When Sen. Jesse A. Helms (R-N.C.) finally decided yesterday morning that he would suspend his push for legislation to prevent the Justice Department from intervening in cases involving involuntary school busing, he knew he had not lost much ground in this major civil rights battle.

As one bitter Democratic staffer on the Senate Appropriations Committee said yesterday, "With Reagan in the White House and the Republicans on top in the Senate, Helms knows this kind of bill will be a cinch next year."

Only a day earlier, conservatives from both sides of the Senate floor helped strangle an effort to strengthen the Fair Housing Act of 1968. Led by Sens. Strom Thurmond (R-S.C.) and Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah), the conservatives survived a cloture vote needed to end their filibuster, and left liberals sputtering that it may be years before an effective fair housing bill is approved.

A lame duck session many observers predicted would achieve little more than passage of interim appropriation bills has produced a surprising volume of legislation, several heated procedural confrontations, and a blunt foreshadowing of the ascendency of the right on Capitol Hill.

The Helms gambit, for instance--an amendment tacked onto a funding measure for the Departments of Justice and State--received approval in both Houses, but fell to a presidential veto. When President Carter vowed to reject the anti-busing provision if it reappeared on his desk, Helms and his allies decided to step aside. Carter won an empty, and probably his last, triumph in his four-year struggle with Congress.

Carter had strongly supported the housing bill--a measure designed to expedite housing discrimination complaints by allowing an administrative judge appointed by the government to settle the disputes. He failed to nudge it through Congress, even after moderates offered to compromise on a conservative demand for jury trials in certain discrimination cases.

Republicans such as Hatch have avoided linking the two legislative battles as elements of a larger civil rights confrontation. A spokesman for the Utah senator said yesterday that Hatch and his colleagues "have not tied the issues together, but the trend toward getting the federal government out of localities is now clear and will only get stronger."

Perhaps most significant to Harvard are the repeated threats, from both Reagan advisers and Hill conservatives, of a push to cut federal spending for education and repeal federal affirmative action programs. Neither issue came up during the lame duck gathering, but Hatch, Helms and Thurmond have made clear their intention to take Reagan up on his campaign promises to reform federal education policy.

Hale Champion, executive dean of the Kennedy School of Government and a former high ranking member of Carter's administration, said yesterday the conservative efforts to block busing "are just another illustration of the new environment in Congress," adding that the Republicans took good advantage of the general confusion on the Hill to begin their conservative program.

"There was no reason to wait until the new people actually showed up since everyone down there knows how things will be in a couple of months," Champion said.

In the House--where the GOP gained 33 seats but fell short of winning a majority--it is the Democratic Party that seems to be preparing for the shift to the right.

Conservative Democrats have made surprising headway in elections for committee chairmanships, while 33 representatives from the South and South-west have created a right-wing coalition already dubbed the Redneck Caucus. Headed by Rep. Charles W. Stenholm (D-Texas), the group has promised to join Republicans in floor fights against progressive social programs.

The added session, which may end this week after Congress approves funds for government operations through the end of January, has not completely lacked examples of conservative in-fighting. Sens. Robert Dole, (R-Ks.) and James A. McClure (R-Id.), for example, have criticized the president-elect on his plans for federal belt-tightening.

But as Congress wearily ends its 96th session, the confident rhetoric of the right drowns out any rumors of GOP restlessness