I
n August 1991, with a failed hardline coup in fading memory, thousands of Muscovites ended a pro-democracy march at Lubyanka Square with a gesture that would come to frame the moment of history.
The toppling of the 11-ton statue to Felix Dzerzhinsky, uncompromising father of the feared Soviet secret police, in full view of his progeny in the KGB’s headquarters opposite, was as complete a victory symbol as they came.
Or so the people thought.
