Tired of simply demanding reform, many of the 10,000 to 15,000 protesters in Moscow on Sunday shouted for the dissolution of the Soviet Communist Party that controls the government, army and secret police. The march wasn’t the first or the largest protest there against the party, but it may have the greatest effect.

Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, whose position as leader of the party was reaffirmed last week at its 28th congress, was too busy preparing to escort West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl around the Soviet president’s old neighborhood to worry about the march. Gorbachev already knew its message anyway, and saw further signs of its demise at the congress, where Russian Federated Republic President Boris Yeltsin, Leningrad Mayor Anatoly Sobchak and Moscow Mayor Gavriil Popov quit the party.

Whether perestroika and glasnost have become bogged down in Soviet bureaucracy or have outlived their usefulness is open to debate. What is clear is that immediate changes in the country’s balance of power are necessary to avoid large-scale revolt. The events throughout Eastern Europe in the last two years and in the republics under Soviet control more recently demonstrate that the Communist Party cannot continue in its present form.

Gorbachev’s recent concession to allow non-state-run television and radio stations to broadcast was only a small measure — local control of television stations still must be approved by the Kremlin — when activists are calling for vast changes. As in Eastern Europe, those changes are likely to arrive in a form undesirable to Soviet leadership.