Thousands of communists took to the streets Sunday, condemning government reformers as traitors and hailing the jailed coup leaders as heroes.
"Soviet Union - Yes," the demonstrators chanted in Manezh Square, a traditional rallying spot near the Kremlin where the crowd gathered in snow to hail the old and rail against the new.They condemned creation of the Commonwealth of Independent States, called for restoration of the Soviet Union under communist rule, and scuffled with opponents as heated arguments broke out.
The Tass and Interfax news agencies both said the crowd numbered 50,000, which would make it about the same size as the last major communist rally on Nov. 7, the anniversary of the 1917 Bolshevik revolution.
The demonstration was organized by "Working Moscow" and other newly formed openly communist groups set up after the Soviet and Russian Communist Parties were banned in the wake of the failed August coup organized by party hard-liners.
Demonstrators' slogans pronounced former Vice President Gennady Yanayev and former KGB chief Vladimir Kryuchkov, two coup leaders, as "national heroes."
Protestors attacked Russian President Boris Yeltsin and Moscow Mayor Gavriil Popov over their economic reforms and government policies.
One speaker urged a military takeover of the country and said former Soviet President Mikhail "Gorbachev and other traitors should go before a military tribunal."
Some demonstrators carried pictures of Vladimir Lenin, leader of the Bolshevik revolution and founder of the Soviet state, and others carried pictures of dictator Josef Stalin, who ruled the country with an iron fist for three decades.
Despite the high prices in Russia - which demonstrators protested - many offered handfuls of rubles to the rally organizers to help fund a new communist opposition newspaper.
Uniformed soldiers in the crowd said they were forming a communist military union, and soldiers saluted during a playing of the old Soviet anthem.
Leaders of the demonstration called for more rallies, including a march on the Russian White House next month.