Yearning for Communism Tinges Protest in Moscow

Dusted by the winter’s first snowfall, thousands of Russians upset by their grim lives and worried about the future demonstrated Wednesday to oppose looming price increases. The protest showed just how unstable support is for market reforms and the country’s new leaders.

“The millionaires have organized in a club to solve their problems. It is our turn to defend ourselves--engineers, teachers, workers, those who have lived their lives honestly!” declared Tamara Los, 52, a demonstrator who wants to start a Party of the Socially Deprived.

The protesters, a crowd estimated at 30,000 by police, demanded a hefty increase in the minimum wage, dependable food supplies and action by the governments of Moscow and Russia to protect workers, pensioners and other less favored classes during the transition to a market economy by linking wages to prices.

If those demands are not met, there will be a warning strike, proclaimed a resolution adopted at the rally, at which there were representatives from St. Petersburg and other cities in Russia.

The demonstration near Red Square was the most overtly nostalgic display seen here for the old Communist system since the failed August putsch, and many speakers at the event vented their anger at Russian Federation President Boris N. Yeltsin and his agenda for social change.

Although acknowledging that suffering lies ahead, Yeltsin said last week that sharp price increases will take effect in November as the economy is retooled to a supply-and-demand system. That news has kindled unease and outrage in a society already in the grips of soaring inflation and worrisome food shortages.

“When my mother, who is 54, heard of Yeltsin’s intention to raise prices soon, she had a heart attack and we had to call for an ambulance,” said Alexander Chelnokov, a motorman’s assistant on the Moscow subway who earns 680 rubles monthly ($384 at the official commercial rate of exchange).

“I am not able to buy basic clothes and footwear,” he said. “I have no winter shoes. I simply cannot afford such luxury.”

As he spoke, Chelnokov held a sign that read, “Free Prices Mean Death for the People!” Most signs toted by other members of the crowd (“A Fair Wage for Labor!” for example) were not overtly anti-Yeltsin.

But there was widely expressed frustration that the Russian Federation leader and his allies have failed to markedly improve the lot of the common people. The chief organizer of the action even vaguely threatened Yeltsin’s job.

“For us, this rally is our last possibility and hope to be heard,” said Mikhail V. Shmakov, leader of the Moscow Federation of Labor Unions. “If we are not heard, there is only one thing left to do--the most powerful weapon is a strike. . . . If, as a result of a strike, no decision is made, we will need to change the people who rule us.”

In another sign of what dangers may lie ahead if people’s lives do not improve, Moscow registered its first serious outbreak of unrest over food shortages when, witnesses said, a crowd smashed in the doors at a bakery over the weekend and poured in to hunt for bags of sugar.

Sugar is rationed, with each Muscovite entitled to 3.3 pounds monthly. But stocks are reported to have fallen dramatically because suppliers, such as the former Soviet republics of the Ukraine and Moldova, which are now independent, have not met their commitments.

On Wednesday, the demonstrators gathered at 5 p.m. near the Hotel Moskva, across from the Kremlin and Red Square and on a broad expanse of pavement named Manezh Square. A light snow fell, dazzlingly lit by searchlights. On the facade of the Moskva, a banner trumpeted, “Unity! Solidarity! The Rights of the Person of Labor!”

Some protesters carried red Soviet flags, symbols of support for the old regime. There were also signs with slogans such as “No to the Bourgeoisie!” proclaiming hostility to the very forces--entrepreneurs, foreign investment and the like--that reformers are counting on to arrest this nation’s economic nose dive.

Standing atop the flatbed truck that served as a sound stage, his voice booming off the Moskva’s walls, Alexander Popov, an organizer for the “Party of Labor,” condemned what he called plans to give Russia a “capitalist future.”

Many shouted their agreement.

“We are promised a vulgar capitalism with no law and order, no mercy for the poor--though who are the poor today?--99% of the people,” complained Sergei I. Krylov, 60, who had just retired from his job as a mathematics teacher.

Like others, he said the glimmer of a brighter future that seemed to emerge from the collapse of the conservative coup d’etat had died out. “We did not expect this when we were spending days and nights at the White House (defending Yeltsin),” Krylov said. “We were expecting change for the better.”

Opponents of the rally claimed its organizers were trying to channel people’s disappointment over the lack of improvements in their lives since the putsch to foil attempts at change. Some suspect that officials of the Communist Party, now banned from political activity, are behind it. “The worse we live, and the harder it is, the better it is for them,” a bearded man in his 30s said.

To judge by the available evidence, most Russians apparently believe things will get worse as winter, the decay of the Soviet economy and the shock of market reforms join to disrupt their lives. According to an opinion poll commissioned by the Tass news agency, 60% of the 902 Muscovites surveyed said they believe that the committee set up to halt the country’s economic plunge will prove unequal to the task.

Meanwhile, the Russian Federation government is uncertain how to proceed, perhaps wary of the social implications of large-scale price increases. Vladimir Zverkhovsky, chairman of the Russian Economic Ministry’s committee on prices, said Wednesday that the Russian leadership has not yet been able to decide whether to raise all prices at once or to proceed more gradually.