Gorbachev Wins Broader Powers : Soviet Union: But his proposal for a corps of presidential trouble-shooters around the country is voted down. A fear of ‘totalitarian structures’ is cited.

Mikhail S. Gorbachev, overcoming objections that he is taking on too much power, won broad new authority Tuesday to help him halt the Soviet Union’s slide into chaos, including direct presidential control over the government and a key new council of regional leaders.

But the Soviet president also suffered his biggest defeat yet in the national parliament created as part of democratic reforms almost two years ago, a striking sign of his waning influence in a conservative body once described as “aggressively obedient” to his wishes.

The 2,250-seat Congress of People’s Deputies voted down his proposal for a “supreme state inspectorate,” which had been envisioned as a corps of “the president’s men” stationed around the country to enforce his decrees.

“People are afraid of a clear restoration of totalitarian structures, and this control committee is perhaps the only place where deputies see a real danger,” said Igor Gryazin, a deputy and law professor from Estonia.

Although the question was put to the deputies twice--and was approved by more than 1,400 each time--it failed to get the two-thirds majority required for constitutional amendments.

Undeterred, and bolstered by passage earlier in the day of his proposals to create a vice presidency and a compact new cabinet, Gorbachev promised that “the president will come up with a new organ of control.”

Perhaps still smarting from accusations in Foreign Minister Eduard A. Shevardnadze’s resignation speech last week that the country is on the road to dictatorship, Gorbachev emphasized in a lobby chat with reporters that he proposed greater powers for himself only because the people had demanded it.

“We see that power has to become more effective, otherwise (political) processes will turn destructive--and so something must be done,” he said. “People have literally hounded these proposals out of me, so to speak.”

Asked if he had talked out his differences with the foreign minister, Gorbachev replied that “Shevardnadze is a person who has done a lot for perestroika and will do much more, but the question is where and how his activity will continue.”

“For now,” Gorbachev said, “I told him to continue fulfilling his duties, while the congress is under way, and we’ll figure everything out.”

The president’s relationship with Russian Federation leader Boris N. Yeltsin also appeared to be deteriorating amid indications that his new powers and his insistence on two nationwide referendums would further alienate the Soviet Union’s 15 constituent republics.

Yeltsin, the most popular politician in the country and head of its biggest republic, told reporters Tuesday morning that he would vote against Gorbachev’s proposals because “there is enough power in the hands of one man--even too much.”

Referring to Gorbachev’s plan to hold referendums on permitting private land ownership and on keeping the Soviet Union united--seen by members of the Russian parliament as shameless Kremlin trespassing on their territory--he warned, “You can’t treat people like this.”

The desperate need to ease the friction between the national government and the republics lay behind Gorbachev’s proposal for a new Council of the Federation, which was established in one of a series of constitutional amendments adopted Tuesday. Akin to an advisory body of the 15 republic presidents that now exists, it will have broadly expanded powers to oversee agreements between the central government and the republics.

As president, Gorbachev would head the federation council, but its decisions would require a two-thirds majority.

Under the amendments passed Tuesday, Gorbachev would also take direct control of the government apparatus, standing clearly above the prime minister, whom he would nominate. The division of authority between the president and the prime minister had been unclear up to now.

The amendments also did away with the Presidential Council, a policy-making body that Gorbachev created only in March, and parliament is expected to approve his proposal to replace it with a National Security Council today.

Deputies said the governmental restructuring would give Gorbachev a freer hand to push his reforms through recalcitrant ministries.

Others, however, warned that such broad presidential powers could too easily grow into autocracy.

“Everything is going back to the way it was,” Alexei I. Kazannik, a reformist law professor from Omsk, said in an interview. “We used to say, ‘Oh, Father Czar, be good to us,’ and now we’ll be saying, ‘Oh, Mikhail Sergeyevich, please be kind to us and don’t insult us.’ ”

On the floor of the congress, Deputy Erkin Yusupov of Uzbekistan wondered aloud whether Gorbachev had taken on more than any man can do.

“Don’t you feel sorry for Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev?” he asked. “He has a family, children, grandchildren. He is general secretary (of the Communist Party). He is president. He is responsible for the Council of Ministers. In the end, we have to consider . . . how much is one person capable of doing.”

Other deputies, however, discounted Gorbachev’s new roles, pointing out that he already has vast powers on paper and still cannot manage to stem the growing economic and social chaos.

“The difference between the formal legality and the real relations in life--this gap is so vast, that whether you add this paragraph or take it away, this doesn’t change anything in reality,” Gryazin of Estonia said.

“If he wants to be head of the government, well, let him be,” he said. “These games, this is moving the pawns or figures on the chess table; it doesn’t change anything.”

Kazannik warned that many republics are so intent on deciding all their own affairs that they will hardly be willing to abide by decisions of the federation council.