The marchers, more than 200,000 strong, simply defied the government ban, the thousands of police, the scores of military vehicles. As an evening snow shower dusted their faces, the supporters of change in the Soviet Union thronged Moscow's streets to deliver a pungent political message, savoring the act of public assembly in the face of Mikhail Gorbachev's order forbidding rallies, and then tramped peacefully home. For what, then, had the Kremlin assembled an enormous security force -- to protect itself against its own people?
Gorbachev's futile show of force surely marked another drop in his waning popularity. Amid the ranks of...
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