This Time Around, a Muscovite Marches Because He Wants To

Every year since he was 20, Anatoly Zhuravlev was ordered to march in official parades on Soviet Revolution Day, but on Wednesday the 35-year-old factory worker demonstrated proudly against the Bolshevik Revolution.

“For the first time, I feel like a human and not a robot,” Zhuravlev said as he walked along the Garden Ring Road with his lanky 15-year-old son, Andrei.

“There is something really wonderful about this alternative demonstration--people are marching because they believe in something,” Zhuravlev said.

He and his son were among 10,000 liberals who demonstrated against the 1917 revolution and the society it created in two alternative demonstrations authorized by Moscow authorities.

Mournful music played over loudspeakers as people holding homemade signs bearing slogans such as “73 Years of Lies and Violence” gathered in downtown Moscow on a square in front of Communist Party headquarters.

The demonstration, called to pay tribute to the victims of decades of repression under Soviet rule, took place within view of Red Square, where the traditional military parade and march of party supporters was going on.

The demonstrators called for the resignations of President Mikhail S. Gorbachev and Prime Minister Nikolai I. Ryzhkov, political and economic independence for Russia and an end to the Communist Party’s control of the government.

The crowd cheered wildly when Russian Federation President Boris N. Yeltsin and Moscow Mayor Gavriil K. Popov stopped by after participating in the official celebration at Red Square.

“It is a critical moment in the life of our country,” Popov said. “Now the time has come for each person to rise up and save the country.”

Later, the protesters, led by priests and laymen carrying icons, crosses and other religious symbols, walked three miles to the apartment building where longtime dissident and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Andrei D. Sakharov lived until his death last December.

“Gorbachev has had more than enough applause,” Mikhail N. Bidosh, 63, a factory worker who spent 15 years in Siberian political prison camps under the dictator Josef Stalin, said as he walked along. “We need to get rid of him and all Communists for good, even if it takes a revolution.”

The protesters said they no longer have faith in Gorbachev because he has failed to disavow the Communist Party, refuses to share power and has done nothing to slow the economic decline.