Gorbachev Vows to End Unrest, Uphold Unity : Soviet Leader Says Strife Is Jeopardizing Reform, Warns of Military Crackdown in Kremlin Speech

Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev, facing resurgent nationalism from many of the Soviet Union’s ethnic minorities and communal violence in two of the country’s republics, declared Sunday that, however liberal his policies, he is determined to uphold the unity of the country.

In a tough speech meant to reassert his leadership in what he acknowledged as a political crisis, Gorbachev warned the southern Soviet republics of Armenia and Azerbaijan, where centuries of enmity have threatened to turn into civil war, that such violence would be put down quickly and, if necessary, by military force.

“Working people all over the country are worried by the developments in Azerbaijan and Armenia and now in some other republics,” Gorbachev said, warning that the communal strife was jeopardizing further liberalization in the country’s political, economic and social policies, a broad reform program known as perestroika .

Speech to Parliament

Gorbachev was addressing the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet, the country’s Parliament, in advance of a special meeting Tuesday to consider far-reaching constitutional changes, which will lay the foundation for a new political system here. Although the Presidium met Saturday, Gorbachev’s speech was not broadcast on radio and television until Sunday evening, when it would reach a maximum nationwide audience.

“Vast new opportunities result from the democratization of life in Soviet society,” Gorbachev said, “and we should not ignore the fact that if they are not used very skillfully, to put it mildly, and without the proper degree of responsibility it is possible to make serious mistakes that would have negative consequences.

“Society is emerging from a period of stagnation, and it is developing its potential. Along with this process, attempts are being made to kindle hostility among ethnic groups, in the relations between various nationalities. This would be disastrous, and it would jeopardize perestroika .”

Two Communist Party officials were dismissed as regional party secretaries in Azerbaijan over the weekend following anti-Armenian riots that began in their districts last Tuesday and that continue despite army intervention and the imposition of curfews and other emergency regulations.

With the official death toll at 10 from the clashes in Azerbaijan and Armenia over the past week, Soviet authorities are still attempting to restore law and order to many of the riot-torn districts there, according to accounts in the official Soviet press Sunday.

The very toughness of Gorbachev’s remarks seemed to reflect the danger that the communal strife in Armenia and Azerbaijan posed to the whole reform program.

Not only had Armenians been threatened with what military commanders again described as “attempted massacres” in Azerbaijan, but government and party offices had been attacked there along with police stations in what central authorities took as a serious challenge to Soviet power.

Reports in the armed forces newspaper Red Star, the youth paper Komsomolskaya Pravda and in other newspapers all said that, even with the deployment of internal security forces and army units, the party and government had not yet been able to re-establish control of all Azerbaijan, where even the capital, Baku, seemed able to defy military authority.

‘Demand to Stop Demagogues’

“A resounding demand is being made now, especially on the part of the working class, that it is necessary to stop the demagogues, those who embark on political adventures that take advantage of the process of democratization and of political openness,” Gorbachev said.

Criticizing the dramatic bid earlier this month for “sovereignty” by the Baltic republic of Estonia, Gorbachev also set firm limits on his liberalism, basing it on the improvement of the country’s socialist system and not on a shift toward a mixed economy where capitalism would play a greater role than that of socialism.

“These must be rejected and recognized as having no legal force,” Gorbachev said of the Estonian laws, pounding the table with his hand for emphasis as he spoke to leaders of the country’s 15 constituent republics and other members of the Presidium during the Kremlin meeting.

While Estonia’s president, Arnold Ruutel, defended his republic’s actions, he received little support, even from like-minded republics, including Armenia, Georgia, Latvia and Lithuania, which all yielded to Kremlin pressure.

Consequences Not Considered

Admonishing Ruutel that he should have warned Estonians of the consequences of their actions, including the nationwide backlash against their small republic, Gorbachev said that it was “precisely on the basis of a single national economic complex, relying on the division of labor and the pooling of efforts, that we have succeeded in bringing a backward country to a contemporary level.”

The each-republic-for-itself approach favored by Estonia would undercut his whole program of political and economic reforms, Gorbachev added.

Nor was he ready to accept, Gorbachev declared, the decentralization of power to the point where the Soviet Union’s republics would be joined together only in a loose confederation.

“Our future is not in weakening ties among the republics, but in strengthening them, in broadening cooperation,” he said. “But this does not rule out the idea that those areas where people work better should get more.”

Estonia’s assertion of the right to veto national legislation was rejected by the Presidium, as had been expected, as unconstitutional.

‘Linked by Destiny’

“We are one family, we have a common home and we have accomplished much, thanks to concerted effort,” Gorbachev said. “We are all linked by a common destiny.”

But, at Gorbachev’s suggestion, an important compromise was formulated that envisions constitutional guarantees to protect not only the “political, social and economic interests” of the country’s constituent republics but also their “sovereign rights.”

Although this falls far short of the broad declaration of home rule and republican rights that the Estonian Parliament made on Nov. 16, it goes well beyond what the national republics now have in practice, and Gorbachev pledged that the focus of the next phase of political reforms would be on relations between the center and the country’s outlying republics and regions.

Finger-Wagging Criticism

“I want to state that we ought to see the legitimacy of the many real questions that Estonia faces and that demand solution,” Gorbachev said, relenting after more than 10 minutes of finger-wagging criticism. “We ought to be as attentive to them as possible, and the working people of Estonia and its Supreme Soviet must know that the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the U.S.S.R. understands and shares their concerns.”

In making clear the limits of his liberalism prior to the special session of the Supreme Soviet, Gorbachev at the same time opened new political, economic and social areas for ideological exploration as part of perestroika .

Soviet socialism could be redefined, he suggested, through experimentation as long as important, basic principles are not violated.