Aid to Russia

SINCE THE BREAKUP OF THE SOVIET UNION, times have been tough for the new Russian Federation. President Boris Yeltsin has been walking a fine line as he tries to minimize the economic pain of transforming a totalitarian system into a democracy supported by private enterprise. Despite initial successes, including the lifting of price controls on most consumer products, industrial production has plummeted, inflation is soaring and living standards have dropped dramatically for most of the vast federation's 150 million inhabitants. Many experts say that Russia must receive much more aid than the United States and other Western democracies have provided thus far. The alternative, they say, is a possible slide back under the control of hard-line forces that oppose Yeltsin and the experiment with democracy.