THE WORLD : RUSSIA : Russia’s Parliament: A Work in Progress

As Capitol Hill lawmakers battle it out over congressional reforms, they should be glad they don’t serve in the Russian Parliament, where the reform fight has taken on life-threatening implications.

“We used the American system as our model,” said Fyodor M. Burlatsky, one of the planners of the first post-Soviet legislature--which has two houses, committees, subcommittees and even members-only elevators. “So you see,” Burlatsky added, “your politicians would be right at home here.”

That assumes they come trained in hand-to-hand combat and armed to the teeth. Last year, while members of the U.S. Congress were arguing over what weapons to include in a controversial crime bill, their Russian counterparts were busy deciding which ones they should bring to work.

In fact, the incoming firepower got so heavy that Speaker Ivan P. Rybkin warned the 450 members of the State Duma, the lower house, that if they didn’t disarm voluntarily, they would have to pass through metal detectors before taking their seats. The threat apparently worked.

Just the same, it’s hard to blame Russian lawmakers for wanting to protect themselves. In the last year, three have been murdered, the most recent a month ago in a gangland-style execution in the woods outside Moscow.

The violence has reached the point that Vladimir V. Zhirinovsky, the outspoken ultranationalist, is demanding that he and his colleagues get around-the-clock police protection. Noting that the three unsolved murders look like the work of well-organized hit squads, Zhirinovsky called the crimes a “national emergency.”

Since two of the three slain politicians were also businessmen, speculation is that their deaths could have resulted from run-ins with Moscow’s Mafia gangs. Low salaries (around $75 per month) often force lawmakers into the sometimes high-risk position of needing second incomes. Zhirinovsky, for example, sells interviews for $1,000 a minute.

But basic survival is just one of many concerns facing Russian legislators. “We are just beginning as a political democracy and are still learning to cope with problems the U.S. Congress solved 200 years ago,” said Boris Zolotyukhin, deputy chairman of the Duma’s committee on legal reform. Last summer, Zolotyukhin and 28 other Russian elected officials attended a special two-week seminar on government at Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government.

The biggest task lawmakers in Moscow face is redefining their authority under a new constitution that places the largest share of power in the hands of President Boris N. Yeltsin. Following difficulties with the last legislature, which he forced out of business in a bloody confrontation 17 months ago, Yeltsin made sure its replacement was designed to give him the least amount of trouble.

The Duma’s current role is limited to passing federal budgets, appointing the chairman of the central bank and approving the president’s choice of prime minister. In February, constitutional amendments were introduced that would permit Parliament to hold investigations and obtain other information. But even assuming those measures pass, Yeltsin is almost certain to veto them, further increasing friction between the two branches.

The Federation Council, the 150-member upper house, is even more ineffectual than the Duma. With many council delegates holding other government jobs in Moscow or in Russia’s far-flung regions, meetings often amount to little more than ceremonial gripe sessions.

In a bold step several weeks ago, delegates did appoint a constitutional court--another victim of Yeltsin’s ’93 crackdown. While the court has yet to be tested, it can now be said that all three branches of Russia’s government are back in place again, if not all functioning with equal power.

In January, the Council of Europe voted to suspend membership talks with Russia, saying it would take up the question only after changes in the Russian constitution create an improved system of checks and balances.

Viktor V. Pokhmelkin, a member of the Duma’s committee on legislation, welcomed the news, saying, “Parliamentary control should have been in our constitution from the start.” Pokhmelkin, affiliated with the liberal Russia’s Choice, one of more than a half-dozen parties in the legislature, said the lack of such control “gives rise to monstrous highhandedness on the part of the president, such as we’ve seen in Chechnya.”

Yeltsin supporters naturally take a different view. Claiming that presidential rule is the only form of government suited to conditions in present-day Russia, one drafter of the new constitution, Alexander N. Yakovlev, said, “it’s impossible to say” when the situation will be stable enough “that we can move toward a parliamentary republic.”

Stability, however, is a relative term in a country where opinion surveys show that crime, terrorism and military coups are the top three public concerns. And with parliamentary elections scheduled for December, those concerns are expected to become major issues.

Still under debate is which campaign-spending restrictions, if any, will apply during the race. In past elections, candidates got free air time--but no longer. Several types of legislation to control fund raising have been discussed, including voluntary limits; however, critics contend no law will be passed until incumbents have filled their campaign coffers. Sound familiar?

Notoriously thin-skinned when it comes to criticism, many Russian lawmakers want to legislate their own form of political correctness, prompted, in part, by a libel suit brought by Zhirinovsky against former Prime Minister Yegor T. Gaidar for calling him “a fascist.”

One popular theory is that the quality of Russian politicians will improve only after the big talkers, such as Zhirinovsky, see they can lose at the polls if they don’t produce. Another is that liberals will be swept aside--as they have been in Hungary, Poland, Lithuania and Bulgaria--as voters return power to the socialists.

To prevent this, some lawmakers are talking to U.S. political consultants. Burson-Marsteller, Russo Marsh Inc. and other firms have been approached. But considering the increase in anti-foreign sentiment among voters, this could become another election issue.

“Slick American-style ads would remind people of TV commercials and actually make them not want to vote for somebody,” said an aide to one Federation Council delegate. Then, too, the murder in March of a Russian television executive, supposedly in a dispute over advertising revenue, suggests that Russian ad firms may not take kindly to Americans moving in on their territory.

Assuming they’re not postponed or canceled by presidential decree, the parliamentary elections will also be a referendum on Yeltsin and the course of democratic reforms--a principal interest of U.S. policy-makers and members of Congress, such as House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.)and Minority Leader Richard A. Gephardt (D-Mo.), who visited Moscow last year to give his support to reformers.

What help, if any, such endorsements will be to disorganized liberal-party candidates remains questionable. Early predictions are that the resurgent Communist Party will be the big winner. In spearheading a recent successful drive to strip human-rights advocate Sergei A. Kovalyov of his seat, Communists in the Duma showed they’re already a force to be reckoned with. Experts at exploiting social unrest, they have been working hard to capitalize on public nostalgia for the good old days of law and order.

At a time when Congress is talking about a cutback in foreign aid, conservative factions in the Russian legislature are telling Americans to keep their money and their advice--a gesture of contempt that appeals to many Russian voters who blame the country’s high inflation on U.S. economic innovations.

“The mistake Americans made is to assume that the Russian people would automatically embrace democratic reforms, when, in reality, most don’t even know what democracy is,” said Brooklyn-born Russian TV personality Vladimir Posner.

The problem, some fear, is that if the Communist Party does as well as expected in the next election, they may never have the chance to learn.