Yegor Ligachev addressed Russia's Constitutional Court on Monday with no indication that he had changed his view of the Communist Party since his days its ideology chief.


The court, meanwhile, fined former President Mikhail Gorbachev for refusing to testify. Itar-Tass said Gorbachev, whoserved as the party's general secretary from 1985-91, had received the maximum fine of 100 rubles, or about 30 cents.


Ligachev, 73, who served as Gorbachev's number-two man until his hardline views caused him to be pushed aside in the late 1980s, defended the party's governing role. He argued that it had reformed and denounced President Boris Yeltsin's ban of the Communist Party as "the ultimate anti-constitutional act".


"Our country saved the world twice from catastrophe -- from the fascists and from nuclear war" under the party's guidance, he said.


Ligachev testified as one of 13 former party leaders summoned by Russias highest court to provide evidence in a trial which is to determine whether Yeltsin acted within his bounds when he banned the party. The judges are simultaneously examining the constitutionality of the party itself.


He made liberal use of the podium to condemn the Yeltsin government. "The new powers have committed so many illegal acts that the Constitutional Court does not have to worry about being out of work", he said.


Calling himself a reformer who advocated the renewal of society "within the framework of the existing system", Ligachev said he could only blame himself for not taking "advantage of the opportunity to ward off the changing course".


He was removed from the Politburo when Gorbachev restructured it in 1990.


Another party leader, Vladimir Dolgikh, echoed Ligachev's testimony. A former Central Committee secretary in charge of heavy industry and transport in the 1970s and 80s, Dolgikh argued that the Soviet Union had become a leading industrial power under Communist Party rule. He said that while the party had taken part in economic management, it had not controlled it, denying Communist control over the Soviet government.


Gorbachev has had his passport withheld due to the court case and has had to cancel a four-day trip to South Korea. Ligachev said that calling his former boss to the stand had been "lawful", adding, "but I don't know how useful he will be".