Yeltsin Assails His Parliament Foes : Russia: He decries threat to reforms, regrets not calling elections after ’91 coup failed.

MOSCOW —  Two years after he climbed atop a tank to defend democracy against a hard-line Communist coup, Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin called his country’s conservative Parliament “a bulwark of revanchist forces” that threatens political and economic reform.

“Parliament has begun to work against the interests of the people and increasingly threatens Russia’s security,” Yeltsin said Thursday at a press conference marking the second anniversary of the attempt to depose Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev.

“I can only regret that the (Parliament building), the White House, where two years ago Russian citizens defended freedom and democracy, has become a bulwark of revanchist forces,” Yeltsin said.

Parliament overwhelming supported Yeltsin during the August, 1991, coup attempt, but it quickly became disillusioned with his free-market policies and locked horns with him on issues related to his reforms. The president said Thursday his biggest mistake was not calling new parliamentary elections as soon as the coup failed.

“Our reforms will be doomed if we do not resolve this political crisis,” Yeltsin said. He called the political deadlock “a crisis that threatens not only Russia’s national interests but the security of the world community as well.”

On Aug. 19, 1991, a junta of old-style Communists, army leaders and KGB officials detained Gorbachev at his country home in the Crimea and announced a state of emergency aimed at “overcoming the profound and comprehensive crisis, political, ethnic and civil strife, chaos and anarchy” of the reform period.

On Thursday, Russia’s first democratically elected president said the danger of a repeat performance has not yet passed.

“A reactionary coup is still possible which could make all the post-August effort futile,” Yeltsin said.

About 2,000 protesters gathered Thursday evening at a rally, organized by the Working Moscow movement and other left-wing groups, outside the Parliament building. Embittered by what they see as the impoverishment and humiliation of Russia, they demanded Yeltsin’s resignation.

Heavy summer showers and a sense that Russia’s political fate is no longer being decided in the streets kept the crowd small, sad and soggy. More demonstrations, by both Communists and democratic forces, are planned for today.

Yeltsin’s popularity has taken a beating because of the economic hardship, political chaos and breakdown of law and order that have bedeviled Russia’s transformation to democracy. Many also fault him for failing to deliver the plenty and prosperity he promised while campaigning to win a referendum on his leadership last April.

“Two years ago, all my colleagues were for Yeltsin,” said protester Viktor A. Vorontsov, 50, a physicist. “Now you won’t find a single Yeltsinist in our institute in broad daylight with a flashlight. No one believes in him anymore.”

“I am not for Communists,” Vorontsov said. “I am for leaders honest enough not to lie their heads off all the time. . . . The only way Yeltsin can improve the situation somewhat is to resign immediately along with his corrupt government.”

Emma P. Kalinina, 60, said she deeply regrets the “unnatural” breakup of the Soviet Union. “They artificially destroyed this country,” she said. Inflation has slashed her monthly pension to $9.60.

From the White House, the marchers headed to Lubyanka Square--best known as the site of KGB headquarters. After the coup attempt, a crowd toppled the statue of Felix E. Dzerzhinsky, father of the Soviet secret police, from its pedestal in the center of the square. Later, a homemade wooden cross appeared atop the pedestal to commemorate those who suffered in the KGB jails and torture chambers under the cobblestones. On Thursday, the pedestal was bare.

The euphoria that followed the collapse of the coup is long gone, and nostalgia for the Communist era is on the rise. About 20% of Russians want the Communist Party back in power, though only 12% think such a comeback is possible, according to a poll published in today’s Izvestia newspaper.

Sympathy for the coup leaders has also increased. About 100 people gathered Thursday at the grave of one of the leaders, Soviet Marshal Sergei F. Akhromeyev, who committed suicide soon after the failed putsch. Leaders at the site proclaimed that “the days of the Yeltsin regime are numbered” and that “the great country for which Marshal Akhromeyev died will be restored,” the Interfax news agency reported.

After countless legal delays and prosecutorial blunders, the remaining plotters are now scheduled to be tried Sept. 7. A new poll by the Mnenie agency found that 48% of the 1,600 Russians surveyed thought the coup plotters should not be punished--up from 30% who felt that way in the fall of 1991.

The poll’s most striking finding is that well under a quarter of Russians think their lives will improve under capitalism. In 1991, 24% thought capitalism would better their living conditions; now only 18% do.