Odds Against Him, Anti-Semitism Defendant Asserts : Soviet Union: The team prosecuting an ultra-nationalist is first rate. The defense is another story.

An all-star prosecuting team made up of the country’s leading radical reformers faced off Thursday against a leader of Russian ultra-nationalists on trial on charges of inciting anti-Semitism.

For Soviet liberals, the case has become an important battlefront in the fight against the growth of anti-Jewish activities, and two members of the Soviet Parliament and a leading trial lawyer joined the prosecution to focus public attention on the cause.

But for Konstantin Smirnov-Ostashvili, the defendant, it was a little man’s fight with the odds very much against him.

“As an ordinary worker, I will find it difficult to stand up against the best brains of the country in court,” Smirnov-Ostashvili, 64, an assembly-line worker at a Moscow munitions plant, told the packed courtroom.

Smirnov-Ostashvili won a week’s recess from Judge Andrei I. Muratov to give him time to get a West German lawyer who, he hopes, will improve his chances against such formidable opponents.

Before even one witness was called, the stakes of the case were already clear.

On one side of Courtroom 57 in the Moscow City Court sat Smirnov-Ostashvili, who leads one branch of Pamyat, a movement of Russian ultra-nationalists often accused of anti-Semitism. Accompanying him were his Soviet lawyer, whom he had tried to fire, and another Pamyat member who is helping with the defense.

On the other side sat Yuri N. Afanaseyev, a leading historian; Yuri D. Chernichenko, a well-known journalist, and Andrei M. Makarov, a lawyer who led the defense of the son-in-law of discredited leader Leonid I. Brezhnev in a sensational corruption case two years ago.

The liberals are trying to demonstrate that the defendant is part of a large, powerful segment of society that threatens the process of reform.

“My main goal is to show the character of the organization behind him and what danger it may pose to the country,” Makarov said.

“This trial will show the real degree of perestroika in the public thinking, or the absence of such perestroika, “ he continued. “Secondly, this will demonstrate the danger of organizations now underestimated by many. Thirdly, this will show that fascism is growing in the Soviet Union.”

The three are assisting in the prosecution under a provision of the Soviet criminal law that allows public participation in trials. Afanaseyev and Chernichenko are both members of the Congress of People’s Deputies, the Soviet Parliament.

The defense is being assisted by Alexander S. Pobedinsky, a Pamyat leader who works in advertising.

Smirnov-Ostashvili is the first person in the Soviet Union to face charges of inciting ethnic strife, a criminal offense that could bring a sentence of up to 10 years in prison.

He is accused of leading a group of nationalists who disrupted a forum of Aprel, Writers for the Defense of Perestroika, in January. The intruders roughed up participants and shouted anti-Semitic slogans through megaphones. Smirnov-Ostashvili is the only one facing charges.

The ultra-nationalists call the trial a test of democracy in a society where people have long been jailed for speaking their minds but are now promised freedom of speech.

As a forum for the debate of some of the fundamental differences in Soviet society today, the trial has drawn crowds from both sides. On Tuesday, the first day, the spectators were so raucous that the judge adjourned the trial.

Although Smirnov-Ostashvili failed to show up at court on Wednesday, his supporters and opponents argued loudly until the judge again adjourned the case.

When Smirnov-Ostashvili entered the courtroom Thursday, at least half in the hall gave him a standing ovation, making plain where their sentiments lie.

He asked to be excused for not appearing the day before, explaining that his wife fell ill after reading accounts of his case in the “yellow press.” And then he demanded that the court appoint a censor to read future stories before they are published.

Smirnov-Ostashvili’s supporters said they are ready for the challenge of standing up to such a team of prosecutors. “Ostashvili has to go up against a lot of Goliaths,” Alexander A. Kulakov, another leader of the ultra-nationalists, said. “But we are still sure we will win.”

Even spectators who did not support Smirnov-Ostashvili remarked about the obvious difference in stature between the defense and the prosecution.

“On one side you have a simple worker,” Eduard Neravnodushhny, 58, a metalworker, said during a break in the trial Thursday. “On the other side, you have some of the country’s most famous intellectuals. . . .”