Parliament Building

President Boris N. Yeltsin continued his all-out offensive yesterday to bury the hard-line opposition, banning the Russian Communist Party and telling Russians they may soon vote on a new constitution that had long been bottled up by his opponents. Acutely aware that he missed a chance to crush Communist opposition after the August 1991 coup attempt, the Russian president made it clear that he would not make a similar mistake after Monday's storming of the Russian parliament building and the arrest of his chief opponents.

Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin declared a day of mourning for the police officers killed in the anti-Yeltsin violence here Sunday and suspended the Constitutional Court until a new constitution is adopted. "The court developed from a body of constitutinal justice into an instrument of political struggle," declared Yeltsin, who is now governing without any checks and balances. The Constitutional Court, under chairman Valery Zorkin, who resigned Wednesday, had frequently supported the parliament against the president.

Russian tricolor flags with black ribbons fluttered from buildings in central Moscow today as Russia observed an official day of mourning for those who died in Sunday and Monday's violence. President Boris Yeltsin called for peace and calm and promised to protect his country from turmoil. "Russia, its people and its leaders, must learn a solemn lesson from the bloodshed and do everything in their power so that the tragedy cannot happen again," Yeltsin said in a statement issued by his press office.

President Boris Yeltsin kept hundreds of troops in Moscow today and tightened the throttle on political opponents two days after crushing armed resistance to his rule. In a sign of determination to follow through vigorously after Monday's assault on the White House parliament building, Yeltsin fired the prosecutor general and rounded up opponents in Moscow. But he also announced he was lifting censorship imposed on Moscow newspapers, saying it had not been envisaged in his state of emergency decree last Sunday.

President Boris N. Yeltsin moved swiftly yesterday to consolidate his victory over parliament by firing the state prosecutor and two regional officials who failed to support him. But some fighting continued. Hours after the forces in the White House surrendered, snipers continued to shoot yesterday from several Moscow buildings. Interfax news agency, quoting the security ministry, said 24 people were killed, captured or disarmed during the night. The country's largest news agency, ITAR-Tass, was also attacked.

As a group of Philadelphia musicians made their way yesterday to a hall at the Moscow Conservatory of Music, their host, Professor Svetlana Siguidi, told them three people had been killed hours earlier only a few blocks from the music school. "This is not a good walking day," she warned. Throughout the early morning hours, the musicians had heard sporadic bursts of gunfire. Mikhail Saponov, a music-history professor, a told them that pro-parliament snipers were seen on the conservatory roof during the night.

In a bloody assault that started at dawn and ended at dusk, government troops captured the parliament building yesterday and seized opposition leaders, dramatically changing the face of Russian politics. Parliament's defeat destroys one of the country's most visible remnants of the Soviet era and leaves President Boris N. Yeltsin to rule Russia without a legislature for the next two months. Parliamentary chairman Ruslan I. Khasbulatov, looking wan in a dark suit, and Vice President Alexander V. Rutskoi, in battle fatigues, surrendered shortly before 6 p.m. and were driven away in a bus to Lefortovo Prison.

Opponents of President Boris N. Yeltsin, who staged a vicious battle last night at Russia's main television station after overwhelming police barricades at the parliament building and storming the nearby city administration building, were attacked by government forces early today. With at least 24 dead and 100 injured after the fight at the TV station, it was unknown what additional casualties were incurred when the assault was launched at 6:45 a.m. (11:45 p.m. yesterday Philadelphia time)

Several hundred opponents of President Boris N. Yeltsin hastily erected barricades across one of Moscow's main thoroughfares yesterday after their most serious clashes with police since Russia's political crisis started 12 days ago. The tense standoff - with demonstrators behind barricades and more than 1,000 police with shields and clubs watching from 10 yards away - was defused when protesters agreed to leave about 9 p.m. at the urging of...

Both sides in Russia's political crisis rejected compromise yesterday, with President Boris N. Yeltsin vowing that talks cannot begin until the cache of arms in the White House is removed, and parliamentary leaders insisting they will retain the weapons until some of their conditions are met. Only a few armed guards were patrolling yesterday inside the White House, or parliament building. On the first floor, though, about a dozen men were going through military-style drills, holding curtain rods instead of rifles.