These photos show how crazy May Day used to be during the Cold War

The Cold War is long over and, unless you're a labor organizer or a communist, May 1st is probably just another day on the calendar.

But for decades, "International Workers Day" was an opportunity for the Soviet-aligned bloc to show off its military hardware.

In leftist and Soviet-allied regimes around the world, dictators would send their militaries into major public areas in ostentatious shows of authority and force. There was some irony in these over-the-top celebrations: In the course of heralding the ideological underpinnings of Soviet-allied regimes, those governments only demonstrated how rapidly communist regimes had morphed into brutal military dictatorships.

Here are some of the best pictures we found of May 1st military parades from the Cold War period.

The Soviets would roll out their big guns for May Day. Here, 2 intercontinental ballistic missiles made their way across Red Square in 1968.

Tanks and rocket launchers would stream through the center of the Soviet capital ...

... along with nuclear-capable missiles, like these, which also appeared at the 1968 parade.