Russian Congress Falls Short in Angry Bid to Topple Yeltsin : Politics: But narrow margin provides stark proof of the president’s slipping stature. He vows before supporters that he’ll go ahead with his April referendum.

In a burst of sound and fury resolving nothing, incensed conservatives in Russia’s Congress tried to oust President Boris N. Yeltsin on Sunday but failed to win a big enough majority, condemning Russia to still more political chaos.

“The people won, reform won, democracy won, young Russia won!” a jubilant Yeltsin announced to a crowd of supporters holding a nighttime vigil under the floodlighted St. Basil’s Cathedral, where they had waited for news from the Kremlin.

But it was no resounding victory--617 members of the Congress of People’s Deputies voted to strip Yeltsin of the presidency, and only 268 were opposed.

That was 72 votes short of the two-thirds majority required in the 1,033-member chamber, but it provided stark proof of how low backing for Yeltsin and his policies has sunk in the Parliament.

“The conservative forces have run amok,” said Oleg G. Rumyantsev, a middle-of-the-roader.

The wily Parliament chairman, Ruslan I. Khasbulatov, who is Yeltsin’s most effective political foe but who is disliked and distrusted by both Russia’s left and right, easily survived a simultaneous vote that could have cost him his job. Only 339 voted to replace Khasbulatov; 558 voted for him.

Those equivocal verdicts took Russia back precisely to where it was in December, when Yeltsin, trying to browbeat the Congress into accepting the continuation of his painful reform policies, threatened to call a referendum to prove that Russians trust him more than they do the deputies.

“I swear: That’s it. The time for compromise is over,” Yeltsin, fed up with the Congress, declared from atop a flatbed truck earlier in the day to 50,000 Muscovites who had trooped to the cobblestoned expanse near St. Basil’s to show their support.

In a booming voice, betraying none of the fatigue or memory lapses that affected him when he spoke to the Congress on Saturday, Yeltsin said that from this moment forward he will ignore what Parliament decides and proceed with the referendum he had been planning for April 25.

When deputies convened at 10 a.m., Yeltsin had promised to drop the referendum if they approved a surprise compromise plan that he and Khasbulatov cobbled together overnight, calling for early presidential and parliamentary elections Nov. 21 and the replacement of the Congress by a two-house legislature.

The Parliament, a Communist-era creation that has become largely hostile to Yeltsin’s reform agenda, was incensed by much in the deal, including the planned elimination of the Congress and Khasbulatov’s blessing for it.

“Today we have ultimately realized, Ruslan Imranovich, that again you are the chief proxy of the president,” said Sergei N. Baburin of the Rossiya faction, one of the hardest of Russia’s hard-liners.

The Yeltsin-Khasbulatov plan, crafted with the cooperation of Prime Minister Viktor S. Chernomyrdin, in negotiations that lasted until one hour before the Congress opened, went down in flames, 130-687.

Khasbulatov, bags under his eyes showing his fatigue, then fiddled nervously with his pen as deputies held a vote to decide what to do with him.

The Congress elected to hold a secret ballot on both the Parliament chairman and Yeltsin. Even Yeltsin allies like Deputy Leonid B. Gurevich thought that was wise; Gurevich suspects that many conservative deputies are under pressure from their peers to act in a more hostile manner toward Yeltsin than they feel, while conservatives claim that government employees who are also members of Parliament fear Yeltsin’s wrath if they cross him in public.

In early evening, the members of the Congress trooped out of their chamber to St. George’s Hall. Nineteen booths had been set up for the vote, and deputies were handed a yellow sheet of paper bearing two questions on whether they wanted Yeltsin or Khasbulatov removed.

Despite the outburst of conservative fury against Khasbulatov in the morning, tacticians for the member parties of the conservative alliance Russian Unity finally decided they had fallen into a trap.

They weren’t expecting to be able to remove Yeltsin, but firing Khasbulatov would have taken only a simple majority of 517. Because Democratic Russia, Yeltsin’s chief parliamentary base of support, had made it clear that it would be voting against Khasbulatov, the question for Russian Unity became, “If we cannot get rid of Yeltsin, can we afford to get rid of Khasbulatov?”

After intense caucusing and talk about strategy, all factions in the bloc except Baburin’s Rossiya decided to support the chairman.

Deputies of various political ideologies agreed Sunday night that the Congress’ decision, as well as the three days it has now met, has resolved nothing. Khasbulatov wisecracked that he thought he would have alienated more people in his three years in the legislative hierarchy.

But Khasbulatov said that the large turnout against Yeltsin shows that Russia “has a very serious national problem” and intimated that when Congress reconvenes today, the attack on the Yeltsin presidency will recommence.

Deputy Prime Minister Sergei M. Shakhrai, Yeltsin’s legal adviser, said he expected deputies to return to whether they want to call a referendum, as Yeltsin had originally asked, but “to adopt such decisions as to put the president in as unfavorable a position as possible.”

In an impromptu sidewalk news conference outside the Grand Kremlin Palace, First Deputy Prime Minister Vladimir F. Shumeiko said he expects Congress to order a referendum for April 25 but to put different questions on the ballot.

What legal or political value to Yeltsin even a huge majority in the referendum would be is still an unanswered question, especially if the Congress decides to hold its own referendum at the same time. Yeltsin wants an expression of popular support in part to lay the basis for a new Russian constitution creating a U.S.-style executive presidency.

Vladimir B. Isakov, a Communist leader, said the Parliament will also return to debating a resolution that would require Yeltsin to fire some of his closest counselors, Shakhrai among them, and transfer much of his powers to Chernomyrdin as a way of stopping a presidential coup d’etat.

Also Sunday, the Congress voted 537-263 to assume control over Russia’s state broadcasting by creating a national council to name the heads of nationwide radio and television companies in concert with the legislature.

With some justification, anti-Yeltsin figures claim that their viewpoints are now being pilloried on the air or just not broadcast while pro-Yeltsin spokesmen are given wall-to-wall time.

Information Minister Mikhail A. Fedotov said the government will appeal the resolution to the Constitutional Court. Reaching back into ancient Greece for an analogy, he suggested that Congress has no way to enforce its decision anyway.

“Once enemies of Sparta came to Sparta and said they would kill all of the men in the city if they captured it,” Fedotov said. “And the Spartans answered, ‘If.’ ”

Yeltsin’s puffy-faced, stumbling performance in Congress on Saturday continued to make tongues wag, with some deputies charging that the president had been drunk or had become unable to lead the country. His spokesman, Vyacheslav V. Kostikov, said that Yeltsin was simply worn out from the crush of work at the Congress.

A Nation in Turmoil THE EVENTS * The Congress meets to consider Yeltsin’s impeachment, but it lacks two-thirds vote. * Trying to calm the crisis, Yeltsin and legislative leader Khasbulatov, bitter foes, call for early presidential and parliamentary elections Nov. 21. * Congress defeats the compromise 130-687 and sets up a vote removing Yeltsin and Khasbulatov from office. * Congress votes 617-286 to oust Yeltsin, short of the two-thirds required. Khasbulatov wins easily, 339-558. THE OUTLOOK * Yeltsin says he’ll ignore Congress and hold a referendum April 25 to prove the nation trusts him more than Congress. Congress is expected to debate holding a referendum of its own. * Congress is expected to debate a bill slashing Yeltsin’s powers, ordering dismissal of top presidential aides and calling for early elections. * President Clinton will hold a summit with Yeltsin in Canada next weekend and is expected to offer new economic and political support.

U.S. Show of Support for Yeltsin The Clinton Administration continued its strong support for Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin on Sunday with seemingly well-coordinated appearances on network news programs. * Vice President Al Gore, on ABC’s “This Week With David Brinkley”: “What we’re finding is that there is a great deal of support for the proposition that, in concert with our allies, we ought to do what we can to help stabilize the movement toward democracy in Russia.” * Secretary of State Warren Christopher, on the CBS program “Face the Nation”: “You know, if Yeltsin is overturned and if this situation is reversed, the stakes are just enormous. We have the possibility of a revival of a nuclear threat, we have the possibility of increased defense budgets, the lack of market opportunities and we just have a new threat to the United States as a whole.” * Sen. Bill Bradley (D-N.J.), on CNN’s “Newsmaker Sunday”: “It’s very important that we step forward with help.” Times Staff and Wire Reports