Russia Asserts Laws’ Primacy Over Nation’s

The Russian republic, led by the radical populist Boris N. Yeltsin, approved a draft proclamation Friday that would give its constitution and laws legal precedence over those of the Soviet Union, but that in doing so could plunge the nation into a profound political crisis.

In a move that challenges the political authority of President Mikhail S. Gorbachev as well as the present Soviet constitution, the Russian Congress of People’s Deputies voted, 541 to 271, to include this provision as a key element in a declaration of the republic’s sovereignty that is planned for next week.

The declaration, as now drafted, would establish “the supremacy of the constitution and laws of the Russian Federation on its entire territory.”

“Laws of the Soviet Union that conflict with the sovereign rights of the Russian Federation are suspended by the republic on its territory,” it adds.

Approval of the measure by such a large majority was a clear and significant victory for Yeltsin, who was narrowly elected last week as president of the Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic, as it is formally known, and has emerged as Gorbachev’s principal political rival.

The declaration, when adopted in its final form by the deputies, could lay the basis for the rewriting of the Soviet constitution to establish a truly federal system in which most governmental powers are reserved to the country’s constituent republics.

But it also could lead to an early showdown between Gorbachev and Yeltsin if Russia, asserting its sovereignty under Yeltsin’s leadership, deliberately defies decisions of the central government, and with that, the Soviet Union would be in as grave a constitutional crisis over the fundamental issue of “states’ rights” as that which led to the American Civil War.

Although a new Commission on Constitutional Compliance was established recently to adjudicate such conflicts, its authority remains untested in a system where such major political face-offs have, historically, been decided on the basis of power.

However, Gorbachev, who fought Yeltsin’s election, warning that his “Russia first” policies could lead to the country’s virtual dissolution, said Friday that he is not worried by the vote.

“The Russian Congress has not passed anything that would contradict the Soviet constitution,” Gorbachev told a press conference after meeting with visiting British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.

“And I am sure--if you ask what percent, 100% sure--that neither the Congress of People’s Deputies of Russia nor the future Supreme Soviet (legislature) will pass laws that would damage the federation or complicate its reform.

“The Russian people will not stand for being pushed to pit themselves against other people, for breaking up the union.”

The Soviet president reaffirmed his determination to reach agreement on “fundamental changes” in the country’s constitutional system, saying that these would do much to ease its multiple crises--including the political, economic and ethnic.

Gorbachev, anticipating sweeping changes during the next few months, was equally determined to avoid another public quarrel with Yeltsin, whose populist policies appeal to both radicals wanting faster reforms and to the innate conservatism of most Russians, who resist any change out of fear that they will suffer more than they benefit.

“If it is not a matter of a political gamble (by Yeltsin), then there is every chance of a normal, businesslike relationship,” Gorbachev said in reply to reporters’ questions about how he will get along with Yeltsin.

Yeltsin, who has made a precedent-shattering political comeback after being dismissed from Communist Party’s ruling Politburo and as Moscow party chief, is now powerful enough to be readmitted to the topmost ranks of the party hierarchy on the basis of demonstrated popular support for his leadership and his policies.

The vote on Friday, according to political insiders, was an important test of that support, and Yeltsin is expected to make use of it when the Russian Communist Party holds a crucial conference here in 10 days and the Soviet Communist Party holds a full party congress, opening July 2.

Yeltsin’s “Russia-first” platform, which quickly captured broad support among members of the Congress of People’s Deputies, called for sovereignty for Russia as the largest of the Soviet Union’s 15 constituent republics and, more important, for its independence from the bureaucracy of the central government and Communist Party.

He told the deputies last week that the sovereignty measure could give the republic’s government exclusive ownership of all of Russia’s vast mineral wealth and that the republic would inherit control of the railways and other essential elements of the Soviet economy.

And to replace central planning, he proposes a series of bilateral agreements on trade and economic cooperation with other republics.

The Baltic republics of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania all enacted similar legislation on the primacy of their republican laws as a key step in their campaigns to re-establish their independence and secede from the Soviet Union.

“We did the same as the Russians a year ago,” Lithuanian President Vytautas Landsbergis, whose republic declared independence from the Soviet Union on March 11, told the British news agency Reuters. “This process cannot be halted. It is continuing . . . and now Russia has acted very decisively.

“This naturally helps those who have already taken the step, those who have been the subject of insults and persecution. It seems that we were right.”

Russia’s intention, however, is not to secede. With 165 million of the country’s 290 million people, territory that stretches 5,000 miles from the Baltic Sea to the Pacific Ocean and an industrial and agricultural base that produces 70% of the country’s wealth, it really is the whole basis for the Soviet Union.

“The legal sense of this is that Russian laws have a certain priority over Soviet laws,” Sergei Gribanoc, an official at the Congress, said. “But I could not say that this should be taken as a secessionist declaration.”

Yeltsin contends that Russia must “invert the pyramid” and become the master of the bureaucracy, warning that “the center must always bear in mind” the possibility that Russia could secede and deprive the Soviet Union of all political significance.

He argues that Russia’s people suffer because of the low prices set by the central government for the raw materials, notably oil, gas and timber, and the agricultural produce that they provide to other republics. What Russia needs, in Yeltsin’s view, is a much better deal, economically and politically, as a new federal system is developed in coming months.

“This was an epoch-making event because the priority of republican laws over those of the whole Soviet Union will transform the entire structure of our union,” Viktor Dementyev, a leader of Democratic Russia, a bloc of liberal deputies in the Congress, said after the vote.

The vote dismayed conservative members of the Russian Congress of People’s Deputies, for they also saw in it seeds of a transformation--changes so fundamental that the character of the Soviet Union will be altered.

“That we are declaring our laws on our territory to be higher than those of the union says that we are becoming an independent state,” Fyodor Shelov-Kovedyaev, a member of the committee that is drafting the sovereignty declaration, commented.

And Lt. Gen. Ivan Rymorov raised the ever-sensitive issue of military security to question the vote.

“No single republic, including Russia, is competent to resolve the question of the country’s defense,” he said.

NEXT STEP

The final version of Russia’s sovereignty declaration must still be voted on by the republic’s Congress of People’s Deputies. If it is approved, it could lead to the rewriting of the Soviet constitution to establish a federal system in which most governmental powers are reserved to the country’s constituent republics.

Times staff writer John-Thor Dahlburg contributed to this report.