Russians Assail Prime Minister Over Economy

Russian lawmakers blasted acting Prime Minister Yegor T. Gaidar with both barrels Tuesday, accusing him of being out of touch with the country’s disastrous economic situation and of conducting an economic reform policy of “self-destruction.”

Several members of the Russian legislature, which reconvened after a summer holiday, publicly called for the resignations of Gaidar and his Cabinet. Gaidar’s team has been trying to push Russia from communism to a free market.

But Gaidar, who is highly regarded by Russia’s Western creditors, said he will not bow to critics. “I am not ready to resign,” he told reporters after giving a gloomy report on the state of the economy.

In a rapid-fire speech, Gaidar told legislators that the country’s economic crisis has grown graver, largely because of recent easings of the radical, market-oriented economic policies launched at the year’s beginning by Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin.

Industrial production was 27% lower in August than in the same month last year, the budget deficit grew substantially and inflation climbed steeply after stabilizing earlier in the summer, Gaidar said.

To blame, he said, are recent concessions to conservative forces in society, such as the legislature and factory directors.

“Now we must make monetary-financial policy much tougher to avoid a complete crash of the country’s monetary system,” he told legislators.

Red-faced lawmakers took the podium and directed fierce criticisms at Gaidar personally, saying he is to blame for the country’s crisis. Gaidar’s speech “showed that the government does not understand what is going on in our country’s economy,” said Sergei A. Polozkov, a lawmaker from the centrist Civic Union faction.

“You cannot cure a deadly illness with a compress,” he added.

Mikhail B. Chelnokov said he was optimistic when Yeltsin appointed a young Cabinet headed by a smart-talking young economist, Gaidar. “We were all full of hopes, but our hopes have been dashed,” he said, because the government has failed to establish necessary prerequisites to a market economy--such as a reliable tax system and a stable currency.