MEANWHILE AT THE LUBYANKA…

While official parades were taking place in Red Square and at Poklonnaya hill, some 20,000 hardline opponents of the Yeltsin regime rallied in Lubyanka square, the infamous site of the headquarters building of the Soviet-era KGB. The demonstration took place after a Moscow city court on May 8 declared that the city government’s ban on such a meeting was illegal. Russian communist party chief Zyuganov told the crowd that the current government had betrayed the Soviet people’s victory in 1945. According to Moscow television, the marchers carried pictures of Stalin, Soviet flags, and–mocking Russia’s official symbol–posters showing a two-headed chicken superimposed over a star of David. The television suggested that the crowd had been swollen by those who recently had lost money in risky investments.

“Privatizing” The Russian Victory.