The opposition in the State Duma narrowly lost a vote to censure the government for "unsatisfactory" fulfillment of the 1994 budget Friday, in what amounted to a dress rehearsal for the no-confidence vote in the cabinet scheduled for next week.


Following a frank report by Deputy Prime Minister Oleg Soskovets on the government's unsuccessful efforts to finance the budget, all the hardline opposition factions in the Duma for the first time formed a bloc to condemn the cabinet's economic policy.


But at the end of a tumultuous plenary session, in which ultranationalist Vladimir Zhirinovsky blamed the United States and Israel for Russia's economic woes, the bloc secured only 214 votes out of the 225 required for the censure resolution to pass. A mere 62 votes were cast against the resolution.


The coalition of the Communists, the Agrarian Party, Zhirinovsky's Liberal Democrats, the New Regional Policy group of provincial bosses and the splinter nationalist group Russian Path should command 237 votes according to the lists of faction members.


But coalition members said they were defeated by absenteeism, the bane of the Duma that recently caused the speaker, Ivan Rybkin, to call half-seriously for deputies who miss plenary sessions to be fined.


Communist Party leader Gennady Zyuganov, whose long-standing effort to form an anti-government coalition finally seemed close to success Friday, was visibly incensed by the vote's failure.


"See what a madhouse we're working in," he told a like-minded deputy as he left the hall, not stopping to answer reporters' questions.


A vote for a harsher resolution, suggested by the Agrarian Party and calling on President Boris Yeltsin to fire the government, failed by 172 to 15, 53 votes short of the 225 required.


Soskovets admitted in his speech that the government had failed to meet the 1994 budget.


"We have failed to fulfill the budget in what concerns investment and the funding of some social programs," he said.


He added that the government had been too slow to tackle the non-payment crisis that has gripped the Russian industry since 1992. The deputy prime minister also said the government's successful efforts to keep down inflation resulted in a decrease in enterprises' taxable profits, bringing down budget revenues.


But he pointed to some positive signs in the Russian economy, saying that Russia's exports this year exceeded imports by $13.7 billion and that prices only have doubled so far this year, while in 1993 they had increased sixfold.Soskovets said the government had collected only 39 percent of the revenues predicted in the budget, mostly because of the non-payment crisis, widespread tax evasion and the fact that those who drafted the 1994 budget had counted on higher inflation.


Anti-government legislators attacked the cabinet for taking inadequate measures to curb tax evasion, and for handing out excessive privileges to private companies, while selling state property too cheaply in the course of privatization.


"The main reason the budget failed was the weak financial discipline and irresponsibility in government property and resources," said the opposition's leading economist Sergei Glazyev. "We have to do away with privileges for separate companies, curb smuggling and tighten tax discipline."


Zhirinovsky went further than his fellow deputies during the debate that followed Soskovets' report to the Duma.


"The CIA and the Israeli intelligence Mossad -- that's who forms our government," he shouted. "It's you out there in Tel-Aviv and Washington who cause everything that's going wrong here!"


More moderate members of the new coalition, until now wary of forming alliances with Zhirinovsky, are preparing for the confidence vote in the government, scheduled for next Thursday.