Gorbachev Shuns Direct Lithuania Rule

Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev said today he hopes to avoid imposing direct presidential rule in Lithuania but would not rule out the option, and the Kremlin increased its economic pressure on the rebellious republic.

Lithuanian President Vytautas Landsbergis said in a telegram to Gorbachev today that the Soviet leader was being compelled by extreme rightists to take a hard line against independence for the Baltic republic.

Gorbachev told delegates to the Young Communist League congress in Moscow the Soviet leadership is trying to persuade the Lithuanian Parliament to reverse its March 11 declaration of independence and other resolutions seeking to establish independent control of the republic.

The Soviet president believes that Lithuania should hold a referendum on its future and he told the Komsomol delegates that he is confident residents would vote to remain part of the Soviet Union, the official news agency Tass said.

“This problem should be resolved by reforming the federation, not dividing it,” Gorbachev said.

The Sajudis nationalist movement dominated Feb. 24 elections for Lithuania’s new parliament, and the legislature declared the republic’s independence at its first meeting.

Asked about the possibility of imposing direct presidential rule in the republic, Gorbachev said he hopes that a political solution can be reached.

But Tass, reporting on Gorbachev’s comments, said, “At the same time, he did not rule out the possibility of introducing presidential rule but only as an extreme measure, if the situation there develops into a civil conflict.”

Under new powers granted him last month, Gorbachev could dissolve the Lithuanian Parliament and impose presidential rule in an emergency. The Supreme Soviet would eventually have to approve the move.

Monday, the conservative Soyuz group of about 300 members of the central Supreme Soviet proposed the Lithuanian Parliament be dissolved, new elections be called and direct central rule be imposed in the republic.

“Esteemed president, we are very concerned that ultra-rightists (and) imperial forces are compelling you to take wrong steps--to continue the wrongs of the 1940s in the Baltics,” Landsbergis said in his telegram, referring to the incorporation of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia into the Soviet Union. “Do not further this please. . . . Do not do this.”

The central government also increased its warnings today of economic hardship for Lithuania if the republic secedes. Monday, Gorbachev’s new presidential council called for new unspecified economic sanctions against the republic.

Alexander Troshin, deputy chairman of the Soviet state planning committee, said “the problem of establishing new economic relations that correspond to new political realities will arise” if Lithuania secedes.