UPHEAVAL IN THE SOVIET BLOC : NEWS ANALYSIS : Inexperience and Fears of Sabotage Hamper New Leaders in Bucharest : Romania: The National Salvation Front also has to deal with people’s thirst for revenge against their former leaders.

The National Salvation Front, embattled and at times obviously confused, has been trying to maintain its credibility with the public and restore Romania’s links with the mainstream community of European nations from which it has been cut off for nearly a generation.

It has been a halting and difficult process, as events of the past few days have demonstrated.

Stepping unprepared into a world of violence and dislocation after the overthrow of dictator Nicolae Ceausescu on Dec. 22, the front has had to deal with the inexperience of its leaders and what it perceives to be a threat of sabotage and killing by the survivors of Ceausescu’s presidential guard. At the same time, it has had to respond to a society that is pressing for accountability from its leaders.

Amid public mutterings about the front’s isolation and its method of announcing decrees from a Foreign Ministry building heavily guarded by the army, interim President Ion Iliescu decreed Friday that the Communist Party of Romania will be outlawed and that the death penalty will be restored for high officials of the old regime convicted of heinous crimes against the people.

Ceausescu and his wife, Elena, have already been executed, on Christmas Day, by a military firing squad.

These decrees were issued in the face of a crowd gathered under suspicious circumstances, fueled by pint bottles of brandy handed around and--it now seems apparent--bent on discrediting the Council of the National Front.

“These pronouncements were a mistake,” Aurel Dragos Multianu, the front’s chief spokesman, told a press conference Monday. He said the front met Saturday after the decrees were issued and decided that they were “hasty” and would be revoked.

The front decided, he said, that a referendum will be held Jan. 28 to decide on the death penalty and whether the Communist Party is to be outlawed.

“We are new at this,” Multianu, who is also head of Romanian radio and television, told the reporters. “This is strange to us, and you must have patience, because we are learning.”

Friday’s demonstration took place in the course of a national day of mourning for the thousands of people who are believed to have been killed in the fighting that raged across the country just before and after Ceausescu’s flight from Bucharest on Dec. 22.

Organized Mayhem

According to witnesses, the crowd that went to the Foreign Ministry, where the interim government and the National Salvation Front make their headquarters, was determined to create a “provocation.”

“It was organized,” said Silviu Brucan, a senior member of the front’s 11-member council. “We found hundreds of empty liquor bottles after the demonstration. According to our evidence, it was a provocation.”

It was remarkably effective. Responding to the demonstrators, Iliescu, Prime Minister Petre Roman and front Vice President Dumitru Mazilu went out to speak and were repeatedly shouted down. It was in this clamor that Iliescu replied to cries of “Death for death!” with his on-the-spot revocation of the death penalty and his banning of the Communist Party.

“Iliescu did not consult with anyone,” Brucan said. “It was a terrible mistake.”

On the same day, military commanders in Timisoara, the cradle of the Romanian revolution, responded to a public outcry and took over the administration of the surrounding area until a new National Front leadership can be elected, probably within a week. Similar action was taken by the military commander in the northern town of Iasi.

Brucan said that any prospect of a military takeover is “out of the question,” but he acknowledged that military commanders are managing some sections of the Romanian economy.

“Some of the top officers of the military are excellent, and we need them now,” he said.

A continuing problem for the front is how to administer the country without turning to the Communist Party and elements of the secret police, the Securitate, which, under the old regime, held key positions in government and industry.

Spies Everywhere

The Securitate was everywhere, according to Romanians and diplomats with long experience in the country. Every office and factory had a Securitate officer assigned to monitor the activities of employees and managers.

Also, all managerial personnel in any office or factory had to be a member of the Communist Party. Thus, the front has had to rely on party members--some of dubious reliability--to keep the country functioning.

The front has promised that there will be no “witch hunts” in the revolution’s aftermath, but it realizes that many party members are scrambling for cover. Some of them, Romanians say, were innocently coerced into joining the party, while others were corrupt and used their positions for personal advantage.

The public thirst for retribution is general. In any discussion with Romanians, the general opinion on Nicu Ceausescu, the elder son of the dictator, is that he should be shot as soon as possible.

The front has promised to put Ceausescu relatives on trial soon--the exact number in custody has never been made public--along with Ceausescu’s most infamous henchmen.

While a good section of the public could be expected to support the death penalty for most of these figures, liberals in the National Salvation Front are conscious of the opinion of Western nations, which would look upon such action with disapproval.