Listening to Russia's liberal politicians and press, you might think that it was they and not Chechnya's separatist regime who risk annihilation should Russian tanks move invade the North Caucasus republic.


Liberal Russian legislators from the Russia's Choice and Yabloko factions have found rare common cause over Chechnya, shuttling back and forth between Moscow and Grozny in an effort to get Russian prisoners released and prevent military intervention.


Doubtless the publicity involved was welcome, but the liberals say they have a higher goal: to rescue Russian democracy itself. A delegation including Sergei Yushenkov, Ella Pamfilova and Anatoly Shabad -- three of parliament's most ardent liberals -- fiercely attacked Yeltsin's aggressive policy in a mission soon after the conflict's recent escalation.


Russia's Choice then issued an official statement Monday, stating that: "Attempts for a military resolution of this conflict play today into the hands of the party of revenge and will only bring bloodshed and the establishment of a military regime in the country."


Moscow's former mayor Gavriil Popov, now leader of the Russian Movement of Democratic Reforms, added his voice: "There hangs over Russia, her future, her democracy and her reforms a greater danger than in August and December 1991 or in September 1993."


And on Tuesday, the usually pro-Yeltsin liberal newspaper Izvestia gave the critics an intellectual base for their attacks in a front page article. Columnist Otto Latsis argued that Russian policy in Chechnya was proving disastrous.


Latsis described two possible scenarios in the event of a Russian invasion of Checnhya, both of which could jeopardize democracy.


The first scenario is that Grozny would fall easily to Russian forces and a new regime would be installed. With or without Dudayev, a patriotic military organization would then form in opposition to the Russian-backed regime, along the lines of the Irish Republican Army in Northern Ireland.


With help and money from abroad it would start a terrorist campaign all over Russia, just as the IRA did on the British mainland. To fight the terrorist threat there would be an authoritarian clampdown infringing on the constitution and human rights.


"In the fight with terror, the Russian state itself would become a terrorist," Latsis wrote.


The democrats and centrists would then be forced to leave the political arena and the only competitors for power would be Communists such as Gennady Zyuganov, ultra-nationalists such as Vladimir Zhirinovsky and worse.


The second scenario is no brighter. Russian forces would encounter tough opposition in Chechnya, taking heavy losses from repeated guerrilla raids from the mountains. The results would be far-reaching, inflaming Moslems across the region, from Abkhazia to Tajikistan.


"The war would consolidate a united anti-Russia and anti-Russian Islamic front in Russia, and in the near and the far-abroad," Latsis said, adding this would also force a clampdown at home.


Latsis acknowledged that the presence of Russian troops massed on the border with Chechnya offers the leadership, as it loses patience, a way out of the shambles of its policy.


But, in a reference to the Soviet Union's painful post-War military entanglement, he warned: "Certainly those who took the decision to invade Afghanistan did not suppose they were taking a step towards the demise of the USSR, the Communist Party and the world socialist system."