Russian Left Wing Activists Rally To Commemorate Constitutional Crisis Victims
Left-wing activists held a rally on 3 October to commemorate the victims of the 1993 Russian constitutional crisis, the Interfax news agency reported on the same day. Some 200 protesters, representing the Left Front, ROT Front and Working Russia movements, and the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (CPRF), gathered by the Russian White House, Interfax said, quoting Left Front coordinator Sergey Udaltsov.
The rally proceeded under the slogan "We shan't forget, we shan't forgive" and, according to Udaltsov, "the people who attended the rally expressed a desire to bring representatives of the country's leadership of that time, whose actions led to bloodshed, to account".
Earlier, editorially-independent Ekho Moskvy radio station reported that the CPRF was planning a series of commemorative events. The most large-scale events are said to be planned for 4 October, when the standoff between Yeltsin and the parliamentarians finished.
The constitutional crisis arose after the then president, Boris Yeltsin, purported to dissolve the country's legislature, however the parliamentarians deemed his decision to be null and void. The standoff saw supporters of parliament break cordons around the White House, the then seat of the Russian parliament, in a bid to defend it, to eventually be forced out by the military, which was acting on Yeltsin's orders. According to official figures cited by Interfax, over 150 people were killed and 300 injured in the course of the 1993 clashes.
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