight hours. Every house in the city hung out red flags, and hawkers sold red tulips. The celebrations took the form of vast processions of armed Russians to the Red square. The Commander of the Red army took the salute from the top of Lenin’s tomb. In one procession there were tanks, guns, cavalry, sailors, and musses of armed workers, while squadrons of aeroplanes did stunts overhead. Many ribald banners wore carried caricaturing Sir Austen Chamberlain. —Austin lian Press Association.