In Lithuania, Everything Is in Short Supply--Except People’s Resolve : Secession: Residents of the Baltic republic remain committed, even as the Soviet blockade continues to spread hardship.

The query “What is life like in independent Lithuania?” drew a divided and vocal crowd in seconds.

“We’d boasted for years that we were feeding the entire Soviet Union; now we can’t even feed ourselves,” one middle-aged woman said with a grimace, showing gold-flecked teeth.

“Everything is running out in the stores, disappearing, from cigarettes to vinegar,” said Elena, a 27-year-old cashier who joined the discussion on a Vilnius street. “But why do we need help from anyone else? We only need to live in peace.”

As Lithuanians enter their third month of secession, they are showing both frazzled nerves and their serenity. If vinegar and gasoline are running short, faith in the cause isn’t, although people realize it may take longer than once expected.

“Everyone now understands that liberty is not something that is served up on a plate,” Saulius Peceliunas, 34, a member of the Supreme Council, the legislature, said in an interview. “Sometimes liberty is won at the cost of blood. With us, it’s at the cost of oil. Or rather, of no oil.”

The Lithuanians may soon have lots of company. Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev on Monday rejected the slower paths toward independence taken by the other Baltic republics, Latvia and Estonia, opening the way for possible economic sanctions against them as well.

As Secretary of State James A. Baker III flew to Moscow for pre-summit talks with his counterpart, Eduard A. Shevardnadze, Lithuania’s president, Vytautas Landsbergis, appealed to U.S. officials to raise the issue of Baltic independence with Soviet leaders. But Lithuanians seem to have painfully gained the realization that the fate of their “little land” does not weigh very much in the balance of superpower relations.

“The United States is not just interested in Lithuania, but in the situation in the entire Soviet Union,” said the republic’s vice president, Bronius Kuzmickas. “It’s hard to convince people in the West that independence for Lithuania will not be an obstacle to perestroika in the Soviet Union.”

Nevertheless, Kuzmickas said he and colleagues will keep trying.

Four weeks into sanctions imposed by the Kremlin to bring the republic back into the Soviet fold, no one among Lithuania’s 3.8 million people is apparently going hungry. But punitive measures, which include what the government says is the halving of all Soviet rail traffic to and from Lithuania, have led to tight supplies of some foodstuffs because of a fall in shipments and panic buying.

“I have a 3-month-old son, and we just can’t find the buckwheat cereal to feed him,” complained Oleg Komarov, 21, a chauffeur of Russian origin. “I’m an adult; I understand what a blockade is. But how do I explain it to my little boy when he wants his cereal?”

Because of the halt in petroleum supplies, gasoline has become so scarce and expensive that taxi drivers charge one ruble per kilometer--about $2.50 per mile--which by Soviet standards is horrendous fare-gouging. To buy gas above his monthly quota of about seven gallons, a Vilnius resident named Alexander last weekend drove more than 40 miles to a border town in Soviet Byelorussia.

Refused service there because of his tell-tale “LI” license plates, Alexander was last seen debating whether to drive another 75 miles toward Minsk to a pump that he had been assured would still sell him at least five gallons.

Lithuania’s bid to even out the economic burden of sanctions by issuing ration cards has been less than a total success, by many accounts.

“People bought up whatever they were entitled to with the talonchiki, “ said Vidmantas Dovydavicius, 28, an engineer. “Whether they would eat it or not, they bought it.”

Nonetheless, what may seem a shortage in this agriculturally bountiful republic looks like a horn of plenty to a visitor accustomed to the barren stores of Moscow. At the state-run butcher shop on a street once named for the founder of the Soviet secret police but now given back its pre-Soviet name, Calvary Street, Rolandas Cepulis served customers good-looking pork chops at two rubles a kilo, or about $1.50 a pound.

“The supply was never any good, so that hasn’t changed,” said the 27-year-old butcher in the blood-splattered apron, pausing with his cleaver to chat. “What we have, we give to people. Like before. No change.”

Lithuanians laugh openly at claims that force is not being used to maintain the Kremlin’s grip on their republic, or to cow the civilian population, as Soviet Col. Grigory Byelousov, commander of the Vilnius garrison, maintains. Early Saturday morning, more than 100 vehicles painted in camouflage set off from a Soviet military post in northern Vilnius on a mysterious errand, likely waking tens of thousands of people in the process.

Many Lithuanians relieve resulting tensions through black humor. Hearing the drone of a Hind helicopter of the Soviet armed forces, one resident exclaimed: “Ah, finally, the first swallow of spring!”

Not all is gaiety, however. Many people who spoke to a Western reporter were reluctant to give their names, a rarity in the glasnost- era Soviet Union, or for a republic that once belonged to it.

Lithuanians say the sanctions imposed on them by Moscow may prove porous, though they have a hard time finding such proof so far.

“On an official level, it’s impossible for us to receive help from other republics, but they are interested in concluding agreements because of a need for food, which we produce a lot of,” said Kuzmickas, the vice president.

Peceliunas, a fellow Parliament member, said the Soviets close their eyes to such commercial ties.

“Instead of being lifted in one day, the blockade will likely melt away,” he said.

Dahlburg, who is based in Moscow, was in Vilnius earlier this week.