Lithuanians Will Declare Freedom From Soviet Union : Baltic state: The nationalist movement will act this weekend, then form a new government. The action is expected to provoke a major crisis in Moscow.

The Lithuanian nationalist movement Sajudis, whose candidates swept recent elections there, announced plans Thursday to declare Lithuania independent from the Soviet Union this weekend and then form a government.

Vytautas Landsbergis, the Sajudis chairman, said that the movement’s deputies in the Lithuanian Supreme Soviet, the Parliament of the Soviet Baltic republic, will adopt a resolution re-establishing Lithuania as an independent state at the Parliament’s opening session Sunday.

“The struggle for autonomy and independence is reaching its culmination,” Landsbergis told the Sajudis’ governing council at a daylong meeting in Vilnius, the Lithuanian capital. “We cannot delay what we have to do, we cannot put it off.”

The resolution, as drafted, declares the “re-establishment” of Lithuanian independence on the basis of the republic’s original declaration of independence from czarist Russia in 1918, a treaty with the Soviet Union signed in 1920 as the basis of relations between them and the constitution in effect when it was forcefully absorbed into the Soviet Union in 1940.

“This is not secession, but the re-establishment of our normal legal status by parliamentary means,” Landsbergis asserted. “The state we had before 1940 still exists--it has just been frozen.

“The 1918 declaration will be the basis of our new independence and the restoration of the sovereign powers of the Lithuanian state. The Supreme Soviet will seek the full embodiment of these sovereign powers.”

With two-thirds of the 123 seats in the Parliament, Sajudis has more than enough votes in the Parliament to adopt the declaration, and the Lithuanian Communist Party, which has declared its independence from the parent Soviet party, has indicated that it will not oppose the measure.

Despite Landsbergis’ assertion that Lithuania will be recovering its independence rather than seceding from the Soviet Union, the planned action will undoubtedly provoke a major constitutional and political crisis in Moscow, raising questions both about the viability of the Soviet Union as a federal state and about President Mikhail S. Gorbachev’s own authority as its leader.

Yet, the determination of Lithuanians to break away has become so strong and so apparent over the last year and a half that the inevitability of the move has been accepted by most in Moscow. The strongest opposition has come from the 20% of the republic’s 3.6 million people who are not Lithuanian but Russian, Ukrainian and Polish.

The Lithuanian Supreme Soviet’s session was brought forward several days so that its action would be completed before the Congress of People’s Deputies meets in Moscow on Monday to debate amendments to the Soviet constitution creating a powerful executive presidency.

Lithuanians are afraid that Gorbachev, who is certain to be elected to the new post early next week, will use his expanded authority to suspend the governments of the country’s constituent republics in order to prevent the republics’ break away.

Gorbachev has opposed Lithuanian independence. He campaigned hard in the republic in January for it to remain with economic independence and greater political autonomy within the Soviet Union, which itself is in the midst of far-reaching changes, including moves to create a true federal system.

But Gorbachev, who long ago forswore the use of force in resolving the Soviet Union’s political problems, appeared to recognize the virtual inevitability of the Lithuanian move and called for the drafting of legislation on procedures for a constituent republic’s withdrawal.

Earlier in the week, Gorbachev told Algirdas Brazauskas, the Lithuanian president and first secretary of the Lithuanian Communist Party, that Moscow would want repayment of the equivalent of $34 billion in investments in Lithuania and other debts that it contends the republic owes as the price for independence.

Also, trade between Lithuania and the Soviet Union, which now supplies raw materials, oil and gas in return for meat, dairy products and electronic components, would have to be conducted in freely convertible currencies, rather than Soviet rubles, Gorbachev said, and that would amount to about $13 billion a year.

“This is a big sum, one-third of our national product, and it is very difficult to know how we could settle this initially in hard currency,” Brazauskas commented later. “I am not saying this to frighten people. I must say these things because they were said to me in Moscow. It would be dishonest if I did not tell my people.”

The speed at which Sajudis is moving drew some objections Thursday from council members who thought the action precipitous.

“Slow down--don’t go too fast,” said Kazimieras Antanavicius, one of the members. “We are in a boat that is falling apart, but we should not jump ship unless it is sinking. Have we really come to the point where we must jump?

“Independence is not just a declaration--it has to be built. Who is going to manage Lithuania’s economy after all this? The legal system will have to be reorganized. We have to change our ways of thinking. I believe the Communists should be given the government because they have the experience to run it.

“Independence--the Lithuanian people want it, without a doubt they do. But do they want it the day after tomorrow? Can anyone say without a doubt that they want it that soon?”

But another Sajudis council member, Zigmas Vasvila, voicing the majority’s view, countered: “We need to have a political declaration. We are hanging in mid-air now, we are suspended in sort of a twilight.”

Landsbergis noted that the old Lithuanian republic, independent only for 22 years, is still recognized by a number of Western countries, including the United States, and this makes it important to reassert Lithuanian sovereignty on the basis of its previous constitution.

“The Republic of Lithuania still has diplomatic recognition in the West,” Landsbergis said. “The function of the (republic’s) Supreme Soviet is to continue this representation and to establish a real government in Lithuania.”

The new deputies will gather Saturday night to deal with procedural matters so that they can act swiftly Sunday on the declaration itself, which has been drafted and redrafted in a series of meetings in Vilnius this week.

The deputies must also, under the present Lithuanian constitution, elect a chairman who will also serve as president of the republic, and Landsbergis is the most likely Sajudis nominee.

Sajudis deputies will then proceed with legislation suspending Soviet laws on its territory, reenacting the 1938 Lithuanian constitution as the basic law for the republic and banning the conscription of Lithuanian youths by the Soviet armed forces.

The movement will then attempt to form a government, though some Sajudis members think that the republic’s economy is in such a poor state that this should be left to the Communist Party so that Sajudis will not be blamed for the resulting problems.

“It would be wrong for Sajudis to remain in opposition and wait for a better moment,” Landsbergis countered, reminding the movement’s governing council--which was meeting in the chambers of the Presidium of the Lithuanian Parliament--that voters had given Sajudis a mandate for change. “We should take power now.”

Sajudis has also prepared a number of its own laws, many of which will seek to shift the present state-run economy into one where private enterprise and market forces will play a growing role.

Sajudis plans to organize a massive rally outside the parliamentary chambers in Vilnius on Sunday in a show of popular support for the independence move.