And Now, Divorce?

By Jill Smolowe

He touched down in Vilnius the dignified statesman, expecting to rely on his charm and diplomatic skills to work out a compromise. But when the first cry of Samostoyatelnost! -- independence -- sounded from the Lithuanian crowd, Mikhail Gorbachev rapidly abandoned the strategies of genteel diplomacy and adopted the tactics of a ward politician bent on maintaining his lock on a balking constituency. "Independence?" he shouted above the insistent cries. "Let's have it. At the workplace. In cities. Republics. But together!"

Wading into crowds, the Soviet President proved himself a master of street theater, improvising historical, philosophical and legalistic arguments as he pressed his appeal to Lithuanians to step back from their threatened breach with Moscow. When his entreaties met with smiles and shouts of "Bravo, Gorbachev!" he answered with poignant appeals. "My personal fate is linked to this choice," he reminded the crowds. When he read resistance in the faces of his listeners, he fumed and lectured, employing the Socratic method to grill his audience.

At a Vilnius fuel-machinery plant, he spied a sign in Russian reading not more rights but full independence. "Who gave you that?" Gorbachev challenged a Lithuanian welder. When the worker replied that he had made the sign, Gorbachev switched to a softer approach, commending the man on his grasp of Russian. But the worker would have none of Gorbachev's compliments. "You don't think we know how to write in Russian?" he challenged. "We can read and speak Russian too, while there are lots of Russians who can't speak a word of Lithuanian."

"How do you understand independence?" Gorbachev shot back.

"I was born independent," came the response. "And I want to die independent."

Never had Gorbachev sustained such an energetic performance -- but never had his political skills been so severely tested. "I have never had such discussions anywhere in the Soviet Union," he observed later. For months Gorbachev has sat back calmly and allowed the disintegration of the Communists' monopoly on power in Eastern Europe. Now, when one of his own republics was demanding the same opportunity for democratic self-rule, Gorbachev was far less relaxed about it. There could be no pretending that Lithuania's demands to secede from the union were an isolated appeal. If the nation is divided over issues of language, culture, politics and religion, it is united in its dissatisfaction with economic problems. As goes Lithuania, so might go other republics -- thus inviting a military crackdown and destroying perestroika. "If even the slightest suppression occurs, or a misunderstanding, say, in Estonia or Moldavia," Gorbachev warned, "it spills over to the rest of the country."

As if to drive home his point, the fires of defiance and threatened revolution burned brightly throughout the Soviet Union last week. From the southern Caucasus republics of Azerbaijan and Armenia to the Baltic states in the north, ethnic tensions flared and independence movements battled with Communist Party officials. The most troubled spots:

ARMENIA. Legislators amended the republic's constitution to give the regional legislature primacy over its national counterpart, enabling Armenia to veto national laws that conflict with its interests. The parliament then defied the Kremlin by voting to include in its budget the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region, geographically nestled in the republic of Azerbaijan.

AZERBAIJAN. Citizens promptly protested Armenia's actions, blockading government offices and seizing a local radio station in the Caspian Sea port of Lenkoran. An officer of the Interior Ministry troops on peacekeeping duty in Nagorno-Karabakh was killed in the village of Akhullu. Azerbaijanis wearing bulletproof vests and carrying automatic weapons attacked Manashid, another village in the disputed district. Farther south, in the Nakhichevan region, where Azerbaijanis are demanding an open frontier with their ethnic kin across the border in Iran, angry crowds continued to tear down border installations and destroy guard posts.

GEORGIA. Violence flared over the release of four Ossetians detained in connection with the fatal shooting of a nine-month-old infant last fall. Ossetian activists are campaigning for greater autonomy and cries persist to ) "overthrow the Communist regime in the republic." In Kareli, 50 miles northwest of Tbilisi, protesters demanding independence drove government workers out of their offices.

LATVIA. Following the lead of Lithuania, Latvian lawmakers amended the constitution to create a multiparty system.

Of all the problems confronting Moscow, however, the challenge for independence mounted by Lithuania threatened to have the most serious consequences. Nothing less than the territorial integrity of the Soviet Union, and possibly the survival of its leader, seemed to be at stake. The stage was set on Dec. 20, when Lithuania's Communist Party declared independence from its national counterpart. At the time, Gorbachev angrily told a group of Lithuanian parliamentarians that they had "stabbed perestroika in the heart." But Gorbachev knew that the party's maneuver was merely a dress rehearsal for the day when the republic would try to secede from the nation. In local elections on Feb. 24, Lithuanians are expected to elect a republican parliament dominated by uncompromising nationalists. It was a challenge that could not be solved with traditional Kremlin politics. Stalling for time, Gorbachev announced that there should be a "fact-finding mission" to Lithuania.

When Gorbachev arrived there last week for a three-day visit -- his first in more than nine years and the first ever by a General Secretary -- party issues were all but forgotten as the Soviet leader plunged straight into the more dangerous debate over secession. He came armed with his own compromise, a vague plan that would allow for "sovereign states" within a new federation. Then he tried every sales pitch he could think of.

The comradely approach: "We will decide everything together."

The paternal pitch: "Where are you running to? Why are you running? You must think these things through."

The patriotic appeal: "If someone succeeds in pitting us against each other and it comes to a clash, there will be tragedy."

The historical argument: "Over 50 years we have become tied together, whether we like it or not."

When appeals to emotion and sentiment failed, Gorbachev tried dark warnings. On defense matters he argued, "Our security lies here," referring to Lithuania's ports and communications lines. He played the economic card, reminding his listeners that secession would mean the loss of billions of rubles in subsidies from Moscow for underpriced raw materials, oils and products. "You'll bog down in a swamp immediately," he taunted. Finally he threatened, "Don't look for conflict or you'll get real trouble."

Gorbachev did have a rabbit in his hat of tricks. He announced that he had ordered the drafting of a law to codify how a republic could withdraw from the Soviet Union; it was the first time a Soviet leader has spoken positively about secession. Gorbachev noted that while Article 72 of the 1977 constitution grants the right of secession to the country's 15 republics, a mechanism was needed to ensure an orderly withdrawal.

Gorbachev left it to one of his entourage, Politburo member Yuri Maslyukov, to hint at some of the strings attached. Maslyukov, who heads the state planning commission Gosplan, said a move to secede would require drawing up a proposal that detailed its implications and then putting it to a popular vote. Said Maslyukov: "It's difficult to imagine that the collective reason of the Lithuanian nation would decide on such a step."

But to many Lithuanians, Gorbachev's talk of a "sovereign state" was little more than a tactic to buy time. The crowds in Vilnius regard Moscow's centralized rule as a continuation of the sorry chapter of its history that began with the Stalin-era annexation of the three Baltic states, following the signing of the 1939 Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, which carved out the spheres of influence between Hitler and Stalin. At a gathering last week in downtown Vilnius, Vytautas Landsbergis, leader of the Lithuanian popular-front movement Sajudis, demanded, "What has been stolen should be given back!" Around the plaza, flags woven of the national colors of Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and other republics fluttered.

Lithuania's cocky demands reflect the confidence that has mounted over the past year as the republic's supreme soviet passed a declaration of state sovereignty, proclaimed Lithuania's economic autonomy and abolished the constitutional clause guaranteeing the Communist lock on power. In turn, the local party revamped its program and called for an independent state. By the time the party severed its ties to its Moscow parent last December, Lithuanians had achieved many of their aims -- short of independence. For the first time, Gorbachev conceded last week that he sees "no tragedy" in the creation of a multiparty system but added that it provides "no panacea" for the nation's ills.

Ironically, Gorbachev has largely himself to blame for the current crisis. By pressing his policies of perestroika and glasnost, he emboldened Lithuanians to press their nationalist course and thereby played Dr. Frankenstein to the monster that now bedevils him. Lithuanians have also pointed to the startling developments throughout the East bloc to justify their drive for local autonomy. How, they demand, can Gorbachev deny his own Soviet citizens what he has permitted elsewhere in the bloc?

The dilemma that Gorbachev confronts is how to devolve power not only from the top downward but also from the center outward to the republics -- without unhinging his entire reform program or, worse still, losing territory. Should Gorbachev accede to Lithuania's demand for secession, he knows, he will be pressed for comparable concessions from Estonia and Latvia. And once the secession fever infects the Baltics, the Kremlin fears, what is to stop it from spreading to the other republics? Last week Gorbachev's Politburo ally, Alexander Yakovlev, dubbed this unnerving prospect "the domino effect."

Gorbachev's chief political rival, Politburo member Yegor Ligachev, had a darker name for it: "the beginning of the end." That gloomy prognosis suggests that Gorbachev will meet with staunch resistance in conservative quarters if he bows to Lithuania. Andrei Makarov, a well-placed Moscow lawyer, says that the conservatives are milking the messy political situation and that Gorbachev was actually backed into going to Lithuania when, on a suggestion from opposition leader Boris Yeltsin, the Central Committee voted for Gorbachev to head the delegation. In Washington, however, a top Kremlinologist cautions that any talk of Gorbachev's political demise is premature. As yet, he observes, no plausible successor has emerged to take his place, and Gorbachev's opposition within the Politburo is fragmented.

Haunted by nightmares of blood in Tiananmen Square, Rumania and even Tbilisi last April, when Soviet troops massacred 19 protesters, Moscow is reluctant to use force to maintain control in the republics. It is also possible to contemplate the three Baltic states seceding without the entire union unraveling. Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania are relatively recent additions to the union. Furthermore, unlike many of the other republics, the Baltics were independent at the time of their incorporation. There is, therefore, a historical basis for treating them as a special case. Perhaps the Kremlin aims to do just that. Last week Soviet government spokesman Gennadi Gerasimov went so far as to speak of establishing a "mechanism for divorce" to deal with the Lithuanian situation.

In the Baltic republics, secessionist passion is inversely proportional to the percentage of ethnic Russians living there. Lithuania has the smallest Russian population; hence Gorbachev received the region's most emotional dose of separatism. Nonetheless, there was something exhilarating about seeing the leader of the Soviet Union debating citizens in the streets. Thomas Jefferson could not have asked for a better illustration of democracy in action, though Gorbachev may have wished for an experience a shade less vivid.

For now, Gorbachev hopes to appease Lithuanians with pledges to help them achieve independence within a federation, while soothing conservatives with promises that any formula for secession will be worked out in Moscow. There is still room for compromise; while all parties to the conflict bandy words like "self-determination," "federation" and "sovereignty," few have attempted to nail down their precise meanings.

Last week Gorbachev insisted that if the issue is ever put to a vote, Lithuanians will ultimately reject secession in favor of his own federation plan. Although Gorbachev did not back up that prediction with a wager, he has bet his prestige on the outcome.

With reporting by Ann Blackman/Moscow, John Kohan/Vilnius and Strobe Talbott/Washington