The united hard-line opposition to Boris Yeltsin will hold a congress on Saturday to establish a National Salvation Front that is committed to the overthrow of the president and his government.


Leaders of the front, which represents parties at both extremes of the Russian political spectrum, on Thursday set a slightly more modest first political objective: to strip Yeltsin of his special powers to rule by decree.


The president and his government have used these powers to push through many of their economic reforms, often over the protests of legislators.


Leaders of the Front hope to change all that at the Congress of People's Deputies, Russia's highest legislative body, which is scheduled to convene on Dec. 1, the day Yeltsin's special powers expire.


The Front's leaders hope to use the Congress to make amendments to the Russian Constitution that will drastically reduce the president's role in running the country.


"It is clear to everyone in this room that the rule by decree has brought our legal system to a catastrophic situation", Vladimir Isakov, leader of the Communists of Russia faction of parliament, said Thursday.


While the Front is still a minor force on the Russian political scene, it has captured growing attention recently as disarray in ruling circles has grown. and although its ideas are outside the political mainstream, it could capture popular sympathies as the current hard times grow harder.


The Front's organizers include members of the Unity coalition of parliament, which comprises about a third of the vote, and includes such fundamentalist factions as the Communists of Russia and Fatherland.


The Front rails at monetarist economic policies that have "brought Russian industry to its knees", decries Yeltsin's privatization program as "robbery of the people" and laments the "lack of social protection" for Russia's impoverished population, which is bearing the brunt of the economic pain.


"You have announced Russia's


transition to a market economy", read an open letter to Yeltsin from Front leaders, published in Pravda this week. "But the methods chosen are leading us in quite the opposite direction".


Despite Front organizer's belief that they enjoy "massive" national support, it is unlikely that the extremist grouping will be able to effect legislative change without support from the more powerful Civic Union.


Commenting on a recent poll that showed roughly 60 percent of the populace supported continuing with the government's reforms, Nikolai Pavlov, a leader of the Unity faction of parliament, said, "Well, that means that at least 40 percent of the people support us, doesn't it? "


While the Front's letter to Yeltsin asked the president to resign, Sergei Baburin, perhaps the most influential legislator of the Front's leadership, seemed to offer Yeltsin a compromise.


"The president is a reasonable man", Baburin said. "He will introduce corrections in the composition of the government before the Congress in order to survive it more easily".