Mr Victor Chernomyrdin, Russia's acting prime minister, yesterday held desperate negotiations with a parliamentary opposition which is demanding a fresh wave of inflation policies and severe currency controls as the price for its support.
As the newly installed government flirted with a sharp change in economic course and the country's financial collapse deepened, President Boris Yeltsin retreated to his country home.
Mr Yeltsin's continued absence prompted rumours that he is on the verge of stepping down. Those reports were swiftly denied by the Kremlin, but the president's administration could not brush away the more concrete threat posed by a multi-party parliamentary commission, which is seeking to water down Mr Yeltsin's vast constitutional prerogatives.
The dual challenges to Russia's current political and economic order came on the heels of a meeting between Mr Chernomyrdin and Mr Michel Camdessus, managing director of the International Monetary Fund, on Ukraine's Black Sea coast.
There were no immediate reports of the outcome of the meeting, but the IMF, which has bet heavily on Russia's reform effort, cannot be pleased with the increasingly radical economic proposals of the country's policymakers.
After three years of tight monetary policy and a commitment to open markets, the left-dominated parliament is now demanding that the government issue a flood of inflationary credits and impose tight controls on the financial system.
These proposals are nothing new for the Communist opposition. But, in a sign of the remarkable change in Russia's political climate in the wake of this month's financial crisis, even the pro-government faction in parliament is backing the change in economic course.
The parliament's economic demands have extra bite because Mr Chernomyrdin, who was reappointed prime minister this week just five months after being sacked, needs legislative approval to be confirmed in his new job.
Mr Gennady Selezniev, the Communist speaker of the parliament, said that the Duma, the lower chamber of the legislature, would withhold its backing of the new prime minister unless Mr Yeltsin signs a package of economic measures which include a "controlled credit emission" of 30bn to 50bn roubles (up to £4 billion at yesterday's black market rate in Moscow).
"I don't think it's dangerous to have a monetary emission of rational proportions, under control, and for one purpose only: to settle payment for state orders," Mr Selezniev said in an interview with the Financial Times. "I am not talking about huge numbers, only 30 billion to 50 billion roubles. It's not an astronomical figure."
"The physical absence of money in our economy is already the main centre of economic tension. Someone who is selling goods can't receive payment because there is no money, physically no money," he said.
The economic programme, which threatens to plunge Russia into a new wave of hyper-inflation, is backed by pro-government parliamentarians who just a few months ago were ardent supporters of financial stabilisation and open markets.
"The discussion includes specific administration controls to the currency situation," Mr Alexander Shokhin, head of the Our Home is Russia parliamentary party said.
The parliament's aggressive economic proposals threaten to exacerbate the already tense political situation in the country. Mr Selezniev said the parliament was prepared to risk dissolution and fresh parliamentary elections.