Day After Heart Surgery, Yeltsin ‘Already in Action’

Champing at the political bit less than a day after his quintuple heart bypass, President Boris N. Yeltsin nagged his doctors Wednesday to be moved to a different hospital and was reportedly already taking on work.

Kremlin officials sought to cast the 65-year-old president as well on the way to full recovery and poised for a robust new leadership phase, despite the urging of Yeltsin’s doctors that he pace himself and be an obedient patient.

“Boris Nikolayevich is already in action,” Prime Minister Viktor S. Chernomyrdin told journalists after visiting the bedridden head of state for 15 minutes, Yeltsin’s first official meeting in more than a week.

Yeltsin’s spokesman also portrayed his recuperating boss as a stubborn fighter whose accumulating vigor is already giving his doctors fits.

“He’s pushing his doctors to discharge him” and send him to the Central Clinical Hospital, presidential spokesman Sergei V. Yastrzhembsky said. “The doctors have been put on the defensive.”

Yastrzhembsky noted that Yeltsin had convalesced at that hospital after two heart attacks last year, and probably feels more comfortable in its less-specialized surroundings than at the Moscow Cardiological Center, where he remained in intensive care after Tuesday’s seven-hour operation.

Even before doctors took him off a respirator, Yeltsin signed a decree at 6 a.m. Wednesday taking back the presidential powers he had temporarily conferred on Chernomyrdin 23 hours earlier. Yeltsin asked for a full account of the events that transpired while he was under anesthetic, Yastrzhembsky said.

The unexpectedly upbeat reports of Yeltsin’s progress were matched by the first good economic news for this country in months. The State Tax Service reported a 52% surge in revenues for October following Yeltsin’s announced crackdown on tax dodgers. Tax collection exceeded the monthly target, with the equivalent of $2.7 billion received compared with September revenues of $1.8 billion.

Russia’s failure to collect taxes and stick to its budgetary promises for this year prompted the International Monetary Fund to suspend an expected cash infusion last month from the three-year, $10.8-billion line of credit approved for Russia.

IMF officials will visit Russia next week to reevaluate the country’s performance in tax collection, the Itar-Tass news agency reported.

The boost in revenues and the possibility of fresh IMF money could help the Kremlin pay off at least some of the wages overdue to public workers. Strikes have disrupted many state-owned industries this fall, including huge protests held Tuesday in at least a dozen cities, as workers protested delays in pay.

A long-predicted investment boom could finally come if Yeltsin heals quickly, and his aides may be trying to reinforce the impression he is on the mend.

“All of us in the Kremlin are in a good mood because Boris Nikolayevich is recovering so quickly,” Yastrzhembsky told reporters. “He is surprising the doctors with his strength and his renowned will.”

The chief surgeon attending Yeltsin, Dr. Renat Akchurin, had advised him to take a measured approach to returning to work. U.S. heart surgery pioneer Michael DeBakey said he reminded Yeltsin of the president’s preoperative promise to behave when told to take it easy.

“I told him this morning he should pay attention to the doctors’ advice, and he told me he would be a good patient,” said DeBakey, who took part in examining the president and discussing his condition with the Russian surgeons who performed the operation.

DeBakey has predicted a swift and thorough recovery for Yeltsin, saying he should be able to resume light duties in about six weeks and his full load--even playing tennis--in three to four months.

Times staff writer Richard Boudreaux in Moscow contributed to this report.