Estonia Party Votes to Split From Moscow

The Communist Party in the Soviet Baltic republic of Estonia, following the lead of neighboring Lithuania, voted Sunday to break with the Soviet Communist Party and work for the state’s full independence.

The Estonian Communists voted 432 to 3 to proclaim their independence from the Soviet party at a special congress in Tallinn, the republic’s capital, but party officials said that more than 230 delegates, most of them Russians, did not take part in the vote.

The Estonian party decided, however, to move more cautiously than the Lithuanians have, laying down a step-by-step, six-month transition for the formal break with Moscow. The establishment of an independent Communist Party will not come until October, and the issue of Estonian independence lies even further in the future.

“The Estonian Communist Party is now, in practical terms, an independent party, just as the Lithuanian Communist Party is,” Henry Soova, a party spokesman, said in Tallinn, “and our goal is to re-establish the independence and sovereignty of our country, just as it is in Lithuania. There should be no mistake about this.

“But in Estonia we are seeking another way from that chosen by Lithuania, and we will not proclaim independence immediately. This process will require time. We must first have negotiations with the Soviet Union, and the political decisions will be made after that.”

Moscow is nonetheless confronted now with the determined push for secession by another of the Soviet Union’s 15 republics, and this will increase pressure on the central government to resolve the crisis over Lithuania’s declaration of independence two weeks ago.

The war of nerves continued to increase in Lithuania as armed, fatigue-clad Soviet paratroopers occupied four Communist Party buildings in central Vilnius, the capital, on Sunday evening on orders, they said, to “protect” them.

President Vytautas Landsbergis, suspecting plans to oust his government during the night, demanded an explanation from the Soviet army and was told by local garrison commanders that the troops are simply guarding the buildings because of a request from the Lithuanian Communist Party faction loyal to Moscow.

“The evidence is that there are preparations to take over this very building,” Deputy Premier Romualdas Ozolas said on the steps of the Lithuanian Supreme Council in Vilnius. “There is so much evidence, and it is so undeniable, there is not reason not to believe it.”

Ozolas will head the Lithuanian delegation in talks this morning with local military commanders on easing the tensions in Vilnius.

Soviet authorities have repeatedly declared their desire for a political resolution of the conflict with Lithuania and have pledged that military force will not be used.

The surprise publication of today’s edition of a Russian-language newspaper, Sovietskaya Litva, which had been an official party newspaper until recently when its name was changed, aroused further fears of a possible overnight move by the army.

The paper’s editorial seemed almost to presume that the present government, elected four weeks ago and led by Sajudis, the Lithuanian nationalist movement, had already been replaced by a “legitimate” Communist Party.

An editorial in the paper declared “regret that many good men have fallen to popular pressure” and supported the Sajudis government. “We will continue to defend the sovereign right of the party to rule,” the editorial added.

The Soviet army made no move on Sunday, however, to arrest the hundreds of Lithuanian soldiers, sailors and air force personnel who have deserted from the Soviet armed forces. Some have taken refuge in churches, hospitals and in camps established by the new Lithuanian government, and military authorities have warned they would be subject to arrest starting Sunday.

Many people went to the churches and markets in Vilnius as normal Sunday, but damp spring weather kept many at home. Aside from the army’s occupation of the four buildings near the city center, Vilnius was quiet, as was the rest of Lithuania, despite repeated assertions by the central government of near anarchy there.

Landsbergis, in an interview with The Times on Sunday, expressed fear that the army might even be planning to act in Lithuania without permission of the central government--in effect, using the Lithuanian situation to put President Mikhail S. Gorbachev under pressure or even to remove him.

“God help us that this not be,” Landsbergis said, clearly worried not only for the fate of Lithuania but also for the Soviet Union.

“I see before me a lot of Soviet soldiers in Vilnius, the very cocky attitude of extremist Stalinists, and tomorrow’s issue of Sovietskaya Litva is already being printed outside Lithuania.”

The Moscow loyalists, who number about 35,000 party members, have the ability to organize large rallies, Landsbergis asserted, and such rallies could easily upset Lithuania’s political balance. Disturbances thus could easily become a pretext for military intervention to restore order.

Gen. Valentin I. Varennikov, commander in chief of Soviet land forces, told the newspaper Sovietskaya Rossiya in an interview published Sunday that the military has intelligence reports that Lithuanians are gathering arms, recruiting a republic militia and making other preparations for possible clashes.

“We have had enough of such sad experiences,” Varennikov said, recalling the use of troops in the southern republics of Azerbaijan and Armenia. “There was such a hullabaloo on the troops going there and the consequences. But nobody asked--what would have happened if the troops did not go?”

Varennikov, who is now in Lithuania on orders from Gorbachev, accused Sajudis of turning into a dictatorship that is now trying to eliminate the Communist Party and, with Western advisers, re-establish the capitalist system Lithuania had before World War II.

“When the law is approved that bans criticism of the government, we can expect arrests of all Communists,” Varennikov contended. “They have already destroyed the party. What is left is only to send Communists to labor camps or prisons.”

In Vilnius, Varennikov’s comments were widely read as the military’s argument for its intervention in Lithuania, and this added to fears of an impending move against the new government.

Embattled Lithuania drew support over the weekend from the other Baltic republics, Estonia and Latvia, at the monthly meeting of the Baltic Council.

Times staff writer Parks reported from Moscow and Schrader, a free-lance journalist, reported from Vilnius.