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Has the Russian Spring — so vibrant with huge demonstrationsin the winter — been revived? Even after Vladimir Putin wasinaugurated on Monday, protesters, many identifiable simply bytheir white ribbons, managed to remain on the streets of Moscow.Activists including blogger Alexei Navalny and radical leftistleader Sergei Udaltsov declared a sit-in at a memorial on a squarenot far from Putin's presidential office. Hundreds gathered,someone brought tea, and inevitably a guitar. A genial policecommander strolled amongst the crowd, tapping his foot to thebusker playing Beatles' numbers and letting people know that as faras he was concerned he saw no crime being committed. The party atmosphere lasted until 2:30 a.m., when the police optedto send in a street-washing truck to soak the protesters off thesquare rather than use batons. "Right!" Navalyny told the crowdfrom the pedestal of a monument in the center of the soaked square."We're just going for a walk!" The night-long march through Moscow,with Navalny and Udaltsov at the head, was made up of severalhundred and moved from one boulevard to the next, with riot policein patient pursuit. A kerb-crawling red Lexus convertible escortedthem and blasted out the Soviet national anthem. The police neededlittle more than the gentle application of menace to move the crowdon if they settled somewhere. By Tuesday afternoon a few hundredwere still huddled about a memorial on Chistie Prudi Bulvar. Is the opposition reborn? Almost definitely not. It was clear thepolice were in absolute control throughout, and seldom needed touse more than their presence to force crowds to do their bidding.Ill-disguised plainclothes policemen, knowable by their haircutsand watchful use of camera phones, kept an eye on faces andmovements, and anywhere the protesters chose to walk, they weregreeted by a phalanx of police blocking their path. And it was alsoa long bank holiday. Once the country goes back to work afterWednesday's victory day celebrations, many of protesters will findthey have other commitments. (Photos: Vladimir Putin Sworn In as Russia's President.) And the lead-up to Putin's third presidential term was proof thatthe government was in control. The opposition had called for a"million man march" on the Sunday before the ceremony to remindhim, and the rest of the world, that resentment at his rule has notreceded since demonstrations fizzled out after the March election.About 70,000 people turned out to the rally planned for the samelocation and format as previous successful demos. But when marchersarrived, they found police had sealed off a large portion of it,contrary to the deal the protestors thought they had secured. That was when things got ugly. Some of the demonstrators, led byUdaltsov, decided to push through the police cordon. The policepushed back. Flares, bottles, lumps of tarmac and at one point aMolotov cocktail were thrown. Police responded with frequent andbrutal baton charges and arrests. Elements within the crowd fought back, and in places ferociously.In what might become the defining image of that day, a capturedriot police helmet was raised atop a flagpole as a trophy. By thetime police had cleared the square several helmets and other itemsof police equipment were bobbing in the river below. Across thecanal a crowd hurled coins, plastic bottles and a carton of milk ata television van belonging to NTV, a government-friendly channel. Acar belonging to the state-owned Vesti news channel got the sametreatment. More moderate oppositionists were livid at the confrontationalstrategy of Udaltsov's followers. It was, said one, a completedefeat: surrendering the moral high ground and handing theauthorities the perfect excuse for a crackdown. Ksenia Sobchak, aTV host and all round celebrity who has attended all previousrallies, stayed away on Sunday because she knew there was a planfor confrontation. It was, she wrote on her blog, "one of the mostdifficult decisions of my life." But many of the middle classprofessionals who defined the peaceful flavor of previous ralliesappear to have done the same, either out of distaste for theconfrontational attitude of their allies or simple fatigue at amovement that has to all intents and purposes achieved very little. (Read "Four Hundred Years of Xenophobia: Vladimir Putin, 1612 andAll That.") In December, many middle class professionals — derided bycritics as office plankton and "hamsters" of the internet but wholent the earlier protests much of their peaceful and creativespirit — were horrified when opposition blogger Alexei Navalnytold a rally that they had the numbers "to storm the Kremlin rightnow." The fact that some protesters seem to have been willing totry just that on Sunday has alienated the professionals evenfurther. There is little doubt the discontent that burst into the openbefore Christmas is as strong as ever, and the protests willcontinue. But Sunday's violence changed the narrative for bothsides — the opposition movement, that has so successfullyunited very disparate parts of an increasing disgruntledpopulation, has to take a hard look at what it wants to be. More depends on the government response, however. One option is tooffer the proverbial carrot: Putin spent his first afternoon aspresident signing a flurry of populist decrees, promisingeverything pay rises and housing perks for soldiers, teachers anddoctors to an end to kindergarten waiting lists. Then there is the stick. One Russian news agency reported thatdetained young men who had not completed their military servicewould be drafted into the army — a particularly harsh 12months in an institution with a notoriously brutal culture ofbullying, and hence routinely evaded by anyone who has the meansto. Sobchak, who joined the protests on Chistie Prudi Bulvar on Tuesdayafternoon, called on the Kremlin to start fundamental reformsimmediately. The middle classes, she wrote, ought to be naturalenemies of radical left wingers, but they have become alliesbecause of the government's willful refusal to reform. Thealternative, she said, was an opposition movement that make "evenUdaltsov look soft," and a downward spiral into violence — andeven civil war. "I don't want civil war; I really don't wantblood," she wrote in an open appeal to the Kremlin. "But if I'mhonest, I don't believe [Putin] will find the strength to go toperestroika, and that means we will find ourselves in the turmoilof a complete division of society into two camps." The Kremlin, forits part, was not differentiating between the two kinds ofprotesters. Sobchak and Navalny were both arrested early Tuesdayevening. See TIME's Pictures of the Week. See the Cartoons of the Week. 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