Regional Outlook : Goodby Moscow: The Soviet Republics Speak : Tatars, Latvians, Armenians and more are all demanding a redistribution of power.

More than four centuries ago, Russian armies waving images of the saints overran and destroyed the great city of Kazan, the Tatar stronghold on the Volga. The extension of Moscow’s rule and Orthodox Christianity overwhelmed Ivan the Terrible with piety and joy.

“Let the unbelievers receive the true God, the new subjects of Russia, and let them with us praise the Holy Trinity for ages unto ages,” proclaimed the czar, who ordered a magnificent church built--St. Basil’s on Red Square--to mark the victory.

This August, the Tatars counterattacked. Proclaiming the “Republic of Tatarstan,” they claimed for themselves the same rights enjoyed by Russia and shook off the yoke of Muscovite control they had been subject to under czars and commissars since the reign of Ivan.

They were not alone. Latvians and Ingush, Armenians and Buryats, Karelians and Kazakhs, all have now demanded a fundamental redistribution of Soviet political power, an end to Moscow’s imperial mind-set and in some cases nothing less than total independence.

Like a corrosive acid, rival nationalisms, reborn religious fervor, economic grievances and resentment over Russification are eating away at the bonds of the multinational state forged by Ivan the Terrible, Peter the Great and Vladimir I. Lenin. Few believe it can survive in its present form.

“There is no future for the U.S.S.R.,” Zurab Zulidze, deputy chief of Georgia’s official Sakartvelo news agency, said after pro-independence parties swept to victory in parliamentary elections in his republic. “The world should enter the 21st Century without any colonies.”

It is one of history’s greatest ironies that the policies of President Mikhail S. Gorbachev, which have done so much to end the East-West divide, are causing the breakup of his own homeland. To preserve it, Gorba chev is now offering the 100-plus ethnic groups of the Soviet Union a bargain: greater say over local economic and social affairs in exchange for deeding control over defense, foreign policy and other key sectors to the government in the Kremlin.

Gorbachev’s proposal--codified in a “union treaty” that has been submitted to the country’s constituent republics for approval--has already been turned down by a good number of local power brokers and nationalists. “It is yet another attempt to preserve the empire,” commented Ivan Drach, chairman of the Ukrainian grass-roots organization Rukh.

Boris N. Yeltsin, leader of the Russian Federation--without which any attempt at rebuilding the Soviet Union will be stillborn--also has heaped scorn on Gorbachev’s efforts, though he supports the concept of a much looser Soviet confederation. “Behind the barrage of verbiage on the widening rights of ‘sovereign republics,’ a concentration of power in the hands of the center is under way,” Yeltsin has said.

Some political scientists say that what is happening is historical justice; that the Russians, after the British, French, Portuguese and Dutch, are finally losing their colonies.

“These republics feel they have missed the 20th Century because Moscow kept them locked up,” said Prof. Roman Szporluk, director of the Center for Russian Studies at the University of Michigan. “They feel they are on a sinking ship and want out.”

Gorbachev sees things through a different lens, stressing the shared heritage of the Soviet peoples, the need to hang together to construct an “all-union market” and achieve prosperity in common. He also stresses the “blood bath” that an ethnic free-for-all in the Soviet Union would bring.

“This union of sovereign states is, to use a military term, the last trench. Beyond that, the collapse of the state begins,” Gorbachev warned. Without the treaty, he has said, the Soviet Union faces razval-- “disintegration.” He is pressing local leaders to adopt the proposed union treaty within the next two months, but four republics flatly refuse, and numerous others--including Russia and the Ukraine--are unenthusiastic or impose additional demands.

Worldwide Implications

The splintering of the world’s biggest state and one of its two nuclear superpowers would have tremendous worldwide implications. Where, for example, would the SS-25 missiles end up? Although the Bush Administration remains committed to backing Gorbachev’s perestroika reform campaign, U.S. officials are beginning to make contacts with leaders from the periphery, as well.

“There is political fragmentation going on in the Soviet Union now whose bounds we simply don’t know. Some of it is unrealistic. Some of it is very threatening and ominous,” said Raymond Seitz, assistant secretary of state for European affairs.

Adding to the West’s foreboding is uncertainty over how the Soviet armed forces, still the world’s largest, will react. In an evident attempt to shore up his political position while simultaneously protecting the authority of the Red Army against local efforts to restrict it, Gorbachev last weekend decreed that the republics must halt interference in such sensitive areas as military conscription, which some republican parliaments have rejected as illegal.

However, the military’s disenchantment with Gorbachev and disquiet over the looming specter of national collapse are no longer confined to evening chats in the barracks and wardrooms; they’re expressed in public. Also increasing pressure on Gorbachev to hold the nation together is the alarm of die-hard Communist conservatives; the Russian party recently charged that perestroika poses “a real threat of disintegration of the Soviet Union.”

Forming what some conservatives deride as a “parade” of sovereignty declarations, 14 of the 15 union republics--like Russia and the Ukraine--and many of the so-called “autonomous republics,” which have traditionally had far fewer rights, have proclaimed themselves masters of their destinies.

Tiny Moldova (formerly Moldavia) has split into three distinct areas under the centrifugal forces threatening to tear the entire country apart. Only one section is controlled by the Moldovan nationalist government in the capital of Kishinev. A separate, Slavic-dominated “Dniester Republic” pledges continuing loyalty to the Kremlin, while the self-styled “Gagauz Republic”--home to 150,000 members of a Turkic-speaking minority--maintains independence from both Moscow and Kishinev.

In the background is widespread sympathy for the eventual reunification of Moldova with neighboring Romania, from which most of its territory was forcibly annexed by the Soviet Union in 1940.

Economic Consequences

The economic consequences of Soviet fragmentation could be enormous. The Ukraine, for example, where the powerful nationalist group Rukh is now openly pressing for full independence, is about the size of France and accounts for 25% of total Soviet food and coal production and a fifth of its gross industrial output. The Ukraine, the second-most-populous republic, is badly divided politically between a Russified east and a virulently anti-Soviet west.

Adding to the stakes of a shift in political power are claims by some republics, including Armenia and Byelorussia, on what they see as their fair share of the Soviet Union’s vast natural resources, including its diamonds, gold and foreign-currency reserves.

To comprehend the fervor of all these militant nationalist movements, consider how all-encompassing Moscow’s authority has been.

In the ostensibly “autonomous” republic of Bashkiria, for example, fully 97% of the factories were under direct supervision by Moscow-based bureaucrats. In Tatarstan, an estimated $250 billion in oil had been pumped from the ground by last year--but Tatar leaders said they got almost nothing.

Moscow, in short, looks like a ravenous leech from the provinces. “De facto, any American town has a larger measure of independence and self-government than a Soviet republic,” judges Stephan Kux of the University of Zurich, a specialist on Soviet federalism.

So little power was vested in local authorities that even the recipe for Latvia’s national cake used to need the seal of approval of bureaucrats in the Ministry of Bread and Bread Products in Moscow.

Although the Kremlin invested heavily in outlying areas, the conviction is nearly universal that the costs to the republics far outweighed any benefits. “Georgia has gotten nothing for belonging to the Soviet Union for over 60 years,” said Enver Izkharidze, secretary of the Georgian Writers Union.

Of course, the declarations of “sovereignty” don’t make it happen. Defense Minister Dmitri T. Yazov has served notice that his divisions, missiles and warships will be deployed wherever needed to safeguard Soviet security--ignoring, if necessary, local proclamations of “nuclear-free zones” or pretensions to independence in foreign policy or defense matters.

In trade and commerce too, the republics still depend heavily on each other. For instance, a long-running ethnic feud in Nagorno-Karabakh between Armenians and Azerbaijanis shut down one of the only Soviet elevator-manufacturing plants, idling construction sites even in “sovereign” locales.

Similarly, almost three-quarters of a century of monolithic rule from Moscow has cemented this continent-sized country together with a single rail network, power grid, state-run airline, higher educational system and other powerful bonds.

“You can eliminate ‘the center’ by decree, but the ties cannot simply be abolished, no matter how fierce are the declarations of sovereignty,” said Victor I. Mironenko, who represents the Komsomol Young Communist League in the Soviet Parliament.

Second Wind for Socialism’

The treaty sought by Gorbachev--a “second wind for socialism,” he has asserted--would replace the 1922 agreement that created the Soviet Union by fusing Byelorussia, the Ukraine and the Transcaucasus region with Russia. The new pact is a belated acknowledgement by Gorbachev that the “unbreakable union of free republics” so lyrically praised by the national anthem is in danger.

The union treaty would create a new federation--”the Union of Sovereign Soviet Republics”--and guarantee that each member “is a sovereign state and enjoys full state authority over its territory.”

Many think this is too little, too late. Twelve regions, from Moldova to Kirghizia, are now under states of emergency because of ethnic rioting or unrest. “Today, we are a galaxy that has exploded and is flying off in all directions, with a black emptiness at its center,” Russian writer Alexander Prokhanov has lamented.

Other forces are in search of a new order, but they are largely independent of Gorbachev. Last month, for example, the three largest republics--Russia, the Ukraine and Kazakhstan--signed treaties of cooperation that gave them formal ties outside the centralized bureaucracy.

“We are moving towards a new union, which should be shaped from the bottom up by the republics,” Kazakhstan President Nursultan Nazarbaev said. That grass-roots approach, also promoted by Yeltsin, may pose the greatest danger to Gorbachev’s union treaty in the long run.

In lieu of the Moscow-based state that traces its roots back to Ivan and his heirs, regional accords are also taking shape that could provide the embryo of future political entities. In June, the five Central Asian republics--Kazakhstan, Kirghizia, Tadzhikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan--signed an economic cooperation compact. Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, all bent on independence, have founded a standing economic commission to pave the way for a “Baltic Common Market.”

Victor Ivashkevich, secretary of the grass-roots nationalist Byelorussian Popular Front, believes such regionalization will prevent a total fracturing of the Soviet Union into microstates. “I think the U.S.S.R. will cease to exist in the near future,” he said. “Instead, there will be several alliances like the recently proposed Baltic-Black Sea Union (the Baltic states, Byelorussia and the Ukraine).”

One of the most prestigious voices to join in the debate, Nobel literature laureate Alexander I. Solzhenitsyn, has also called for the creation of a pared-down “Russian Union,” to consist only of the Slavic lands of Russia, the Ukraine, Byelorussia and a part of northern Kazakhstan.

Regions Are Co-Dependent

Economics, a driving force behind the razval, will also limit its scope. As hapless motorists in Lithuania found out this spring when Gorbachev shut off the oil, decades of economic integration have made Soviet consumers 100% dependent on other regions for raw materials and even the most basic goods.

Arguably, the future of even the most advanced republics--the Baltic trio--remains in unity. “Only free competition in the Union market will help each find its proper place in the world market,” Estonian economist Mikhail L. Bronshtein says.

But even if Gorbachev can prevent the wholesale breakup of his land, whatever remains will be far different. Under Leonid I. Brezhnev, the late Soviet president, a catchy ditty often played on the radio put the official credo to music: “My Home Is the Soviet Union.” Ethnographers in favor at the Kremlin even talked earnestly about a socialist melting pot that would meld Russians and Cossacks, Udmurts and Chechens into a single people.

Like so many of the old orthodoxies, the ideal of a single Soviet people is gone. Now taking its place is a ferocious determination to safeguard local rights and resources, a pervasive distrust of the “comrades from Moscow” and a growing conviction that the closer to home political power is located, the better.

Those attitudes guarantee that the new Soviet Union, if Gorbachev is able to create it, will be drastically different from the old. Here’s how one present--and probably future--Soviet citizen, journalist Klava Alieva of Azerbaijan, sums up the new values: “I don’t know what the U.S.S.R. will look like in a year, or indeed even if it has a future, but one thing is sure--Azerbaijan will be flourishing.”

How Ethnically Diverse Is the Soviet Union?

* 112 recognized languages are spoken

* 5 different alphabets are used

* 361 Soviets classify themselves as ethnic Americans; 185 in Russia, 116 in Kirghizia, and 60 in Tadjikistan

* 348 Soviets classify themselves as ethnic Britons

* The country’s smallest national group is the Oroki, numbering just 190

Sources: Europa World Yearbook, 1989 Soviet Census

Who’s Who in the Splintering Union

ARMENIA: 3.28 million 93% Armenian 3.3% Russian 0.5% Kurdish POPULATION GROWTH: Average

AZERBAIJAN: 7.03 million 82.6% Azeri 5.6% Russian 5.5% Armenian POPULATION GROWTH: Above Average

BYELORUSSIA: 10.20 million 77.8% Belorussian 13% Russian 4.3% Polish POPULATION GROWTH: Average

ESTONIA: 1.57 million 61.5% Estonian 30.3% Russian 3.1% Ukranian POPULATION GROWTH: Average

GEORGIA: 5.45 million 69.6% Georgian 8.1% Armenian 6.3% Russian POPULATION GROWTH: Average

KAZAKHSTAN: 16.54 million 39.7% Kazakh 37.8% Russian 5.4% Ukrainian POPULATION GROWTH: Above Average

KIRGHIZIA: 4.29 million 52.3% Kirghiz 21.5% Russian 12.9% Uzbek POPULATION GROWTH: Above Average

LATVIA: 2.68 million 51.8% Latvian 34.2% Russian 4.5% Belorussian POPULATION GROWTH: Below Average

LITHUANIA: 3.69 million 80% Lithuanian 8% Russian 8% Polish POPULATION GROWTH: Average

MOLDOVA: 4.34 million 64.5% Moldavian 13.9% Ukrainian 13.0% Russian POPULATION GROWTH: Average

RUSSIA: 147.39 million 81.6% Russian 3.8% Tatar 3% Ukrainian POPULATION GROWTH: Average

TADZHIKISTAN: 5.11 million 61% Tadzhik 23% Uzbek 14% Tatar POPULATION GROWTH: Above Average

TURKMENIA: 3.53 million 71.9% Turkmen 9.5% Russian 9% Uzbek POPULATION GROWTH: Above Average

UKRAINE: 51.70 million 72.6% Ukrainian 21% Russian 0.8% Belorussian POPULATION GROWTH: Below Average

UZBEKISTAN: 19.91 million 75.3% Uzbek 7.7% Russian 4.5% Tadzhik POPULATION GROWTH: Above Average

Source: 1989 Soviet census

Looking for a Greater Say in Their Own Internal Affairs Given their voice under President Mikhail S. Gorbachev’s policies of glasnost and perestroika, the Soviet Union’s 15 constituent republics--each of which is home to one of the country’s major nationalities--have all made it clear they want a greater say in their own affairs.

At one extreme, Lithuania formally declared its independence last March; Kirghizia is the only republic that has so far not made any declaration of sovereignty.

Here’s a comparative look at what the rebellious republics have done, or want to do:

Openly Position Declared Seeks Full On New Republic Sovereignty Independence Union Treaty** Armenia * Negative, but not yet rejected Azerbaijan * Some reservations Byelorussia * Some reservations Estonia * * Will not sign Georgia * * Will not sign Kazakhstan * Positive in principle Kirghizia A firm yes Latvia * * Will not sign Lithuania * * Will not sign Moldova * Opinion divided Russia * Luke warm; Sets conditions Tadjikistan * Positive in principle Turkmenia * Some reservations Ukraine * First wants own Constitution Uzbekistan * Some reservations

** Treaty proposed by Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev would give greater say to republics over local economic and social affairs in exchange for deeding their authority over defense, foreign policy, and other key issues.

Non-Communist Republic Government Armenia * Azerbaijan Byelorussia Estonia * Georgia * Kazakhstan Kirghizia Latvia * Lithuania * Moldova * Russia * Tadjikistan Turkmenia Ukraine Uzbekistan

What they’ve done; Republic What they want Armenia Seeks own army; Self-imposed ban on exports Azerbaijan Claims full ownership of all resources Byelorussia Seeks own security force, state prosecutor Estonia Prints own money Georgia Pro-independence candidates sweep parliament vote Kazakhstan Bans nuclear testing Kirghizia Sovereignty Declaration expected Latvia Blocks outbound consumer goods Lithuania First to declare sovereignty; Kremlin pressure resulted Moldova Many would like to rejoin Romania Russia Demands right to name Soviet premier Tadjikistan Rejects idea of separate army Turkmenia Proclaims ethnic equality Ukraine Divided; Wants own army, currency Uzbekistan Declared ownership of its cotton output