FOURTH ANNIVERSARY OF COUP MARKED QUIETLY.

Only a smallgroup of pro-communist protesters gathered in Moscow to mark thefourth anniversary of the failed August 1991 coup, Russian mediareported. But Russian papers and broadcasters gave extensivecoverage to the remarks of both participants and observers inthat event. Reformist historian Yuri Afanasyev told Moscow radiothat the coup had been important because it had unleashed thearmy into the city’s streets; former Moscow leader Gavriil Popovtold Russian radio that Gorbachev had failed to do what the Chinesecommunists have done and thus unleashed the coup forces. Anda number of the men who led the coup defended their actions andsaid they would do the same thing again. Meanwhile, several commentatorsnoted that while ever fewer people regretted that the coup hadfailed, ever fewer felt that the coup’s failures had led to asuccess for Russia, and a conference of scholars called for thedeclassification of the 30 volumes of testimony about the coup,Russian radio reported.

Yeltsin Urges Unification of Democratic Forces.