Yeltsin Turns to the People, but They Are Turning Away From Him : Politics: The president’s coup heroics are a distant memory for most Muscovites, who are suffering from his economic reforms.

President Boris N. Yeltsin’s humbling defeat in his showdown with the Parliament over the extent of his powers appears to put the fate of his free-market reforms in the hands of an unpredictable player in Russia’s perilous politics: the voter.

Although it is still unclear when Russians will be summoned to the polls and what exactly they will be asked to vote on, Yeltsin and his aides said Friday that a nationwide referendum and, eventually, new elections are their only legitimate weapons for fighting back.

About 100 million Russians ages 18 and older have the right to vote. In the dying days of Soviet rule, they cast their ballots to elect the two forces whose struggle for supreme power has now plunged the country into the worst political crisis of its young democracy.

In 1990, Russians elected a Congress of People’s Deputies dominated by conservative Communist Party apparatchiks. In June, 1991, they picked Yeltsin, a party maverick popular for his commitment to reform, from among six presidential contenders.

Then in August of that year, Yeltsin became the hero atop a tank, defying coup plotters who were trying to restore hard-line Soviet rule; he thereby helped to end seven decades of communism.

As conservative forces struck back and crippled Yeltsin this week, the tens of thousands of defiant democrats who 18 months ago had shielded him from the Red Army were no help. In a snowstorm that yielded to crystal blue skies, a few hundred Yeltsin supporters rallied outside the Kremlin but were outnumbered across the police barricades by foes waving Communist flags.

For most Muscovites, Friday was business as usual: They worked, shopped, scurried to their homes or dachas for the weekend, barely paying attention to the extraordinary news bulletins from the Grand Kremlin Palace.

“I do not think today’s events will radically change the life of the people in this country. Everything will remain as hopeless as it is now,” said off-duty police lieutenant. Oleg Cherednik, 33. “I supported the president during the coup. But if he appeals to the nation, I doubt I will go support him because, frankly, I have lost faith in him and other politicians.”

Such apathy has spread as Russia’s economy shrinks, prices inflate and Yeltsin’s move away from the Soviet central planning system stalls. According to public opinion polls, which are relatively primitive gauges here, only one in three Russians supports Yeltsin now, compared to three of every four in 1991.

In a Times-Mirror survey of 1,000 Russians in January, 52% rejected the political and economic changes of the last few years and 51% said they favored authoritarian rule over democracy. Barely half, 52%, said voting gives them a voice in government.

Fearing a low voter turnout or even a defeat, Yeltsin twice backed away last year from threats to “go to the people” for support to subdue the Parliament. After such a referendum was finally scheduled for next month, some advisers urged him to back out to keep separatist forces in Russia’s outlying republics from adding the question of secession to the ballot.

But the Congress’ vote to strip Yeltsin of his power to issue decrees or initiate legislation now forces him to go with the referendum.

“If the referendum is held, nothing bad will ensue for Russia,” First Deputy Prime Minister Vladimir F. Shumeiko said. “On the contrary, Russia will grow stronger, because it will have been done by common effort.”

But a brief survey of pedestrians outside Moscow’s Central Market indicated that, while the Congress and its recalcitrant leaders are even more unpopular, the risks of a referendum for Yeltsin are high.

Yuri Ivanov, 60, said he used to be a democrat until, under democracy, his pension was clobbered by inflation that now gallops at 25% a month.

“The democrats are to blame for this, and Yeltsin is the leader of the democrats,” he said. “If the president addresses the nation asking for help, I will go out into the streets to support those demanding his resignation.”

Among pedestrians on the same boulevard, Nina V. Petrunina, 53, a teacher, was one of the few willing to speak up for the president.

“You see, we pinned our hopes for a better future on Yeltsin,” she said. “And now the whole situation looks very dismal. The people will speak out sooner or later, and Yeltsin is likely to get the support of the nation. We need him especially now. He is a product of (the Communist) system, but he is a brave and strong person.”

Inside the Kremlin, politicians in both camps said their struggle has brought Russia to an exhausted dead end and can only be resolved at the ballot box.

Russia’s political spectrum offers voters three broad choices: democrats who pin Russia’s hopes on a fast transition to Western-style capitalism with Western aid; a moderate group that espouses market reform but wants it introduced slowly, and a “red-brown” coalition of unrepentant Communists and neo-Fascists who have made heroes of the 1991 coup plotters due to stand trial for treason next month.

The democrats stake their electoral chances on the government’s populist privatization program, in which each citizen last year was issued a 10,000-ruble voucher to buy shares of shops and industries being auctioned by the state.

They also realize that inflation must be controlled. In the assault on his power, Yeltsin won a minor concession to help that cause: The Central Bank, which routinely makes inflationary loans to failing Soviet-era industries that the government wants to bankrupt, was brought under nominal presidential control. Reformers said the shift may help a government credit commission impose veto power over all Central Bank loans.

But Central Bank Chairman Viktor Gerashchenko, whom Yeltsin still cannot fire, vowed in a speech to Congress that he will continue opposing credit curbs “that carry the economy to the point of absurdity.”

By week’s end, the privatization program looked vulnerable. Lawmakers are expected to curtail the program.

“Parliament is trying to seize all power,” said Dmitry Vinogradov, 20, who works for a privatized advertising agency and turned up at Friday’s small pro-Yeltsin rally. “The country should be prosperous, but instead the Parliament is leading us down a blind alley.”