An Energetic Yeltsin Broadcasts His Displeasure at Ambitious Aides

A newly energized Boris N. Yeltsin shook off his lengthy illness to knock together the heads of lieutenants feuding for the next presidency and to prove that he is still in charge of Russia.

“I said before the election and I repeat now: Don’t rush to change the portraits. The country has a president and an active president,” Yeltsin told his people in a six-minute radio broadcast, giving a robust response to recent demands by opposition leaders that he stand down for health reasons.

Yeltsin, scarcely seen in public all summer, announced in early September that he would undergo heart surgery. The latest tentative date for the triple or quadruple bypass is November or December.

Doctors told Yeltsin last week, however, that he could work several hours a day before the surgery.

There is no clear heir apparent to Yeltsin, but while the 65-year-old president prepares for surgery, some of his top aides have been vying for position and publicity.

On Thursday, Yeltsin used a day of unusually intensive public activity to bring to heel the two whose open rivalry has become most visible.

Prime Minister Viktor S. Chernomyrdin, who would become caretaker president for three months if Yeltsin died, is the leading candidate from the sedate administrative elite that analysts call the “party of power.” He is flanked by presidential administration boss Anatoly B. Chubais and Moscow Mayor Yuri M. Luzhkov.

Out on a limb, and ever more unpredictable and outspoken, is Alexander I. Lebed, the maverick ex-general Yeltsin named as his security chief in June after he came in a strong third in presidential elections.

Lebed’s earthy charisma, his proven ability to attract millions of voters and his one postelection success in brokering an end to a dragging war in the rebel region of Chechnya in August make him a dangerous opponent.

The urbane Chernomyrdin has until now neatly sidestepped Lebed’s requests to endorse the Chechen settlement by joining peace talks with local separatists.

Instead, Chernomyrdin has made plain his disapproval of Lebed with a series of complaints and public dressings-down.

Yeltsin, whose tactic for safeguarding power has been to play rival favorites against one another, first used his radio address to approve Lebed’s plan for Chechnya--an implicit snub for Chernomyrdin.

“My aide, Alexander Lebed, fulfilled my instruction and stopped the military conflict. The most important thing is that he succeeded in stopping the bloodshed,” Yeltsin said in his least grudging praise yet for Lebed, who makes no secret of his own presidential aspirations.

Chernomyrdin quickly, if reluctantly, bowed to the inevitable.

Within hours, the prime minister had obediently met the Chechen rebels’ leader, Zelimkhan A. Yanderbiyev, who is visiting Moscow, and signed a joint statement on the next steps toward lasting peace.

The Itar-Tass news agency quoted an unnamed source close to the talks as saying that Chernomyrdin only agreed to meet the Chechen in response to the “personal and insistent request of Alexander Lebed.”

Yeltsin then evened up the score by publicly humiliating Lebed, revealing details--later on Russian television--of a private row between them.

He told viewers that the security boss had melodramatically threatened to resign over Yeltsin’s decision to appoint Lebed’s predecessor--Yuri M. Baturin--to a post giving him power over military promotions.

“What he [Lebed] needs now,” Yeltsin said, “is to get down to work, to carry out the instructions he has, to work more reliably with the prime minister and other services, and to stop squabbling with everyone. That’s not how things work in our state apparatus. You have to live in peace. That’s what I told him to do.”

Lebed’s embarrassment was compounded by the fact that his own office had just issued a denial of rumors that he had offered his resignation.

Analysts say the “party of power” has been hoping that, by giving Lebed plenty of rope now, he will commit political suicide long before it becomes imperative for them to dispatch the outsider themselves. But Yeltsin so far only wants Lebed down--not out.

“Yeltsin made a very smart move today,” said Anatoly I. Utkin, a foreign policy expert at the USA-Canada Institute. “He showed he still controls the Kremlin, that he keeps a watchful eye on what goes on around him--and that Lebed isn’t the most important person in his entourage.

“On the other hand he made it plain that he doesn’t want Lebed to go, not yet,” Utkin said. “It is understandable that Yeltsin doesn’t want a loose cannon on board his ship in a storm, but he doesn’t want this cannon to be picked up by someone else and backfire.”