Russia: Down with the Cossacks!

Moscow demonstrations are generally about as spontaneous as TV commercials. Even when they are directed against the U.S. embassy, they usually lack panache. The crowd gathers at the appointed time and place, marches in orderly columns along Tchaikovsky Avenue, waves its banners, shouts its slogans, hurls a few rocks, and then, on signal from the police, disbands and goes quietly home.

But not last week. Down the wide, snowy boulevard poured thousands of students singing the Internationale and screaming curses of protest against the U.S. air raids on North Viet Nam. Tipped off in advance, the embassy had called on the authorities for protection. As a result, 600 police were on the scene. But the cops did little to stop the mob from bursting through the cordon, vaulting a metal barrier, and scrambling over an improvised rampart of 30 snowplows.

Human Wall. The police also stood passively by while the students—mostly Chinese and North Vietnamese from Patrice Lumumba University—littered the embassy sidewalk with their placards (one portrayed a bomb-wielding Lyndon Johnson with a Hitler mustache), defaced the Seal of the United States beside the door, and hurled ink bottles at the fa?ade with slingshots, breaking windows as high as the eighth floor of the ten-story building.

Mounted police moved in to signal that the demonstration was over. They were astride dapple-grey horses, the same stalwart breed that the Cossacks had used to run down street mobs with nagaika and saber in czarist days. 'Suddenly the scene dissolved into chaos, and photos taken by Western journalists provided a dramatic record of the astounding proceedings. This was. after all, the first time since June 1918 that a Moscow riot had to be put down by force. The cops let fly with whip and truncheon. Screaming "Fascists!" at the militia, the mob fought back with rocks, bricks and clubs. Slingshots sent missiles whizzing at mounted police, and fists struck out at militiamen on foot.

With the police clearly unable to cope, 500 troops of the Moscow garrison advanced like a human wall. In the scuffling a Chinese reeled with a head wound, one Vietnamese was carried off in an ambulance, and seven students were seized and arrested.

Red Ink. The street was cleared, but not for long. In a short while, the students marched back. They made no effort to break through the new cordon of soldiers and police, but a student leader announced over a megaphone that they would not leave until the prisoners were released. When the police finally relented, the crowd dispersed.

The embassy damage was considerable, with fully 310 windows shattered and the grey facade streaked with reel, blue and black ink. U.S. Ambassador Foy Kohler sent an angry note, charging that police protection had been "grossly inadequate." The protest was accepted by Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko, who sent workers to repair the damage.