May Day is simply not the same since the fall of the Soviet Union. In ages past, the endless lines of cutting-edge collectivized military hardware that annually paraded through Red Square -- with the precision only possible in a workers' paradise -- provided a bracingly romantic backdrop for the reading of the Kremlinological tea leaves. (Who is that next to the Premier and why is he wearing those Foster Grants? Which apparatchik will be airbrushed out of this year's prom photos? What are you doing with that samovar, Sergei?)

For those who get all wistful and misty over such things, we are pleased to offer this footstomping, rather loud archival footage as a reminder that, once upon a time, the Weapon of Mass Destruction that the Decadent West most needed to fear was Precision East German Totalitarian Kittens. You can be sure that this elite corp earned high Marx in all their classes at the Academy.

[This comes a little late, but you're too polite to remark on that, are you not?]