From the S&S archives:
Stalin watches Russian show of arms

MOSCOW, May 1 — Superfort-type bombers, five times as many as ever before shown here, flew over Red Square spearheading the Soviet Union's May Day show of armed might.

Fighters buzzed around the long-range strategic bombers in this show where Russia's new postwar military power was displayed.

Jet planes of two types flew over the square. There were twin-engined bombers and single-engined fighters. All told there were nearly twice as many planes as at the demonstration a year ago.

The May Day parade through Red Square also brought out nearly twice as many infantry, artillery and tank forces as in the last two years.

Generalissimo Joseph Stalin was in the reviewing stand atop Lenin mausoleum overlooking the square. Foreign Minister V. M. Molotov was there also with nearly all the members of the Politburo to watch the hour-long military parade and the mass parades which were expected to go on for five hours or so. It was cloudless and warm.

Foreign diplomats and military attaches who watched he show from stands flanking the mausoleum, agreed this was one of the most impressive Soviet military displays yet. Thousands of troops on foot, in modern Soviet-built trucks, atop massive artillery pieces, and in tanks and self-propelled guns passed through the square.

Heavy field guns pulled by tractors, and guns the size of railway siege guns, so big it took four tractors to tow one of them, rumbled across the sand-strewn cobblestones.

Moscow press said the display was just a sample. It said similar shows were going on at Leningrad, Minsk, Kiev, Odessa and other capitals of Soviet republics.