The Russian-born U.S. chess champion Lev Alburt yesterday told an audience of 40 players and scholars that politics dominates professional chess in the Soviet Union.

Speaking at Harvard's Russian Research Center. Alburt said Soviet grandmasters of the game are often "used as KGB infiltrators."

The speech was arranged by a graduate student who requested anonymity for academic and political reasons.

Alburt, who left the USSR in 1979, said "international chess ambassadors" such as he was must follow government instructions regarding winning and losing games.

Most members of the audience in the Coolidge Hall classroom wanted to hear Alburt's views on the recent suspension a few weeks ago of the world championship match between defender Anatoly E. Karpov and Gary K. kasparov, both Russian.

Alburt said that the champion who is "a darling of the Establishment," successfully appeared to politically influential friends to have the World Chess federation match stopped when the challenger tried to wear him down by playing for draws.

"[Alburt] seems to have a lot of inside information," said Thomas C. Zuppa, a member of the Massachusetts Chess Association Board of Directors.