COMMEMORATION OF 1993 COUP REFLECTS RUSSIAN CHANGE OF MIND.

Several communist and nationalist organizations organized a demonstration and a religious memorial service to mark the bloody events in Moscow during the armed confrontation between Boris Yeltsin and the Russian Supreme Soviet in October 1993. Demonstrations were carried out in several Moscow locations, including the Ostankino television center. No major incidents were reported. (4)

Perhaps more important than the demonstration itself is the changing mindset among Russian politicians and the mass media. At last year’s anniversary, most Russian democratic and liberal figures were still on Yeltsin’s side. Today, they are inclined to blame both sides for the clash between the president and the parliament. Liberal Yabloko leader Grigory Yavlinsky, for example, now says that both sides were responsible for the bloodshed. The chairman of the Duma’s defense committee, liberal Sergei Yushenkov, now also admits that Yeltsin’s actions at the time were unconstitutional, although he still thinks that they were justified. And Liberal Democratic Party leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky, who supported Yeltsin in 1993, is now trying to rewrite his own history by claiming that he had not backed Yeltsin, but had actually been "neutral" in the conflict.

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