This week, on May 1, an estimated 100,000-strong, pro-government demonstration of "working people" was allowed on Red Square for the first time since 1990. The march was organized by state-controlled trade unions and supported by the ruling United Russia party as well as the Kremlin-backed Moscow mayor, Sergei Sobyanin (http://www.interfax.ru/print.asp?sec=1448&id=374533). The Kremlin rulers are massively using old Soviet ideological and propaganda clichés as the crisis between East and West over Ukraine and Crimea accelerates, Russia's international isolation deepens, and a new cold war looms--with a possible red-hot regional war in Ukraine between pro-Western and pro-Russian forces being a distinct possibility.
Large state-sponsored May demonstrations of "the working people" were organized all over Russia with especially large ones in newly annexed Crimea--in Sevastopol and Simferopol. The Moscow Red Square march supported the "reunification of Crimea" and denounced US imperialism, as during the days of the Cold War. In all, an estimated 2.5 million "working people" took part in the state-approved May Day demonstrations all over Russia (http://www.interfax.ru/russia/374557).
The same day, in the Kremlin, President Vladimir Putin handed out "Hero of Labor of the Russian Federation" medals. In the Soviet Union, the "Hero of Labor" and "Hero of the Soviet Union" golden medals were the top state honors for civilian and military achievements. The Hero of Russia honor was swiftly reinstated under its new name in March 1992, after the Soviet Union's collapse. The Hero of Labor war recreated last year by Putin to honor "the working people" (http://www.interfax.ru/russia/374549). The Red Square demonstrations and Hero of Labor award ceremonies are part of the PR effort to reinforce the "patriotic connection between the masses and the Kremlin" as most of the nation genuinely celebrates the Crimean annexation ("Crimea is ours"). Russia enjoys a long holiday weekend until May 5. State-controlled TV channels advise the population to continue the official demonstrations with patriotic feasting at barbecues with beer and vodka, remembering the good old Soviet times (http://www.ntv.ru/novosti/942396/).
Russian propaganda, meanwhile, has been ridiculing Western attempts to "punish" the country with sanctions, while promoting the virtues of Soviet-style self-isolation and self-support. Today, nether the top rich bureaucrats and oligarchs, nor the working classes seem ready to do anything to stop Russia's unstoppable slide into isolation (http://www.gazeta.ru/comments/2014/04/25_e_6006013.shtml). The mostly liberal Kommersant daily insists that the new sanctions announced this week by the United States and the European Union are mostly meaningless and are an attempt by US President Barack Obama to "save face" by announcing something, since he cannot or will not do anything serious (http://www.kommersant.ru/doc/2462844). Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has called the new US sanctions "an act of desperation" and a display of the total failure of US foreign policy. According to Lavrov, "Russia will, at present, refrain from immediately reacting to sanctions," giving "our partners" some time to reflect and reconsider before going too far (http://www.interfax.ru/print.asp?sec=1446&id=374506).