HARD-LINERS BLAST RUSSIAN REFORMERS

The hard-line leadership of the Russian Communist Party, facing a revolt in its ranks by reformists, took the offensive Aug. 6 at the opening of a key party meeting.Party leader Ivan Polozkov, standard-bearer for conservative Communists, denounced the reformist bloc at the start of a Central Committee session and said Russian society had plunged into chaos. And he blasted Russian President Boris Yeltsin's order to pull party cells out of the workplace, which formally took effect Sunday, as a "perfidious attack on democracy." "The situation in the republic is getting worse. Society is being dragged into deadlock and no one sees a way out," the official Tass news agency quoted Mr. Polozkov as saying.