Fed Up with the Demands of the Other Republics, Distrustful of Gorbachev and Wary of The

By JOHN KOHAN MOSCOW

The scene prompted double takes from Muscovites exiting the Sokol metro station. A few yards away, by the gateway of All Saints Russian Orthodox Church, waved the flag of pre-revolutionary Russia. Beneath the banner stood two young men in czarist military uniforms and two older men -- a grizzled Soviet army colonel in a karakul hat who proudly displayed an icon in a gilt- and-silver frame, and a gray-bearded orator who harangued curious bystanders over a megaphone. In a rambling tirade, the speaker called for the spiritual renewal of Russia, denouncing "Jewish Marxists" for masterminding the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, which destroyed "all that was sacred to the Russian people."

"Why are they doing this at the church?" asked an old woman on her way to Vespers.

"They should ship them off to work on a collective farm!" shouted another woman, clutching an empty shopping bag.

"I don't see anything wrong with displaying Russian symbols," countered a burly young man. "We have a right to our own traditions."

The nationalist upsurge in other parts of the Soviet Union has triggered a backlash in Russia, by far the largest and most populous of the country's republics. Tired of the slogan OCCUPIERS, GO HOME scrawled on walls from Vilnius to Baku, an increasingly vocal minority of ethnic Russians are demanding more respect and a better deal for their maligned republic. If anyone has suffered from 72 years of Communist rule, they say, it has been the Russians. They witnessed the desecration of their national shrines, the extermination of their brightest talents, and the economic and ecological rape of their resource-rich homeland -- all in the interest of forging a Soviet Empire where everyone else lives at their expense.

This new awareness has inspired campaigns to stop the ecological destruction of the Volga River and to rescue village churches, converted into everything from sports clubs to vodka-bottling plants during anti-religious campaigns of the past. The rich harmonies of Russian Orthodox liturgical music now sound in concert halls, and the long-banned works of religious philosophers like Vladimir Solovyov and Nicholas Berdyayev have been rediscovered. But amid this cultural renaissance, there are disquieting signs that bitterness over Russia's present woes is spawning intolerance of other ethnic groups.

Publishing in conservative journals like Nash Sovremennik (Our Contemporary) ; and Molodaya Gvardiya (Young Guard), ideologists for the Russian renewal movement rant against "Russophobia" and what they view as a deliberate campaign by the "ultra-left press" and "Zionists." They have called for an end to subsidies paid out of the national budget to other republics and for the creation of separate government agencies, public organizations and a television network to serve only Russia -- all of which the other 14 republics already enjoy. Valentin Rasputin, a nationalist writer known for his portrayals of Russian rural life, has even suggested that Russia consider seceding from the Soviet Union.

The Russian nationalists defy easy classification. The Russian Patriotic Movement peddles pictures of Czar Nicholas II and newspapers promoting the monarchy as the "only guarantee for liquidating the vices of the communist years of evil." Other groups include the pro-communist United Front of Workers. What unites the monarchists and the neo-Stalinists is opposition to Mikhail Gorbachev's reforms. As literary critic Vladimir Bondarenko puts it, "Russia does not need perestroika. Russia needs a revival."

For such patriots, the greatest threat to the motherland comes from "radical liberals" who are plotting to seize power. The nationalists point fingers at members of the reformist Interregional Group of parliamentary Deputies, such as Moscow populist Boris Yeltsin and historian Yuri Afanasyev, and at staunch glasnost editors like Yegor Yakovlev of the weekly Moscow News. But Enemy No. 1 remains Politburo liberal Alexander Yakovlev. They have never forgiven him for a 1972 article that blasted writers who glorified Russia's peasant past -- a risky political act that earned Yakovlev exile as Ambassador to Canada until he returned to Moscow in 1983.

In a bitter public feud that is a Soviet version of the 19th century dispute between Westernizers and Slavophiles, the new Russian nationalists support the notion of derzhava, a strong state, more than they do individual rights and freedoms. They denounce Western culture, "neocolonial" business concessions and attempts to foist a market economy and multiparty democracy on Russia. "Adopting Western political values and thinking has just led this country to disaster," explains Nash Sovremennik editor Stanislav Kunyayev. "The children and grandchildren of the leftist radicals who put Russia through the meat grinder in pursuit of socialist happiness want to do the same thing in the interests of capitalism."

The ideological porridge of traditional Russian values and Soviet patriotism has gone down well among members of the military establishment, already disgruntled by reductions in the armed forces and the conversion of defense industries to civilian production. The platform issued by a coalition of ten "social-patriotic movements" that backed candidates in last Sunday's elections pointedly denounced efforts to turn the army, police and KGB into a "scapegoat for failures." Uniformed men regularly speak at these rallies, often decrying efforts, as one officer put it, to turn the military "into a prostitute, used for experiments that win applause in the West."

Supporters can also be counted among the 25 million Russians who live in the country's 14 other republics and who complain bitterly that Moscow has not done enough to protect them against ethnic violence and discriminatory new laws. At a patriotic meeting in Leningrad three weeks ago, cries of "Throw out the government!" greeted a man who had been forced to flee the Azerbaijan capital of Baku after he described how he and other Russians were being isolated at special settlements outside Moscow.

The Russian nationalists clearly enjoy backing from Gorbachev's opponents in the bureaucracy. In November, for example, a new newspaper appeared on sale in the lobby of the town hall of the Tushinsky district of Moscow. The letters to the editor were a giveaway: Politburo member Yakovlev was attacked for turning the Soviet mass media over to the "pro-Zionist clan." Leningrad has also been the scene of rightist mischief making. Despite a public outcry over a series of "Russian Meetings" three weeks ago showcasing nationalist speakers, the program went ahead as scheduled, with covert support from the city party committee. Says Vladimir Arro, chairman of the Leningrad Writers' Union, wryly: "Obviously, there are bureaucrats friendly to the movement who are concerned less about the future of Russia than they are about holding on to their positions."

Opinion polls suggest that the patriots make up in noise what they lack in numbers. Leningrad sociologist Leonid Keselman estimates that about 10% of the city's population of five million are ardent Russian nationalists. A survey in the Moscow weekly Argumenty i Fakty put the number of "national patriots" in the Soviet capital (pop. 19 million) at just 5%. But if ethnic tensions continue to breed across the country and the economy declines even further, the emotionally potent idea of restoring Russia's lost greatness might take hold among a disillusioned people. If so, it will be a march away from a shining socialist future toward an equally shimmering -- but no less illusory -- mirage of the past.