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On Friday, opponents of the law were preparing for a demonstration on Sunday condemning legislators who had voted for the ban — organizers were calling it the "March Against Scoundrels" — and a top official at the governing party, United Russia, lashed out with unusual vitriol. Opposition "hysteria" over the adoption ban was useful, in a way, the official, Andrei Isayev, wrote on the party's Web site, because it created a vivid distinction between patriotic Russians and others whom he witheringly called "citizens of the world."

"All the enemies of Russian sovereignty have revealed themselves as ardent supporters of American adoption," wrote Mr. Isayev, who sits on the party's general council, adding that on Sunday, "the latter will go out to march for the right of unrestricted export of Russian children to America."

"Let's look attentively and remember the faces of the organizers and active participants of this march," he wrote, calling Sunday's event a "March of Child Sellers." "Our task in the coming years is to drive them to the farthest edge of political and public life, to the middle of nowhere."

President Vladimir V. Putin approved the adoption ban last month, in retaliation for a new American law aimed at punishing human rights abuses in Russia. In 2011, about 1,000 Russian children were adopted by Americans, more than residents of any other foreign country, but still a tiny number given the nearly 120,000 children in Russia who are eligible for adoption.

Anger over the ban may not be enough to reinvigorate a protest movement in Russia that has flagged recently, when it became clear the rewards would be meager and the punishments harsh. But the reaction is deepening a rift that began to open last year, after Mr. Putin decided to address himself to a conservative, loyal electorate in the hinterlands, turning away from the prosperous urbanites who were drawn to antigovernment rallies.

"The country is really dividing," said Lev D. Gudkov, director of the Levada Center, a Moscow-based polling agency. Two-thirds of Russia's population, he said, lives in villages and small towns where people get their information from television, which often reports that American parents are never punished for abusing children adopted from Russia. Polling by the Public Opinion Fund in late December showed that 56 percent of respondents approved of the ban.

The rest are city dwellers who increasingly graze the Internet for news, and are less and less dependent on the government. That group lurched back to life after its long winter holiday and mobilized against the ban. The newspaper Novaya Gazeta has gathered 130,000 signatures in favor of revoking the law; on Thursday it announced 100,000 signatures on a petition in favor of dissolving Parliament.

All week, prominent entertainers have been promoting Sunday's march by posting video clips online in which they explain — often emotionally — why they are opposed to banning adoption by Americans.

"It's a horrible story.," said Liya Akhedzhakova, an actress beloved for Soviet-era comedies. "The most defenseless, unwanted children who are not quite healthy when they are born — they are not needed by anyone."

Tatyana Dogileva, another actress, practically spat out her words about politicians. "They play their cruel, dirty games, and this is their business. But why do they get children involved in it?"

She went on to address Alina Kabayeva, a gymnast who now sits in Parliament and who years ago was rumored to be Mr. Putin's mistress. "Alina, why did you vote for this law?" Ms. Dogileva said. "Aren't you sorry for these children, these specific children? They will die there, Alina."

Yevgeny S. Gontmakher, a social scientist, said Mr. Putin had made a gamble not unlike the one he made by arresting the oil tycoon Mikhail B. Khodorkovsky in 2004: Russian elites might disapprove, but they would get used to it, and a vast part of the electorate would not care much.

But he said the Kremlin would eventually suffer for the ban.

"In the long-term perspective, it is of course a loss, because there is 25 or 30 percent of society that has formed the opinion, because of these orphans, that politics has become immoral," Mr. Gontmakher said. "It's clear that a certain break has taken place inside these people. They may not say so during a public opinion poll, because there are elements of fear. But for these people the government has lost the last remains of its moral authority."