Moscow City Council Defies Ban on Red Square Protests

Moscow’s radically minded City Council said today that it will defy Kremlin pressure to prevent anti-Communist protests during Red Square parades to mark Revolution Day next week.

A spokesman said the council agreed in an emergency session Thursday night to allow two protest demonstrations next Wednesday, including a march past KGB headquarters.

The decision clashed with a decree issued earlier Thursday by parliamentary Speaker Anatoly Lukyanov, an ally of President Mikhail S. Gorbachev, declaring counterdemonstrations “inexpedient.”

Lukyanov warned on television of the possibility of clashes disturbing celebrations of the 1917 revolution--an event now seen by many Russians as a national tragedy.

Moscow City Deputy Vladimir Bokser said the Soviet Parliament has no powers to enforce its will.

“The only effect this will have is to anger people and bring thousands more onto the streets to protest,” he said.

Gorbachev, eager to avoid humiliation for the beleaguered Communist Party and the armed forces’ general staff, issued an unprecedented presidential decree last month ordering military parades to go ahead in the capitals of all the nation’s constituent republics.

But a constitutional commission recently robbed him of his right to ban unofficial demonstrations in central Moscow.

In the southern republic of Azerbaijan, the military commandant, who rules under emergency orders, has called off his parade to avoid disturbances. But the military are resisting pressure to cancel in the restless, independence-seeking Baltic republics.