Russia Legislators Lash Out at Yeltsin : Politics: They vent their anger at agonizing economic reforms. But the president has shown he has enough support to hold on to power.

Letting loose the anger accumulated over three months of excruciating reforms, lawmakers blasted Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin’s government at a key Parliament session Wednesday and demanded that it either resign or radically alter its economic policy.

“If the government predicted what is happening now, then it just deceived us, because it led us to expect something quite different,” said Valery Vorontsov, one of the lawmakers. “And if it didn’t predict this, can you trust it? It seems to me the government’s resignation is a given.”

The nine-day session of the Congress of People’s Deputies, Russia’s highest governmental body, is considered the toughest political test Yeltsin’s administration has faced since it freed prices in January.

The Congress could vote to rescind the special powers it gave Yeltsin last October to rule by decree in reforming the economy, and it might try to force his resignation as prime minister under highly critical resolutions being drafted by conservatives.

But Yeltsin demonstrated in initial votes at the outset of the Congress this week that he has sufficient backing to keep both his post as prime minister, if he wishes, and his extraordinary powers.

Yeltsin’s ministers, however, are more vulnerable. Many prices have risen to more than 10 times their former level; the country is short of cash, and many businesses, deprived of government subsidies, have gone deep into the red. Joblessness is expected to rise sharply.

Yeltsin and his economics chief, Yegor T. Gaidar, defended their program to march the country toward a market-driven system in powerful speeches Tuesday, promising tax relief and bigger subsidies but vowing to stay loyal to their reform concept.

But the attacks Wednesday came from all sides--from farm delegates who complained that they were being forced to slaughter their cattle to cut their losses; Communists who warned that new doses of Western aid were not really meant to help Russia, and even liberals who denounced the economists now running the reforms as ivory-tower academics.

Gaidar and his ministers “have never managed more people than those in an average laboratory and have never seen anything but a university faculty,” Deputy Sergei Polozkov said.

Although the Congress has already opted not to hold a vote of no confidence in Yeltsin’s government, the president’s allies and advisers are openly worried that lawmakers could force Yeltsin into damaging concessions or make him sacrifice part of his reform team.

Opposition leaders said they plan to find a way to bring a no-confidence motion despite the previous vote, and although Yeltsin’s backing as president appears to remain strong, it is not clear whether he will be forced to make personnel or policy changes.

Vladimir P. Lukin, Russia’s new ambassador to the United States, warned that further instability could endanger the $24 billion in aid Russia recently won from major industrialized nations.

“I have a feeling that some of the passengers in our economic plane are getting sick at the takeoff,” he jibed. “Probably someone wanted to be spoon-fed with sweet gruel. But alas, no one is proffering that spoon.”

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