They say that the most dangerous moment of flying comes shortly after takeoff, as the pilot throttles back following the initial Herculean effort of getting several dozen tons of metal off the ground. For a few seconds the aircraft slows and seems to hang in the air, without momentum and at risk of stalling.


Make that an aging, under-maintained Aeroflot plane and you have a fair allegory for today's Russia.


The initial effort to break free from the Communist system is now behind, hence the chant of Russian liberals that there is no turning back. But since the New Year there has been a strong and discomfiting sense that the country is hanging in the air, uncertain of its direction and at great risk.


This, to my mind, is the reason why the release of Alexander Rutskoi, Ruslan Khasbulatov and the other dinosaurs of 1993 came as such an unwelcome shock. So much is uncertain today -- about the future of reforms, inflation, the president's health, the quiescence of the army and the behavior of the new parliament -- that the release of the White House uprising leaders has spooked us all, apparently confirming our worst fears. Boris Yeltsin's leadership, the amnesty seems to say, is both weak and incompetent. That is always an explosive mixture and recalls, in Russia's case, the example of Tsar Nicholas II, who ended rather badly in Yeltsin's home town of Yekaterinburg.


The amnesty also seems to say that the new State Duma is heart and soul in agreement with the former Supreme Soviet and seeks to enlist the support of its leadership in a coming showdown with Yeltsin. Worse, the Duma appears to have been in cahoots with the government of Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin over passing the amnesty.


Not only did the prime minister say nothing to oppose parliament's demarche, but Sergei Shakhrai, the minister for nationalities whose party Chernomyrdin endorsed for December's elections, proposed the package that set Rutskoi and company free. With friends like these, does Yeltsin need enemies?


By the time the prison-paled White House leaders began to leave Lefortovo last Saturday, one could not help but remember the words of the former welfare minister, Ella Pamfilova: Boris Yeltsin, she said after resigning, has become a lonely and isolated man, brooding in his Kremlin tower with nobody he can trust or talk to.


All of this paints a black picture indeed, and if the worst fears concerning Yeltsin's relationship with the Duma are realized, it may not prove to have been black enough. Yet the independent power of the men from Lefortovo should not be overestimated.


At the most obvious level, the White House leaders drew their strength from the Supreme Soviet and the former Soviet-style constitution. Both of these have been destroyed. At the moment, they have no power base.


This is especially damaging to Ruslan Khasbulatov, who could only return to a leading role in Russian politics under the most extraordinary of circumstances. He is a Chechen by birth, a fact that excludes him from ever winning a national election in Russia. Having no prospect of gaining a popular power base, Khasbulatov can achieve power again only by returning to parliament.


This may be possible. But once there, Khasbulatov would have to find a prominent position in a legislature that has a whole new generation of leaders. Doubtless Khasbulatov will try, but the road will be long and steep.


Viktor Anpilov, Albert Makashov and the rest of the lesser White House leaders took the national spotlight only at a moment of extreme and violent crisis last October. Until then they had been bit players, weekend warriors for the opposition. They will be so again until a new moment of crisis arises.


That leaves the former vice president, Alexander Rutskoi, a man of considerable political stature who doubtless will run for president in 1996 as the acceptable face of Russian nationalism.


Rutskoi presents a real political threat. To his military bearing and popular commitment to restoring the borders of the former Soviet Union, he has now added the traditional beard of the imprisoned dissident. But much depends on his relationship with Vladimir Zhirinovsky and the Duma as a whole.


In fact, the entire threat presented by the release of the October leaders depends on whether Russia can recover a safe cruising speed over the next year. If Yeltsin fails in this, if he allows inflation or the political situation to spin out of control, then the conditions will be ripe for Khasbulatov and company to take center stage again.