The Duma's majority Communist Party has long wanted to confront President Boris Yeltsin, and now has its chance once again.

Last August, Yeltsin appointed Evgenii Primakov prime minister in return for a political peace after the Duma failed to confirm his choice of Viktor Chernomyrdin.

The Primakov government did indeed stabilize the country's most immediate political crisis. But the Communist-supported Cabinet failed to act to confront Russia's ongoing economic crisis.

Primakov's appointment increased Russia's two pillars of power ? the Duma and the president ? to three after Primakov effectively took over running the country from the ailing Yeltsin.

With Primakov's sacking, however, power that seeped out of the Kremlin to the government's White House now returns, and a new round of confrontations between the president and the Duma will begin.

Common opinion has it that the Duma, which began considering five articles of impeachment against the president last Thursday, would reject Stepashin and step up its attempts to remove the president from power.

But the Duma may exacerbate the confrontation's conditions in another way: by confirming Yeltsin's new choice for prime minister, Interior Minister Sergei Stepashin, and only then then going on to impeach the president. By accepting Stepashin, the Duma would remove the immediate threat that Yeltsin might dismiss parliament.

Russia's political situation is now back to its pre-August scenario. If Stepashin is confirmed, the Duma will refuse to accept any government initiatives, forcing the Cabinet to reach a critical situation in which it would be effectively shut down. Parliament will sabotage anything a Stepashin government does. So it seems that Russia's current looming political crisis may just be one in a series, and will be followed by yet another.

Either way, Stepashin might prove to be a lasting premier. Few in Russia dare to act against a man who controls the powerful Interior Ministry.

The real questions might be how long Stepashin will remain loyal to the president, or how long before Yeltsin gets jealous or tired of his protege. There have already been rumors in Kremlin circles that the president resents Stepashin's dialogue with regional leaders and the prospect that he might take an independent line based on wide support from Russian politicians.

Stepashin should in theory appeal to Russian leftists. An officer and a tight-lipped public figure, he does not represent the same kind of threat posed by Yeltsin's previous market reform architects.

But the answer to both questions is that Stepashin will most likely stay loyal to the president. The acting prime minister will only change his tune of loyal presidential deputy once Yeltsin is permanently out of the political picture. And his ability to deliver political peace should therefore not be underestimated, for he can force a truce where Primakov had to negotiate one.

Furthermore, Stepashin will not be an easy target for the Duma, like Yeltsin's last reformer prime minster, Sergei Kirienko. No deputy will want attack him personally.

Another question is who will comprise Stepashin's economy team. As prime minister, Stepashin might depend on technocrats in Russia's ministries. Nevertheless, presidential administeration head Aleksandr Voloshin and Yeltsin's daughter and adviser, Tatiana Diachenko, might be able to bring in people linked either to right-wing reformers or favorable toward Russia's business elite.

All in all, the Cabinet shuffle is not a bad thing for Russia. The Primakov government had reached a dead end on all fronts, domestic and international. Its members played all their cards and had nothing more to show or do. While the country's poses large, it is certainly no worse than the continued bumbling of the Primakov government.

Meanwhile, politicians and analysts are becoming hoarse screaming about the ramifications of Yeltsin's move and the terrors of yet another political crisis... But the country's current instability only brings to the surface deep problems that Primakov failed to address.

Last week's Cabinet reshuffle was a calculated decision showing Yeltsin can still make difficult political maneuvers and that news of his political demise has been premature.

The country's crisis should be welcomed.