Russian Radical Takes His Turn in the Spotlight : Politics: But even as Zhirinovsky tries to soften image, he denies Russia has a history of anti-Semitism.

The most feared man in Russia was on a tear.

Russia has no history of anti-Semitism, and any hatred of Jewish people must be provoked by Jews themselves, radical nationalist Vladimir V. Zhirinovsky declared Tuesday in his first news conference since his party placed first in Russia’s parliamentary elections with 24% of the vote.

Many of the former Soviet republics “will soon come crawling back to Russia on their knees” when they finally realize “that they are not capable of self-government,” Zhirinovsky said.

Next, the 47-year-old lawyer had an aide read a telegram of effusive congratulations on Zhirinovsky’s election from “our friends” in Germany. The telegram was sent by the far-right German People’s Union led by Gerhard Frey, who has expressed doubts that the Holocaust occurred and who wants to expel foreigners from Germany.

In an apparent effort to tone down his inflammatory image, Zhirinovsky said he wants to rid the world of the twin evils of communism and fascism. He heatedly denied ever calling Jews “an infection” and insisted that his party opposes all discrimination. But he added that Russians are tired of seeing so many non-Russian faces on television and “want us to replace them with Slavic faces who can speak good Russian without an accent.”

He said he will have no trouble cooperating with President Boris N. Yeltsin because “we are both middle-of-the-roaders.” But he made clear he expects to be the preeminent leader of the new Parliament and will wait for the smaller parties to court him if they wish an alliance.

The swift rise of Zhirinovsky, whom top Russian officials have compared to Adolf Hitler, has sent shock waves across Europe and the former Soviet Union.

Politicians and scholars said “Zhirinovskyism” has some similarities to the neo-fascist movements in France, Germany and Italy: It attracts voters who feel their nation has been humiliated and demeaned, who feel economic or social insecurity and who try to compensate with a kind of macho political attitude.

Zhirinovsky promised to crack down on crime and stop subsidizing the independent republics by selling them oil at less than world prices. He said he will seek to halt conversion of defense plants to civil factories and step up Russian arms sales.

“As long as the world arms market exists, we’ll try to find a niche,” he said.

Zhirinovsky, who wore a sober black jacket, white shirt, black bow tie and black cummerbund Tuesday, told reporters in English, one of his five languages, “I would like to have one meeting with Bill Clinton.” Perhaps Clinton could join him for a Russian sauna during the President’s trip to Moscow next month, he said.

“My wife would like to be introduced to Madame Hillary,” Zhirinovsky said, adding that he hoped the two families could be friends.

Zhirinovsky, who polled 7% against Yeltsin in the 1991 presidential election, vowed to run for president again in the next election. But he said he will not mind if the contest is not held until June, 1996, when he will turn 50.

“Maybe President Yeltsin himself will not run in these elections,” he said, “and the Communist candidate will not have a chance. I’m afraid I may be the only candidate in these elections, and that would be boring.”

Stepping back from his old belligerence, Zhirinovsky said that he will not seek to expand Russia’s territory. He once said Russia should take back Alaska, and his misnamed Liberal Democratic Party platform states that it “stands for the restoration of the Russian state in the borders of the former U.S.S.R.”

In the past, Zhirinovsky has also reportedly threatened to use radioactive waste to poison the Baltics into submitting to Russia and to use nuclear weapons against Germany and Japan.

“I would bomb the Japanese,” the British newspaper Financial Times quoted him as saying in January, 1993, when asked his views about the Russian-Japanese dispute over the Kuril Islands. “I would sail our large navy around their small island, and if they so much as cheeped, I would nuke them.”

On Tuesday, however, he insisted he supports disarmament and would not send a single Russian soldier to die defending some other nation’s interests.

In Washington, Clinton said Monday that he was not particularly surprised by Zhirinovsky’s strong showing “because the Russian people have suffered a lot in the last few years.”

The same trends have surfaced in Poland and the former East Germany, where the transition to a market economy has been painful, the President said.

Also, the wrenching changes come “at a time of global recession, when there is deep frustration and alienation among middle class voters in the wealthiest countries,” Clinton said, adding that the United States should show “sensitivity” to the readjustment troubles of ordinary citizens in the post-Communist bloc.

Dominique Moisi of the French Institute for International Affairs in Paris said the call to xenophobia is a strong temptation in tough times.

“But I would distinguish between what you have in Russia--a strong xenophobic tradition and weak democratic tradition--with what is happening in Europe,” Moisi said.

Anti-immigration sentiment is the backbone of Europe’s extreme right. While many Muscovites do complain about the influx of darker-skinned people from Azerbaijan, Georgia and the autonomous Russian republics of Chechnya and Dagestan (police have blamed Caucasians for the huge jump in crime), Russians do not worry about lower-paid immigrants taking their jobs.

Zhirinovsky’s voters are more likely to be nostalgic for the stability and prestige they enjoyed as citizens of the Soviet Union, angry about unchecked crime and corruption and deeply disillusioned by the failures of the democratic leadership.

The average Zhirinovsky voter was younger (average age 41.6), less educated (12 years) and earned less ($39 per month) than those who supported the two major democratic parties, according to a survey by the Mnenie polling firm.

Russia’s skittish neighbors, particularly nuclear-equipped Ukraine and the Baltic nations of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia, see in Zhirinovsky’s ascent evidence for their suspicions that many Russians still want their empire back.

On Tuesday, Ukrainian President Leonid M. Kravchuk said that if Zhirinovsky’s desire to return to Russia’s 1917 borders becomes state policy, “it will lead to a huge cataclysm.”

Many argue that Russians voted against Yegor T. Gaidar’s brand of economic reform, against the arrogant, bickering officials in the Russia’s Choice party, but not necessarily for Zhirinovsky.

“He’s a fascist and a clown,” said German historian Wolfgang Leonhard, who recently returned from Moscow. “It’s not a victory for Zhirinovsky so much as a failure of the democratic forces.”

David Lauter in The Times’ Washington bureau and Mary Mycio in Kiev contributed to this report.