Russian Congress Puts New Constitution on Hold : Politics: Former Communist bureaucrats succeed in postponing adoption of a revised legal framework. Now citizens will be asked for input.

Too divided to make a major decision itself, Russia’s Parliament voted Saturday to hand a proposal for a new constitution over to the people for discussion and to incorporate their ideas, as well as those of President Boris N. Yeltsin, in a final draft.

Action on such a final draft is not likely until much later this year.

At a grueling Congress of People’s Deputies meeting, Russia’s rulers of yesterday, the former Communist Party bureaucrats, proved that they still have the power to block meaningful parliamentary actions, even if their party has been banned since last year.

“This is a Congress of party functionaries,” a deputy from the Chelyabinsk region, Nikolai V. Klyuyev, complained in frustration. A deputy from St. Petersburg groused that the session was turning into a “big bazaar.”

Russian nationalists and deputies nostalgic for the old Soviet Union also fired tough, sometimes insulting questions at mild-mannered Foreign Minister Andrei V. Kozyrev, particularly about what they see as unpardonable Russian passivity toward Ukraine over the future of Crimea, a peninsula extending into the Black Sea that was historically a part of Russia but is now a part of Ukraine.

Kozyrev flatly rejected the nationalists’ demands that Russia take steps to claim Crimea as its own by saying that this is no time for “megaphone diplomacy.”

Such acts of “aggressive patriotism,” the foreign minister claimed, lead only to explosions of “Russophobia.”

If the Kremlin were to suddenly seek sovereignty over the peninsula, Kozyrev argued, it might complicate existing agreements with Ukraine--for example, the accord for the transfer to Russia for destruction of the nuclear weapons still based in Ukraine.

The Crimea belonged to Russia until 1954, when the Soviet leadership handed it over to Ukraine as a “gift” to celebrate three centuries of union between the two Slavic neighbors. A proposed resolution drafted by the Rossiya faction of the Congress of People’s Deputies denounces the transfer as illegal and demands that Ukraine and Russia open talks on the issue.

Notwithstanding his plea for moderation, Kozyrev also delivered an unmistakable warning that Russia would take a harder line if Ukraine decided to pull out of the Commonwealth of Independent States, the loose multinational grouping created out of the ashes of the Soviet Union.

Before the Congress opened its current meeting two weeks ago, top government officials were proudly predicting that it would adopt, at least in principle, a new democratic Russian constitution to replace a Soviet-era document in effect since 1978.

By Saturday, however, it was clear that the balance of power in the Congress, elected two years ago when Communists still dominated most of society and politics, had made such hopes impossible. Even a non-binding vote endorsing a new constitution would have required 700 votes, a majority unthinkable in a Parliament where many members are still “making an attempt to restore the U.S.S.R.,” as the Nezavisimaya Gazeta newspaper put it.

Indeed, some members took the floor Saturday to denounce even the idea of replacing the country’s fundamental law, which they had spent much of the previous three days amending to bring it into line with the needs of an independent, post-Soviet Russia.

“The old constitution must not be pulled down, since at the moment we can create nothing better,” Vladimir B. Isakov, a “moderate Communist,” said.

Factions such as the Radical Democrats and the Center Left bloc maintain that a new constitution must be an integral part of the reform process in Russia. But the divided Congress was able to adopt only a resolution, a parliamentary device requiring only a simple majority, that approves the “general concepts of constitutional reform” contained in proposals from its own Constitutional Commission and the country’s legislature.

The Congress’ suggestions for a new Russian constitution are to be published nationwide and “general discussions” organized.

Citizens’ ideas are supposed to be added to the existing text draft and the revised document presented to yet another session of the Congress, which may not take place before autumn.

Prodded by a personal written plea from Yeltsin, the Congress also voted to include his suggestions for two constitutional articles in the material to be published.

Yeltsin’s wording for articles on legislative and executive power is designed to strongly reinforce the constitutional prerogatives of the presidency, which pro-reform forces in Russia regard as the best institutional guarantee that their campaign for economic and social change will not succumb to the conservative opposition so visible at the Congress.

Yeltsin has not shown up at the Congress for a week, and deputies Saturday were demanding to know what he was doing, or whether he had fallen ill.

Perhaps in reply, the Itar-Tass news agency made a point of issuing an unusual dispatch reporting that Yeltsin had a day of “intensive work,” meeting with Vladimir Lukin, Russia’s ambassador to the United States, to discuss ties with Washington and a pending trip by a Russian delegation.