Ransom Put on New Budget in Parliament

Communist lawmakers significantly raised the stakes in a continuing battle with top reformer Anatoly B. Chubais, saying they will refuse to debate the 1998 draft budget as long as he remains first deputy prime minister and finance minister. Chubais is at the center of a scandal over advances paid to him and several of his allies for a book. President Boris N. Yeltsin’s government has survived into a new year without an agreed-upon budget before. But the Communist move put pressure on Yeltsin to deliver more concessions, fire Chubais or confront the opposition-led Duma, the lower house of parliament.