COLUMN ONE : The Men Behind Yeltsin : The Russian president has attracted gifted advisers, who passed the ultimate loyalty test during the coup. Little known, his brain trust is increasingly influential.

The man with the thick black mustache was seated in the front row of the Kremlin Palace of Congresses. Every so often, he would scribble a few words on a piece of paper and pass it to his boss at the microphone.

The hulking, silver-haired man at the mike, Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin, would unfold the scraps and peruse them. Sometimes he showed them to his neighbor, Mikhail S. Gorbachev, before they decided how to proceed.

Such moments at the recent Congress of People’s Deputies provided an unusual glimpse into one of the most mysterious institutions in Soviet political life: the brain trust of Boris Yeltsin.

Like Sergei M. Shakhrai, the note-passing legislator, the relatively little-known people who surround Yeltsin--advising him, executing his orders and helping him form his view of the world--can now count themselves among the most important figures in the Soviet Union.

As even his enemies admit, Yeltsin has shown not only a great talent for inspiring the Russian masses but also a gift for attracting people with remarkable skills and keeping them at his side even when he is in political trouble or disgrace.

Those twinned talents--enduring crowd appeal and the ability to assemble a highly gifted team and heed its advice--may be, in the final analysis, what most distinguishes Yeltsin from Gorbachev, the man he has now supplanted as his country’s No. 1 politician.

At his government headquarters inside the Russian Federation’s “White House” on the east bank of the Moscow River, Yeltsin, a 1955 graduate of the Urals Polytechnic Institute as a specialist in construction engineering, has marshaled an impressive array of expertise in areas where he has little or none.

“Yeltsin today may be the only figure who can permit the creation of something new, a new political system,” his press secretary, Pavel I. Voshchanov, said when asked why Yeltsin seemed to be a magnet for such talent. “And on the personal level, he never humiliates the people he works with. . . . On the other hand, he is a person who can be, let us say, quite demanding.”

Yeltsin’s team, like artifacts in an archeological dig, shows the influence of successive epochs. There are loyalists with more than a decade and a half of service, dating back to when Yeltsin was Communist leader in the western Siberian region of Sverdlovsk; there are people he gathered around him while he was Moscow party chief in 1985-87 and in his brief stint at the State Committee for Construction, and there are more recent arrivals, who flocked to him when he appeared to be the only genuine radical alternative to Gorbachev.

Some chose to ally themselves with Yeltsin when it could have been fatal to their careers. In this group of proven dedication and loyalty is Andrei V. Kozyrev, 40, who abandoned a career in the Soviet diplomatic corps last October to become the Russian Federation foreign minister.

Like Kozyrev, many key figures in Yeltsin’s coterie are only in their 30s and 40s--political striplings by traditional Soviet standards but now charged with making decisions that may have national, even worldwide, repercussions.

Last month, during the three-day rightist attempt to seize power, such people underwent what must be the ultimate loyalty test when they elected to remain by Yeltsin’s side at the White House, even as a Soviet army assault was rumored imminent.

“God be praised, I can’t think of a single one of them who would be a traitor,” said Viktor V. Ilyushin, head of the Russian Presidential Secretariat. He didn’t have to say anything more to contrast the steadfastness of Yeltsin’s entourage with the junta of associates who turned on Gorbachev and tried to usurp the Soviet leader’s powers in August.

What the Soviets call the “gray cardinal” in Yeltsin’s group is a philosopher and teacher from Sverdlovsk, Yeltsin’s home area, where he served as Communist Party leader in 1976-1985.

Gennady Eduardovich Burbulis, with slightly sunken eyes and a tenor voice to complement Yeltsin’s baritone, views his chief task as accumulating ever more power for his boss. As a sign of his importance, he was recently given his own bodyguards.

“We want our Council of Ministers (the Russian Federation government) to be highly qualified, but political questions must be given to the president,” Burbulis, 46, told a meeting of Russian lawmakers last week, warning them that the political landscape was shifting under their feet.

Already there has been loud grumbling, some of it from progressives far from hostile to Yeltsin, that with Burbulis as the mastermind, the Russian leadership is busily erecting an imperial presidency with a bureaucracy to match. Earlier this month, for example, Yeltsin issued an order that puts him personally in charge of the Russian government’s ministries, which previously answered to the legislature alone.

“After B. Yeltsin’s election as president of Russia, getting to see him became a lot harder,” one disgruntled member of the federation’s legislature, the Supreme Soviet, told the weekly tabloid Arguments and Facts. “You’ve got to tell two to three collaborators from his apparatus about the motive for your visit, and only then, after they have decided that it’s necessary, do the doors of Office No. 1 open before you.”

A new position, that of Russia’s “state secretary,” has been created for Burbulis, effectively making him the second-most-powerful figure in the republic.

At first glance, he and Yeltsin are an odd match; as a sign of his refinement, Burbulis notes that he prefers cognac to vodka. When young--he was born in a dreary workers’ settlement 30 miles from Sverdlovsk--he dreamed of marrying a pianist.

And yet those who know both the Russian president and his secretary of state say they make a good match. “Gennady Eduardovich manages to express in a literate way what Yeltsin has been thinking but what he can’t say for himself,” one editor from the Urals put it.

It is people such as Burbulis who arouse the contemptuous comments of Soviet conservatives that Yeltsin is little more than a “retransmitter” for the ideas of a more talented and cerebral entourage. Predictably, his associates deny that Yeltsin is anything like a ventriloquist’s dummy, yet the influence of his entourage is readily discernible.

For instance, it was a group of Yeltsin confidants who passed judgment on the composition of the Russian Council of Ministers. Insiders say the group was made up of Burbulis, Information Minister Mikhail N. Poltoranin and Shakhrai, 35, who has chaired the Russian Supreme Soviet’s powerful Committee on Legislation and has thus been a key figure in tailoring legislation to Yeltsin’s needs.

It was at the urging of Burbulis, insiders say, that Yeltsin dispatched a flock of personal envoys to the Russian provinces to make sure that his orders and the laws adopted by the Russian legislature were not sabotaged by often recalcitrant or hostile local authorities.

Simultaneously, in the 3 1/2 months since Yeltsin became the first popularly elected leader in Russia’s 1,000-year history, his aides have been busy building the administrative machinery of his presidency, a fast-paced and sometimes confusing operation.

As the Russian Supreme Soviet opened its fall session earlier this month, one bewildered legislator grabbed the microphone and demanded to know what executive bodies now exist in Russia and what powers they have. Without a lucid understanding, the deputy groused, “We will never get out of all this.”

A crucial figure in the creation of a Russian presidency is yet another member of the Sverdlovchane , the “Men from Sverdlovsk”--Yuri V. Petrov, the former Soviet ambassador to Cuba. He recently came home from Havana to help organize the Administration of the President, as Yeltsin’s presidential office is to be called. Forty people will ultimately work there; 20 have been hired to date.

On the fifth floor of the White House, another longtime crony from Sverdlovsk, Ilyushin, runs the presidential secretariat from a spacious, wood-toned suite of offices with large windows. An imitation Oriental rug covers the floor, and a vase of freshly cut roses adds a splash of color.

“We see our task as helping the president cope with the great number of tasks and documents that fall upon his head,” Ilyushin said crisply. He directs a staff of three that manages the paper flow to Yeltsin and has a great deal of say in structuring his agenda, although Ilyushin said Yeltsin and his advisers have the final word.

If there is uncertainty about the form of the fledgling Russian presidency, it is because some institutions were stillborn while others are little more than concepts. For example, in February, Yeltsin unveiled the Supreme Coordinating Council, a 23-member think tank incorporating, so he boasted, “the best brains of Russia.” One newspaper called it “Yeltsin’s shadow Cabinet.”

However, the council has become inactive, outpaced by the changing demands posed by Yeltsin’s accession to the presidency from the office he previously held, that of chairman of the Russian legislature. On July 19, one month before the abortive rightist putsch, Yeltsin ordered the creation of another body, the State Council, to serve as the highest-ranking body that can consult on matters of state.

According to Burbulis, the State Council will be made up of such top officials as Russia’s ministers of finance, justice and foreign affairs--and himself. Other members include Shakhrai; Konstantin I. Kobets, Yeltsin’s adviser for defense matters; prominent ecologist Alexei V. Yablokov, and Moscow’s deputy mayor, Sergei B. Stankevich, a progressive politician and expert on the U.S. Constitution who has been used by Yeltsin as a trouble-shooter in relations with other republics.

Simultaneously, a Russian “Security Council,” with still undefined functions but evidently patterned on the American President’s National Security Council, is supposed to come into existence, and there is to be a bevy of presidential advisers--each of whom will require a support system of aides, offices and sub-experts.

Where the expertise of the Russian president’s team seems debatable is in the economic field. Until recently, a sort of gentlemen’s agreement left the day-to-day running of the economy to Russian Prime Minister Ivan S. Silayev, while Yeltsin and his crew wrestled largely with political issues and the vital question of who wielded power. But Silayev resigned as prime minister earlier this month.

Only a few weeks ago, Mikhail A. Bocharov, the head of Yeltsin’s grandly named Supreme Economic Council, complained to reporters that he was not being kept informed and was incapable of answering some basic questions about the Russian leadership’s intentions.

However, American economists from a conservative think tank who have been working with their counterparts in the Russian government give them high marks for dedication, brains and the flexibility to shake a seven-decade legacy of state socialism. A great deal of the credit, they say, should go to Yeltsin himself.

“The most important personnel decision that Mr. Yeltsin has made in terms of economic management is that he did not appoint academic economists who don’t understand their own economy,” said Michael Bernstam, a senior research fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institute. “Instead, he picked up managers, executives, people with practical experience. Bocharov is a good example; he is a lawyer by training, not an economist, as well as the founder and president of a profitable holding company called Butec.

“Life is short, you can only achieve so much,” said Bernstam, a Soviet emigre and former member of the Soviet Academy of Sciences. “With Mr. Yeltsin, with his people, any good idea that would seem promising for the Russian people would be considered and debated. It may die, but it will be considered.”

The Up-and-Coming Yeltsin Team

Russian Federation President Boris N. Yeltsin’s associates are among the most important figures in the Soviet Union. Here are key members of his entourage: GENNADY E. BURBULIS

Secretary of Russia, head of Russian State Council

Age: 46

Elected to Soviet Parliament from Sverdlovsk region. Was deputy director of Soviet Ministry of Non-Ferrous Metallurgy’s Institute for Advanced Training of Specialists, Sverdlovsk. In May, 1989, unsuccessfully nominated Yeltsin for chairman of national Supreme Soviet.

SERGEI B. STANKEVICH

State Council member

Age: 37

A historian, he spent 10 years studying U.S. political system. A telegenic progressive politician. Became deputy mayor of Moscow, allied with Yeltsin after Russian leader demanded earlier this year that Mikhail S. Gorbachev leave office. Sent by Yeltsin to Ukraine and Kazakhstan recently to calm furor over possible border claims.

ANDREI V. KOZYREV

Russian foreign minister

Age: 40

Graduate of Moscow State Institute of Foreign Relations with postgraduate degree in history. Was member of Soviet delegation to U.N. General Assembly before leaving Soviet diplomatic service to become Russia’s top diplomat in October, 1990. Sent to Paris during coup to seek Western backing for Yeltsin’s Russian resistance.

VIKTOR V. ILYUSHIN

Head of Presidential Secretariat

Age: 44

Yeltsin associate for more than 15 years. Starting in 1975, was second secretary of Komsomol Communist Youth League in Sverdlovsk, then Komsomol first secretary and official of local Communist Party organization. Was brought to Moscow by Yeltsin to work with him at Communist Party’s Secretariat.

YURI V. PETROV

Head of Presidential Administration

Age: 52

Until recently, Soviet ambassador to Cuba. Named first secretary of Sverdlovsk Regional Party Committee in 1985 to succeed Yeltsin. Studied at Yeltsin’s alma mater, Urals Polytechnic Institute. Known for frank speaking, he railed against bureaucracy in speeches at 27th Communist Party Congress in 1987.

MIKHAIL N. POLTORANIN

Russian Federation’s minister for press and mass media

Age: 51

Elected to Soviet Parliament in 1989 as representative of country’s official Journalists’ Union. Editor of newspaper published by Moscow Communist Party machine when Yeltsin ran party. Worked as political analyst at Novosti Press Agency. Quit Communist Party last year.

ALEXANDER V. RUTSKOI

Vice president of Russian Federation

Age: 44

Hero of Afghan war and a reformed Communist. Was added to Yeltsin’s electoral slate to capture votes from two potentially hostile blocs, Communist Party rank and file and Soviet military. Has said 80% of his ideas are same as Yeltsin’s. During putsch, appealed to Soviet armed forces to disobey orders from hard-liners and flew to Crimea with group of armed loyalists to rescue Gorbachev.

SERGEI M. SHAKHRAI

Chairman of Russian Supreme Soviet’s Committee on Legislation, State Council member

Age: 35

Played leading role in Russian Parliament in passing laws on elections, referendums and creation of Russian presidency. Opposed extension of Gorbachev’s presidential powers. Was Yeltsin’s candidate in June, 1990, for vice chairman of Russian Parliament but was defeated. Said to be working on laws to restructure system of soviets--government councils throughout Russia.

RUSLAN I. KHASBULATOV

Acting chairman of Russian Supreme Soviet

Age: 49

Member of Chechen ethnic minority with doctorate in economics. Once stressed that Russia must be “motor” of any economic reform in Soviet Union. In charge of Russian legislative branch, which seems fated to increasingly battle Yeltsin as executive and legislative bodies vie for power.

KONSTANTIN I. KOBETS

Chairman of Committee for Defense, State Council member

Age: 51

Career soldier with doctorate in military sciences. In charge of organizing defense of Russian government headquarters during unsuccessful August putsch. Vocal supporter of single Soviet military: “There’s no need to set up Russia’s army as a means of defense of its sovereignty . . . or of the continuation of its policy.”

PAVEL I. VOSHCHANOV

Presidential press secretary

Age: 44

Master’s degree from Tashkent Economics Institute. As economics observer at Komsomolskaya Pravda, broke informal media embargo after Gorbachev ousted Yeltsin in 1987 as Moscow Communist Party leader. Elected to Soviet Parliament in 1989. With Yeltsin in U.S. and Japan. Forecasting expert in office of Russian Parliament chairman.

Research by Steven Gutterman of The Times’ Moscow Bureau.