NEW VISION FOR THE OLD WORLD : Odd Mix of Old and New Mingle at Embassy Fete : Russia: The crowd at the evening reception is so diverse that Clinton congratulates the guests for tolerating each other.

You would never expect to see them in the same room: a black-clad poet of the 1960s and a ruddy neo-Communist of the 1990s, a 25-year-old banker standing in for jingoist Vladimir V. Zhirinovsky and the sage old architect of perestroika .

But President Clinton had wanted to meet with the New Russia at the Thursday evening reception held amid the pillared glories of Spaso House, the mansion-residence of the U.S. ambassador in Moscow.

And that was just what he got: a group so varied and, in many cases, politically opposed that he actually congratulated them in a brief address for tolerating each other.

Calling the reception “an extraordinary and unprecedented gathering,” Clinton told about 200 guests he was “glad to see you all getting along so well.”

For Clinton, the diversity of his guests was a positive sign that his Administration is trying to avoid past mistakes--such as the U.S. Embassy’s habit of concentrating all its efforts on cultivating one group of politicians when another was clearly on its way up.

In America’s democratic system, for political foes to socialize together is routine. Indeed, the ability of political leaders to fight the bitterest of policy battles while remaining united in their commitment to society’s underlying values is the essence of democracy.

But it was a measure of how far Russia’s leaders have to go in understanding the nature of the democratic system they are committed to adopting that the scene at Spaso House was anything but routine.

In a country where political enemies from earliest times until the recent past imprisoned, tortured and killed their opponents, it seemed bizarre to many of those at Spaso House to see sworn enemies of the past mingling and sampling crustless caviar rounds together.

“You have the sheep and the wolf in the same cage,” talent agent Victoria Pavlova said. She singled out Bella Akhmadulina, a beloved dissident poet who became famous during the cultural thaw of the 1960s, and Gennady A. Zyuganov, leader of the revamped Communist Party of Russia and its healthy faction in the new Russian Parliament.

“That’s pluralism,” Pavlova’s husband, Vitaly, told her.

The U.S. Embassy’s pluralism went only so far. It invited leaders of all Russia’s prominent new parties except for Zhirinovsky, who was being determinedly snubbed even though his misleadingly named Liberal Democratic Party made a strong showing--second only to that of the pro-Yeltsin Russia’s Choice--in last month’s election for parliamentary seats.

Administration officials even worried aloud that Zhirinovsky, in his aggressive manner, might try to crash the party. They were prepared; at least eight guards in dark suits manned the metal detector at the entry to Spaso House.

There was no way Zhirinovsky could be invited; Vice President Al Gore has denounced him as “reprehensible” for his racist remarks and his position that Russia should expand into the Baltics and toward the Indian Ocean. He has also advocated bombing Germany and Japan.

On the other hand, the election results showed that his ever-scowling countenance must be considered, sadly enough, the face of the New Russia, at least in part.

So protocol whizzes compromised and invited one of Zhirinovsky’s lieutenants, Alexei Mitrofanov. But instead of Mitrofanov, Zhirinovsky was represented by Maxim Travkin, a 25-year-old banker.

Travkin explained that he was not an official member of Zhirinovsky’s party but just a friend, and he had come mainly to report back on what occurred. Zhirinovsky would not have come where he was not invited, he said.

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Zhirinovsky, meanwhile, vented his spleen at another venue, the Duma, or lower house of the new Russian Parliament, where he is already making his mark as one of the most vocal of members.

He repeated earlier remarks that Clinton was giving him “a big gift” by snubbing him, because being rejected by American leaders would make him more popular among Russians.

The Communist Party is also not particularly welcoming of Western aid and influence. But that did not keep party leader Zyuganov or prominent opposition deputy Sergei N. Baburin from being invited to the embassy reception. Nor did past anti-American statements keep away Alexander Yakovlev, the venerable former Communist Party ideologist who helped conceptualize perestroika , the reforms beginning in the mid-1980s that broke down Soviet Communist rule.