Exactly ten years ago, Communism in Russia appeared to be drawing its last sour breath. Thousands of people abandoned their Soviet-era fears and rallied around the Russian Parliament, defeating a hard-line Communist coup. But historical moments are often defined by what follows. In Russia today, few people celebrate what they once called their storming of the Bastille. In Moscow, an anniversary event drew no more than two hundred people. Neither Prime Minister Vladimir Putin nor Boris Yeltsin has recognized the anniversary. Russians who stood at the barricades in August of 1991 say the democratic vistas they envisioned then are gone, and their popular revolution has been put down by the rich, the powerful, and the corrupt.
