Hard-Line Lawmakers Call Yeltsin Real Threat to Russia

MOSCOW — Downplaying President Boris N. Yeltsin’s warning that his opponents may try a “revanchist coup,” hard-line Russian politicians said Wednesday that the imminent danger facing the country is Yeltsin’s own plan to reimpose totalitarianism by blotting out the legislative branch.

“There exists a real threat to the constitutional system in Russia,” three members of the Russian legislature said in a statement. “In the past few days, information appeared that the president and his entourage are prepared to introduce a state of emergency” and take away the legislature’s power.

The exchange of dramatic warnings from the president and his opposition reflects the heightening struggle for power in Russia--both between liberal democrats and hard-liners and between the executive and legislative branches.

The legislature consists primarily of former Communist Party members and is much less committed than Yeltsin to building a Western-style free-market democracy. Politicians in the middle said both Yeltsin and his enemies are trumping up charges against each other in hopes of bettering their own position with the people.

Vasily Lipitsky--a leader of the Civic Union, a political movement that favors less radical economic reforms than those planned by Yeltsin’s government but that claims to support the president--said Yeltsin’s statement at the British Parliament on Tuesday about his enemies’ desire for a coup was unfounded. “I don’t think it reflects reality,” Lipitsky said.

In his speech in London, Yeltsin asserted that members of the former Soviet Communist Party, old-style economic managers, militant nationalists and “political adventurists” were stepping up their attacks on his leadership. But he stressed that he has the power to repel any attempt to oust him.

Rasul K. Mikailov, a Yeltsin supporter in the legislature, said the charges against Yeltsin made by his three colleagues--Mikhail B. Chelnokov, Yuri S. Sidorenko and Sergei S. Ivchenkov--are malicious and false. “Why did my colleagues decide that the president has a state of emergency in store for us?” Mikailov told the Itar-Tass news service. “Boris Yeltsin has been working hard to forge closer cooperation between the presidential and governmental structures and the legislature.”

At least two of the three legislators were part of a move to launch a National Salvation Front late last month to overthrow Yeltsin. The president, calling the group “very dangerous,” decreed it illegal.

On Wednesday, the three proposed that the Supreme Soviet--the national legislature--limit Yeltsin’s power by replacing some key presidential appointees. They also urged the legislature to take control of the ministries of security, defense and interior.

They appealed to Russians and others around the world to “support the Russian legislature in this critical situation and prevent a return of Russian totalitarianism.”

But Andrei A. Goltsblatt, executive secretary of the legislature’s Constitutional Committee, argued that the president has not given any indications that he wants to usurp power from the legislature.

According to the constitution, the president can declare emergency rule only with the legislature’s approval. If there is any threat to the constitutionally established balance of powers, Goltsblatt said, it comes from the legislature, which is trying to pass a law to require legislative approval for “key” members of the government.