The World - News from July 31, 1988

Six Soviet militiamen and soldiers have died and more than 1,000 people have been injured in coping with a two-year wave of demonstrations spurred by glasnost , the policy of openness sponsored by Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev. Justice Minister Boris V. Kravtsov told the government daily Izvestia that more than 250 unauthorized large-scale demonstrations and street rallies erupted during 1986-88 in Moscow, Leningrad, Sverdlovsk “and other places.” The police and army, he said, have neither the special riot control equipment nor the training to cope with the “illegal extremist and nationalist” rallies that have racked many parts of the country.