Demonstrations Russia

Workers marched for back wages, Communists for an end to Boris N. Yeltsin's presidency and ultranationalists for a return to Russia's Soviet-era might as hundreds of thousands took to the streets Thursday nationwide. In rallies from Moscow to Vladivostok, Russians expressed their dissatisfaction with life in their post-Communist country. But, since there is no government at the moment, it was for the demonstrators to know whom to blame for what.

A bust of dictator Josef Stalin was unveiled Saturday in a Russian school to applause from local Communists and protests from teachers opposed to honoring the memory of a man responsible for the deaths of millions. NTV television, in a report from the southern Urals city of Chelyabinsk, said it was the first time a memorial to Stalin had been restored in Russia since the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Unpaid Russian miners blocked the strategic Trans-Siberian railway line for three hours on Friday before being removed by police, a union official said. "They blocked the railroad but were forced by Interior Ministry forces to reopen it again," said Nikolai Shtyrkov, first deputy chairman of the Russian Independent Coal Miners' Union. "There were no clashes," said Shtyrkov, who added the action lasted about three hours and followed two days of protests alongside the line.

Coal miners blocked the Trans-Siberian railroad for a sixth day in the most visible sign of a cash crunch that has the nation racing against the clock to secure a bailout from the international community. The government said it expected the International Monetary Fund to decide within a month on a new credit package worth $10 billion to $15 billion, which would allow the nation to meet its obligations.

Russia's aging and dwindling masses of Communists took to the streets Saturday to mark the 81st anniversary of the Russian Revolution and demand the resignation of President Boris N. Yeltsin. About 5,000 people gathered at Lubyanka Square, site of the former headquarters of the now-defunct KGB secret police, to wave red flags and banners and recall the glory years of Soviet power.

Hundreds of thousands of Russian workers, pensioners and students set aside their differences Wednesday to march, picket and chant together, demanding the resignation of the man they blame for their country's economic ruin: President Boris N. Yeltsin. "Resign! Resign! Resign!" shouted a crowd of 150,000 arrayed beneath the rainbow-striped domes of St. Basil's Cathedral outside the Kremlin. Police said 615,000 people took part in rallies nationwide--far short of the 1.

Responding to calls that he resign, Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin came out of seclusion Thursday to insist that he has no intention of ending his reign early. Greeting senior police and military officers in the Kremlin, Yeltsin made a point of reminding them that he is still their commander in chief--and "until 2000, it will remain so."

Angry coal miners blocked trains on the Trans-Siberian Railway and barricaded the offices of two high-ranking officials Friday, prompting lawmakers to vote for an emergency bill that would cut their own office budgets and send the money to Russia's troubled mining regions. The sudden show of generosity by the Duma, Russia's lower house of parliament, followed days of protests by miners across the country over wages that have not been paid for up to a year--an estimated $600 million total.

Striking coal miners lifted a 10-day-old blockade of the Trans-Siberian and other vital railroads Sunday after the government promised to pay some overdue wages. But the breakthrough probably provided only a short pause in a disruptive clash over how to handle looming mine closures.

In threadbare coats and bad temper, millions of long-unpaid state workers across Russia took to the streets Thursday to denounce the Kremlin for reforms they say have ruined the country. The one-day strike that idled schools, transportation and factories across the vast federation was believed to be the broadest labor unrest since the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution, even though it fell far short of a predicted 20 million marchers and widespread disorder.