In this story:

• Woman tapped for top post
• More government control = better economy?
• Chernomyrdin won't run for parliament
• Related stories and sites

MOSCOW (CNN) -- In an about-turn from previous efforts to reduce the size of Russia's bloated bureaucracy, President Boris Yeltsin on Tuesday signed a decree swelling the size of government and doubling the ranks of Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov's Cabinet.

One of Primakov's choices, Valentina Matviyenko, would become post-Soviet Russia's first woman deputy prime minister.

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If Yeltsin confirms her nomination as expected, Matviyenko, 49, would take the post of deputy prime minister in charge of social affairs, one of the tougher Cabinet jobs because millions of Russians have not been paid for months. Three other candidates have turned it down.

Currently, Matviyenko is Russia's ambassador to Greece and had worked under Primakov, who previously was Russia's foreign minister. Russia's ITAR-Tass news agency reported from Athens that Matviyenko had agreed to accept the job.

Matviyenko was an active member of the Communist Party youth league in the 1970s and 1980s before becoming a deputy in the now-defunct Soviet parliament, Russia's Interfax news agency reported.

As Primakov's Cabinet took shape, a government spokesman said there would be no place for reformer Boris Fyodorov, a former deputy prime minister and tax service chief who advocates tough monetary measures to deal with Russia's financial crisis.

Yeltsin's decree expands the upper rank of the government to six deputy premiers in place of the three outgoing equivalents.

It also increases the number of government ministries by two and the number of state committees by 10, in a sign of a return to big government and greater government intervention.

Yeltsin's order supersedes a decree issued back in April under which the government bureaucracy was to be pared back. The government of reformer Sergei Kiriyenko impressed on the Kremlin the need for efficiency to cut back the heavy state spending that has left Russia bankrupt.

But in Primakov's government, that approach to improving the Russian economy will change.

His top economic policy-maker indicated Tuesday that market reforms would continue but stressed that the government would have to play a larger role to bring the country out of its current crisis.

"We should advance toward the free market, but do it very cautiously," said Yuri Maslyukov, the first deputy prime minister who is in charge of economic policy.

The new government includes politicians from across the political spectrum, including Maslyukov, a Communist. It's not yet clear how the government will incorporate the various viewpoints into a coherent economic policy.

Primakov, a compromise candidate for prime minister, was confirmed by the State Duma, the lower house of parliament, on September 11 after Yeltsin abandoned his bid to reinstate veteran ally Viktor Chernomyrdin in the post.

Chernomyrdin, still smarting from his rejection, reversed an earlier announcement and said Tuesday he would not run for parliament because he would not be able to work with his foes in the Duma.

Nevertheless, Chernomyrdin reportedly still plans to run for president in 2000.

Reuters contributed to this report.

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