Gorbachev Out to Get Him, Yeltsin Says : Soviet Union: Other radicals fear they are being silenced in a return to conservatism.

In a bitter attack on President Mikhail S. Gorbachev, radical populist Boris N. Yeltsin accused the Soviet leader Wednesday of trying to drive him from politics in order to prepare for a sharp swing back to conservatism.

Yeltsin, a member of the Supreme Soviet, the national legislature, said his popularity and his leadership of a new opposition group within the Supreme Soviet has “aroused fierce antagonism” among conservatives in the Communist Party and government bureaucracy and that they are now working to purge him.

Suggesting that Gorbachev fears him because of his grass-roots support, Yeltsin charged the party leader with orchestrating a campaign of media attacks and malicious rumors to discredit him.

The latest attempt, Yeltsin said, was a “political farce.” He said this took place when the Supreme Soviet, at Gorbachev’s initiative, this week discussed allegations--”a mixture of truth and lies”--that Yeltsin had faked an assassination attempt.

In recent weeks, Yeltsin’s behavior has become a matter of intense speculation, fueled by articles in the official press and footage shown on television. He has been accused of being drunk almost throughout his recent tour of the United States, of brawling with opponents and, most recently, of being the victim of the assassination attempt.

“All these are links in one and the same chain of actions to destroy me, and they are being carried out under the leadership of Comrade M. S. Gorbachev,” Yeltsin said in a formal statement given to correspondents at the Supreme Soviet.

Other radicals complained Wednesday of what they see as new moves against them by Gorbachev and the party leadership and expressed fears that they are being silenced as part of a conservative retrenchment.

“We are facing an attempt at revenge by conservative forces for their defeat in last spring’s elections,” political analyst Yevgeny Ambarsumov said Wednesday in the weekly Moscow News, warning with other radicals of a coordinated conservative counterattack on them and, they believe, on the overall reform program.

Thirty-five members of the Congress of People’s Deputies, the broad-based assembly, sent a formal question to Gorbachev on Wednesday demanding an explanation for his harsh criticism of a prominent radical deputy, historian Yuri N. Afanasyev, and of the editor of the country’s most popular newspaper, the weekly Arguments and Facts.

But a spokesman for the group was refused permission to address the Supreme Soviet on Wednesday when Anatoly I. Lukyanov, the Soviet first vice president, ruled that the matter was a Communist Party affair and out of order.

Gorbachev, speaking to a group of senior newspaper editors last Friday, had accused much of the Soviet press of carrying too many critical reports on the country’s problems without making constructive suggestions.

He reportedly compared the political situation to a lake of gasoline that one match could set alight.

According to widely circulated reports of the meeting, Gorbachev accused Arguments and Facts, which has a circulation of more than 26 million, of virtually seeking his ouster with its reports. He suggested that its editor, Vladislav A. Starkov, resign.

But a number of editors, including several of those criticized, told their staffs later not to be too concerned. Gorbachev has routinely called them together over the last three years for similar sessions in order to “curb our lust for criticism and debate,” as one journalist said.