The deteriorating economic situation in Russia, highlighted by the collapse of the ruble earlier this month, is likely to worsen unless the country's financial reins are handed over to reformers, liberal economists say.


Newly released figures from two liberal think-tanks show a growing budget deficit and burgeoning money supply, with a continued decline in industrial production and rising unemployment.


"When you lack a policy and pump lots of money into the economy then there is bound to be a crisis," former Finance Minister Boris Fyodorov, who heads the State Duma's liberal December 12 group, told reporters Wednesday.


The new data came as a special commission set up to investigate the causes of "Black Tuesday," the ruble's 22 percent crash Oct. 11, scotched allegations from the president's office of a "financial coup" and laid the blame squarely at the door of government incompetence and a deteriorating economic situation.


A statement released by the president's press service said the report censured "above all the lack of coordination in the activities and often simply inactivity of the economic organs of executive power."


While the commission has been given another two weeks to complete its work, the ax has already swung for some senior financial officials. Acting Finance Minister Sergei Dubinin and Central Bank chairman Viktor Gerashchenko have both been replaced, albeit temporarily, and there has been speculation about the future of Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin.


Andrei Illarionov, head of the liberal Institute for Economic Analysis, told reporters Tuesday that the Russian currency had been deliberately pushed downward by the Central Bank in order to buy cheap rubles to reduce the country's budget deficit."The situation was precipitated by the joint decision of the Central Bank and the Finance Ministry to drastically devalue that rate of the national currency so that afterward the Finance Ministry could sell at a higher rate its available foreign currency reserves and plug the biggest holes in the budget," Illarionov said.


The former government adviser added, however, that the personnel reshuffle in the wake of the ruble crisis presented an opportunity for Russia to get back on the liberal reform track.


"Russia has a whole bunch of unsolved problems," Illarionov said. "It's hard to solve these problems without the key figures, not only in the Central Bank and Finance Ministry but in the entire country, having a clear understanding of what should be done and how.


"The lack of such understanding may delay stabilization for an indefinite period to come."


But the special commission acknowledged that government mismanagement of the ruble had occurred against the background of a worsening economic situation, highlighting the continuing slump in industrial production, a growing budget deficit and rising inflation.


According to figures released Tuesday in a joint report from Illarionov's institute and the Center for Economic Performance, the budget deficit ran to 11 percent of gross domestic product in August, up from 10.3 percent in July. The deficit is supposed to come to less than 10 percent by the end of the year under an agreement with the International Monetary Fund.


Financing the burgeoning deficit encouraged a growth in the M2 money supply of 12.1 percent in August, compared with a 9.9 percent rise in July, the report said. This has fueled fears of higher inflation. It rose to 7.7 percent in September from 4 percent in August.


Fyodorov said that there was likely to be little improvement in the rate of inflation in 1995 if current policies were pursued, predicting a monthly level of 12 to 15 percent.


Resurgent inflation and an ailing ruble caused average wages to fall in real terms from $110 to $100 a month in September, stirring up widespread discontent with the government's economic policy.


An Economics Ministry plan to peg the ruble to the dollar met with skepticism from economists Wednesday.


Deputy Economics Minister Sergei Vasilyev told Reuters on Tuesday that the government is considering pegging the ruble loosely to the dollar next year. The move would depend on approval from parliament and on a $6 billion currency stabilization fund from the International Monetary Fund, he said.


Illarionov said that while a managed exchange rate may be appropriate for a small nation, it would be difficult to operate in a country as vast as Russia