It was a big bang of the Russian empire.

Many remember the times when labour feats were devoted to another anniversary, and all remember celebrations and marches and bands playing in the streets on the Day of the Great October Socialist Revolution.

Three years ago all that ended and became the Day of Reconciliation and Accord on October 25 on the old calendar.

Unity lacks among the Russians thus far, studies by the All-Russian Institute of Public Opinion Research (VTSIOM) suggests.

Those who are positive about the throes of 1917 outnumber those who are opposed and objecting to methods then used almost twofold -- respectively 48 percent and 28 percent.

At the same time, numbers of inner-mind supporters of the revolution is dwindling.

According to VTSIOM, numbers of people who have grown indifferent in their attitudes to the 1917 Revolution or are uncertain have increased from 12 percent to 25 percent.

The Public Opinion Fund in turn has found out that most of Russia’s citizens see the “October Revolution” as a “political coup” and takeover of power.

A proportion of the respondents mentioned “Lenin on the armoured vehicle” addressing crowds and the storming of the Zimny Czarist Palace, but also the Civil Warm, bloodshed, fratricide and famine.

A percentage of the Russians are nostalgic and insisting that the “people has come to power” and there was an advent of “social justice”.

Some reminisce that the “Great October festivities” of the Soviet times with their grandiose festive gun salutes were “hard, but merry”.

The Communist Party of the Russian Federation (KPRF) appears the sole political force that staunchly keeps its loyalty to the ideals of the 1917 Revolution.

The Communists demonstratively ignored t Day of People’s Unity on November 4 on the earlier calendar and Zyuganov travelled to the Belarussian capital Minsk to attend and international meeting of Communist and workers’ parties.

Early on Wednesday, the Communists laid wreaths at the mausoleum of Vladimir Lenin, the founder of the Soviet state.

They will also march on Tverskaya Street in the centre on Moscow and will hold a meeting on the Manezh Square near Kremlin on Wednesday evening.

Some of historians assert that the storming of the Zimny (Winter) Palace in 1917 was actually a peaceful affair.

Zuganov said the current talk about the 1917 Revolution is “grown over with myths and falsifications”.

“The revolution was the most bloodless”.

However, historians say the Civil War of 1918-1921 and political repressions that followed left millions of people dead.

Russian politicians talk of pros and cons of the 1917 Revolution, citing “industrialisation of the country”, and the “victory in the Great Patriotic War” and the “French Revolution and the “disaster”.

A week before the 90th anniversary of the 1917 Revolution, Russia marked the 70th anniversary of the beginning of Stalin-era Great Terror.

President Vladimir Putin visited the Butovo Range of NKVD secrete police in Butovo, where people were shot to death and dumped in their thousands in 1937 at the peak of terror.

He laid flowers at a cross erected in memory of political repressions.

“The year 1937 was prepared by the previous years of cruelty. Such tragedies recurred in the history of mankind more than once. And this always happened when ideals that were seemingly attractive, but proved empty to check were held above the main values of the human life, above the human rights and liberties,” Putin said.

MOSCOW, November 7 (Itar-Tass)