Yeltsin Wins Faceoff in Parliament : Russia: President’s foes fail to prevail in a no-confidence vote after Cabinet firings ease pressures over Chechens’ hostage-taking. Reformers see outcome as evidence of growing political maturity.

MOSCOW — President Boris N. Yeltsin and his government wrested political victory from threatened humiliation Saturday when parliamentary rivals fell short in a no-confidence vote and capitulated in Russia’s latest high-stakes power struggle.

Eleventh-hour compromises that derailed the vote of no faith in the government won praise from liberals and reformers as evidence of Russia’s growing political maturity; the last faceoff between Yeltsin and an uncooperative legislature ended in bullets and bloodshed in October, 1993.

But some deputies attributed the peaceful ending of the confrontation to a thirst for power and “instinct of self-preservation,” as a no-confidence measure would have given Yeltsin the option of disbanding the Duma, or lower house of Parliament.

Whatever the motive, the 193-117 vote fell far short of the 226 needed to declare no-confidence and deflated pressures that had been building at the highest levels in Moscow over the past two weeks in the wake of a deadly hostage-taking by Chechen guerrillas.

Prime Minister Viktor S. Chernomyrdin applauded the deputies for exercising “responsibility and restraint” in letting the vote against his Cabinet fail, putting the leadership crisis behind them.

Yeltsin had fired three government ministers Friday for negligence in the hostage tragedy that began in the southern Russian town of Budennovsk on June 14. The dismissals gave the deputies a face-saving excuse for reversing an initial no-confidence vote they issued against Chernomyrdin on June 21, immediately after the last captives were released.

Had the legislators rallied enough votes to pass a second censure Saturday, Yeltsin would have been compelled by the constitution to dismiss his Cabinet or disband the confrontational and reform-blocking Duma.

Emboldened by the reprimand from parliamentary opponents, Yeltsin had made clear that his choice, if pushed to make one, would be to back Chernomyrdin, disband the Duma and call new elections within four months.

Parliamentary elections are already scheduled for December, and some deputies obviously feared they would lose their best campaigning podium if moved out of the media spotlight that captures the Duma’s daily bickering.

“If the Duma is dissolved, then only Our Home Is Russia [the political bloc headed by Chernomyrdin] would have access to airplanes and railway passes, television and radio, telephones and faxes for their election campaigns,” said Alexander A. Osovtsov of the reformist Russia’s Choice faction.

Father Gleb P. Yakunin, another Duma member from Russia’s Choice, agreed.

“Chernomyrdin’s team managed to scare the wits out of the deputies,” said Yakunin, pleased that his party’s call for restraint in the interest of stability had prevailed. “Now that the deputies have been intimidated, they will be absolutely tame.”

But the more confrontational factions that pressed for condemning the government in the first place remained committed to fighting Yeltsin and the Cabinet.

“I do not believe all those who say that the political crisis is over. It will be over only when the socioeconomic policy of the government changes,” warned Sergei Y. Glazyev, head of the Democratic Party of Russia, which called the first no-confidence vote.

Ultranationalist firebrand Vladimir V. Zhirinovsky likewise vowed to carry on with a campaign to bring down the president and government, accusing the current leadership of “doing more to destroy Russia than Hitler or Napoleon.”

Yakunin speculated that Zhirinovsky’s extremist remarks were calculated to force more moderate deputies to side with the government and keep the Duma in power.

The vote appeared likely to stem the political fallout from the Budennovsk crisis, in which more than 120 people died, including 20 killed when Interior Ministry forces twice stormed a hospital where the hostages were being used as human shields.

Interior Minister Viktor F. Yerin, Federal Security Service chief Sergei V. Stepashin and Deputy Prime Minister Nikolai D. Yegorov were sacked by Yeltsin on Friday for security lapses that allowed the tragedy to occur.

Duma deputies suggested that the Cabinet shake-up is likely to enhance both public safety and the chances for a negotiated settlement of the Chechnya war at talks under way in the rebel capital of Grozny.

However, the key target of the Duma’s wrath over the Budennovsk disaster--Defense Minister Pavel S. Grachev--escaped unscathed.

Grigory A. Yavlinsky of the reformist Yabloko party had warned fellow deputies that Grachev remains “the key and decisive figure at the negotiations on Chechnya” and urged postponement of the no-confidence vote to pressure Yeltsin to fire him as well.

Yavlinsky said Yabloko joined the conservatives in the failed no-confidence motion to demonstrate its continued opposition to the lackluster accomplishments of Yeltsin and Chernomyrdin.