Yeltsin and Gorbachev Clash Again : Soviet Union: Another uneasy compromise emerges as a new treaty comes before the Russian Federation Parliament.

In the latest round of the rivalry at the pinnacle of Soviet power, President Mikhail S. Gorbachev’s allies nearly wrecked Russian Federation leader Boris N. Yeltsin’s plans for a key parliamentary session Tuesday, but the two managed to forge yet another uneasy compromise.

The Yeltsin-Gorbachev clash was played out before nearly 900 members of the Russian Federation Parliament, and the stakes were high, potentially deciding the fate of the union treaty Gorbachev is now pushing to the country’s 15 constitutent republics with all his political might.

“Without Russia, there is no (Soviet) Union, this should be perfectly clear,” Gorbachev told reporters during a break in the session which, as a guest, he observed from the balcony of the ornate Great Kremlin Palace.

Yeltsin, however, insisted that the Russian Parliament, of which he is chairman, had convened to discuss the food crisis and land reform, not the treaty, which Gorbachev officially presented last weekend.

Only when deputy after deputy took to the floor to demand that the treaty be addressed did Yeltsin finally call a break and work out a compromise with Gorbachev: that the Russian Parliament, officially known as the Russian Congress of People’s Deputies, would hold an “exchange of opinions” on the union treaty. He implied that it would take no final decision.

Russia’s verdict on Gorbachev’s treaty proposal, which four republics already have flatly rejected, will decide its fate, and thus the future of the Soviet Union.

“If we don’t accept this conception (of the federal treaty), it means the collapse of the country,” Gorbachev told reporters.

Meanwhile, Yeltsin was pulling in the opposite direction, telling the lawmakers that although he does not seek confrontation with the national government, he would not allow it to usurp powers that rightfully are the domain of the Russian Federation government.

“Russia delegates a whole set of functions to the center,” he said, his deep voice booming through the long hall. “But we cannot acquiesce when they interfere in affairs that we are best able to decide ourselves, better than anyone else.”

Yeltsin and Gorbachev clashed earlier this year on the Russian Federation’s right to create its own independent state bank, as well as its claim to the vast riches of gold, diamonds, oil and other valuable resources on its territory.

After a long tete-a-tete Nov. 11, Yeltsin and Gorbachev agreed to create a commission to decide how to divide power and resources between the central government and Yeltsin’s Russian Federation.

Less than two weeks later, however, Gorbachev griped at a news conference that although his program and Yeltsin’s were 80% identical, Yeltsin seemed intent on criticizing and trying to torpedo his every move.

Yeltsin, for his part, snubbed Gorbachev by failing to announce to the Parliament that the Soviet president was attending.

Gorbachev disclosed another cause for rancor Tuesday when he told reporters that he had only just begun reading the draft of the new Russian Federation constitution in the newspaper because no one had sent it to him personally.

He also objected to a cartoon he had seen likening him to the Russian czar and other insinuations that he was out to increase his personal power.

“I’m amazed by these people if, after six years, they still suspect me of dictatorship and monarchism,” he said.

His main theme, however--which he returned to again and again during impromptu chats in the lobby of the Great Kremlin Palace--was the proposed union treaty and his fear that the Soviet Union could split up.

Even the food crisis, the main subject of the Russian Parliament, stemmed largely from the Soviet Union’s growing inter-republic strife, he said, with regions refusing to send foodstuffs across republic lines.

Asked whether Western food contributions that have begun arriving in the Soviet Union will reach their targets rather than rotting in train depots like many Soviet shipments, Gorbachev assured deputies and reporters that the government is working out a system of distribution.

He said, “The main thing, however, is the modernization of Soviet light industry, the creation of our own base, and all our Western partners want to participate in that,” largely by supplying equipment for food processing plants.

Yeltsin also focused on the food question that now dominates Soviet media and public discussion. Extended rationing is expected next month in Leningrad, and other cities have complained that they have reserves for only a few days.

Yeltsin called on the lawmakers to approve a land reform program that would bring radical changes to the impoverished peasants living on the Russian lands that occupy two-thirds of Soviet territory.

Unlike the central government’s milder land reform, it would allow the eventual sale and purchase of land and give substantial aid to private farmers who decide to strike out on their own.

“How and with what to feed the people--today, that’s the most important thing,” Yeltsin said. “We have been convinced by our own bitter experience that even the deepest truths and greatest values of world civilization don’t take root in a country where people are fighting for a piece of bread.”

Along with approving the land reform and other food measures, the Parliament is scheduled to vote on major benefits for rural residents aimed at stemming the exodus from the Soviet countryside that has contributed to the dearth of farm produce.

Its original agenda also included discussion of a new constitution for the Russian Federation, but Yeltsin said this will be postponed to give the public more time to discuss it.

Several deputies, however, said Yeltsin backed the postponement because it appeared that the draft constitution, a decidedly Western-style document, did not have the votes to pass in a Parliament still heavily weighted toward Communist conservatives.