TURMOIL IN THE EAST BLOC : Soviet Congress OKs Economic Plan : Reforms: Many lawmakers reluctantly approve, seeing the blueprint as better than none at all.

The Soviet Congress, facing a threat from the prime minister to resign if his economic program was rejected, ended a week of debate Tuesday and approved the plan.

The program maps out plodding changes that radical deputies argued would fail to lift the country out of its consumer crisis and that conservatives said were dangerous to the ideals of socialism.

Despite widespread criticism from a number of influential deputies, including maverick Boris N. Yeltsin and foreign policy adviser Georgy A. Arbatov, many of the lawmakers apparently decided that accepting the controversial program was better than adjourning at the end of this week with no economic blueprint at all.

Lawmakers here are well aware that the Congress’ proceedings are being watched with an increasingly critical eye by a population no longer satisfied simply to see the glossiness of glasnost, or greater openness, but demanding real action to ease persistent shortages before winter’s end.

Prime Minister Nikolai I. Ryzhkov made an emotional appeal Tuesday to the deputies to back his two-tiered proposal, which maintains central planning of the economy and denounces outright private ownership.

“We understand that the government program has drawbacks,” he told the Congress of People’s Deputies. “But as far as possible, it takes into account our real potential and sets targets for the future.”

Calling for an end to the debate, Ryzhkov continued, his voice shaking: “I think the Congress must not evade this issue. It must express a firm position . . . yes or no?” He added that he would consider a vote against his program to be a vote of no confidence and believes that an entirely new program should then be developed by someone else.

The plan then was approved 1,532 to 419, with 44 abstentions. After the vote was tallied, Ryzhkov stood and clasped his hands above his head while the deputies applauded.

A call by a radical Moscow deputy, Yuri Andreyev, for a formal vote of no confidence in the government was quickly and overwhelmingly rejected, 1,685 to 199 with 99 abstentions.

President Mikhail S. Gorbachev was chairman of the session but offered no personal comments.

Public appeals for the Congress to end emotional debate and take real action on the economy have been growing increasingly loud in recent days.

The first Congress, said fiction writer Sergei Baruzein, “left the impression of a bubbling caldron of emotions where passions sometimes assumed unparliamentary and occasionally unintelligent forms.”

“This meant that many problems were left untouched at a key moment for perestroika (Gorbachev’s reform program),” Baruzein continued. “It is my dream that this second Congress will display less emotion and get down to more business.”

V. Maltzev, a machine tool operator from Moscow, told the weekly newspaper the Government Messenger: “I really and truly hope that the second Congress will take decisions which would allow the workers to become genuine owners in the factories, in the fields and everywhere.”

But the government daily Izvestia complained in an editorial: “The deputies don’t seem to have learned much from their experience” during the first Congress. “The Palace of Congresses in the Kremlin is once again erupting like a town square. Once again, emotions are frequently prevailing over statesmanship.”

Ryzhkov’s plan calls for three years of rigid controls aimed at reducing the budget deficit of $192 billion and improving consumer supplies. Then, from 1993 to 1995, it calls for increased individual involvement in the economy, including additional leasing of farmland.

Ryzhkov has pledged that his formula will cut the state budget to between 2% and 2.5% of the Soviet gross national product by 1993, compared with its current 10%. In addition, he said, it will boost consumer production by 7.6% next year. But he also proposed raising prices of both retail and wholesale goods by 1992 to reflect lower government subsidies.

The prime minister, in unveiling his program last week, urged members of the Soviet-led Comecon trading group to begin trading among themselves at world prices and on the basis of a convertible currency as early as 1991.

Responding to criticism from both sides of the political spectrum, Ryzhkov implied that he would resign if the deputies rejected his economic program.

“I am responsible for my program, I believe in it, and I will never deny anything that is signed by me,” Ryzhkov continued. “If I ever reach that point, then there is no place for me in the government.” His remarks, made to journalists over the weekend, were reported Tuesday by the official Tass news agency.

Yeltsin, speaking before the Congress of People’s Deputies on Friday, lashed out at Ryzhkov’s economic plan as the work of conservatives and called it “a step back for perestroika .”