Day of massive protests in Russia

Updated 1:55 p.m. ET

MOSCOW - Tens of thousands of Muscovites thronged to a square across the river from the Kremlin on Saturday to protest alleged electoral fraud and urge an end to Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's rule, demands repeated at other rallies across this vast country in the largest public show of discontent in post-Soviet Russia.

Protests took place in more than 50 other cities from the Pacific Coast to the southwest, including a large demonstration estimated by police at 7,000 people in St. Petersburg.

CBS News correspondent Charlie D'Agata reports reports there have been clashes in St. Petersburg, with riot police dragging away protesters. Demonstrations in Moscow have so far been peaceful but they are growing in number and anger.

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Russians protest Putin, election fraud

Fewer than 100 demonstrators were reported arrested nationwide - far fewer than the hundreds taken into custody at smaller protests in the first days after the Dec. 4 national election. Police, who normally crack down fast and hard on any unauthorized gathering, even allowed a few hundred leftist radicals to conduct an unsanctioned protest on Moscow's Revolution Square just outside the Red Square.

In the Pacific city of Vladivostok, several hundred protesters rallied along a waterside avenue where some of Russia's Pacific Fleet warships are docked. They shouted "Putin's a louse" and some held a banner caricaturing United Russia's emblem, reading "The rats must go."

Thousands in Russia protest Putin, vote fraud

The demonstrations come three months before Putin, who was president in 2000-2008 and effectively remained the country's leader while prime minister, is to seek a third presidential term. The massive outpouring of public anger challenges his image, supported by state-controlled TV channels, as a man backed by the majority of Russians.

That image was undercut by last Sunday's parliamentary elections, during which his United Party narrowly retained a majority of seats, but lost the unassailable two-thirds majority it had held in the previous parliament. Even that reduced performance was unearned, inflated by massive vote fraud, the opposition says, citing reports by local and international monitors of widespread violations. The reports of vote-rigging and the party's loss of seats acted as a catalyst for long-simmering discontent of many Russians.

"The falsifications that authorities are doing today have turned the country into a big theater, with clowns like in a circus," said Alexander Trofimov, one of the demonstrators at Bolotnaya Square, on an island in the Moscow River adjacent to the Kremlin.

"Everyone is sick of living under this regime which forbids freedom of expression," one demonstrator told CBS News. "We are against the lies and the bankrupt politicians."

The Moscow rally, which lasted about three hours, was so sprawling that unbiased crowd estimates were difficult to make. Police put the attendance at 25,000; organizers claimed up to 150,000.

Whatever the precise number, it was a show of dismay that gave pause to the ruling elite. State-controlled TV channels that usually ignore or deride the opposition gave notable airtime to the protests. A top United Russia official, Andrei Isayev, acknowledged late Saturday that "expression of this point of view is extremely important and will be heard in the mass media, society and the state."

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[sandiegopete]

In the next couple of years we will be seeing more of these popular uprisings arount the world. The middle segment of the world's population is growing ever more tired of being exploited by a small group of oligarchs. Instead of considering the reasons behind the popular dissatisfaction to their rule the oligarchs have been doing what they always do: attempt to crush any opposition to their rule.

In the United States the demonstrations aligned with OWS caught the oligarchs by surprise but before long they moved in to clear out anyone who dared protest their rule. In Russia the size of yesterday's demostrations surprised the rulers but it will not be long before Putin has rounded up the indentifiable leaders.

The suppression of popular desscent in the United States and other developed countries will not solve the problem for the oligarchs. It will only deepen the will to resist in the population and lead to increasingly larger demonstrations against the oligarchy until effective change is accomplished.

For any economy to be successful there must be a cooperative effort between employers and employees. Neither employers nor employees should have all the power over an economy. Rather, each group should be working together so that all members of the population have the ability to live sustainable and reasonable lives. It makes no difference what type of government system may exist in a country, if that system allows complete control to rest with either the employer or employee then that system is a failure and will be changed.

[usunus]

All these " revolutions " in 2011 are handing over power to hardliners like the Islamists.It happened in Tunisia and Egypt.God knows what really happened in Libya after it was " liberated ".We don't hear much about the country these days.In Russia too,if " revolution " succeeds,power may go to the communists because they are always better organized like the Islamists.Perhaps this is what the State Department led by Hillary Clinton has been working for--resetting the world to the Cold War era.

[sandiegopete]

The Islamists in Egypt are right wing conservatives just like the Republican Party in the United States. Vladimir V. Putin is a right wing conservative just like the Republicans in the United States. And just like the Republicans, the Islamists and Putin are hardliners who demand obedience to their rule. While the Democrats and Republicans both support an economy controled by Oligarchs, the Republicans also align themselves with the Islamists in that the Republicans push hardline social changes with the hope of creating a society where all people are required to live their lives in accordance with fundamental conservative beliefs.

This may explain your support of Putin.

[venusvegasvada]

Of all the great nations and peoples on the earth is there any one that needs to really taste freedom as much as Russia? I can't think of any country that has been suppressed longer than they have.

Good for all of you, freedom is it's own reward. I hope you get it!

[to_john]

Will right wingnuts understand the dire consequences of what they've already done to our country?

I understand that many of those who don't know what communism is also can't read Russian, so I'll help you out. Those are COMMUNIST flags in the crowd, in addition to liberal democrats (socialists), quite a few fascists, and plenty of non-aligned average people who just want the oligarchs out of power. So, in fact, OWS and these protests have a lot in common: They want rule to come back to the people and taken from the military-industrial complex and oligarchs in power in the USA and around the world. In addition, there is no "Communist regime" [sic] for OWS to push for in the USA, but there are plenty of oligarchs who purchased politicians with bloody oil money that OWS wants out.

[unclebernies]

People of Russia if you really want to have an issue come live here where the politicians allow bankers to steal from you, build fences to keep people out they don't like, spy on you , tax you higher than then people making 100 times your income.

[Tragheim]

I'd like to move to the US from Russia! It's not a joke.