The Washington Summit: Dealing with the New Reality. : Yeltsin Stresses Autonomy in His Russian Federation : Soviet Union: The radical leader says the Kremlin will be unable to govern if it blocks the republic’s moves.

Radical Boris N. Yeltsin called for the resignation of the Soviet government Wednesday and warned the Kremlin it would be unable to govern if it blocked moves by his powerful Russian Federation to control its own affairs.

At his first news conference since his election Tuesday as president of the biggest of the Soviet Union’s 15 republics, Yeltsin said the federation will adopt measures that will make it “independent in everything.”

“If the center (Moscow) quarrels with us, whom will it govern?” he asked.

Yeltsin also condemned Prime Minister Nikolai I. Ryzhkov’s plans for transformation to a market economy and said he will resist projected price rises.

He said previous government programs to reform the economy have failed.

“I think once you’ve failed with a program, a government should resign, and then a new government should present a new program,” he said.

Ryzhkov reported on a plan to create a market economy last week in the Soviet Parliament, sparking panic buying and a wave of strike threats.

A central element of the reforms is a big rise in prices in the approach to a full market economy. A stage-by-stage threefold increase in the price of bread, held artificially low for decades, begins July 1.

On Wednesday, Deputy Prime Minister Leonid I. Abalkin said the Soviet government will insist on a countrywide referendum in a bid to get popular support for the program.

“The government will insist on the holding of a referendum, or we will not be able to implement reform,” Abalkin said in a speech to a conference of Western business executives and specialists on trade with the Soviet Union.

“This government, like any government anywhere, can do nothing without a public vote of confidence,” he said.

Abalkin’s remarks reflected an apparent reversal on the question of a referendum.

Abalkin first raised the referendum idea last week, but Ryzhkov appeared to back away from it in his speech to Parliament.

Also Wednesday, landmark bills creating a multi-party system and expanding religious freedoms moved forward when both chambers of the Soviet legislature gave them preliminary approval.

Dozens of political parties have sprung up in the Soviet Union since the Communist Party decided in February to end its nearly 70-year monopoly on power, but they are still technically illegal.

The new bills would provide a legal basis for the new parties as well as for religious organizations, which also do not have legal status.