Gorbachev May Indeed Have a Plan : Soviet Union: Letting popular sentiment express itself may be setting the stage to corner the hard-liners.

Among Soviet-watchers the contest of hypotheses proceeds unabated: Mikhail Gorbachev has lost the reformers’ faith--and the fidelity of other reformers; Gorbachev is captive to conservative reactionaries; Gorbachev the failed democrat is becoming the furtive despot.

Time out! Before these fears become conventional wisdom, another hypothesis merits consideration: Gorbachev is setting the stage to legitimize changes in the Soviet Union that he knows are unavoidable. The referendum next Sunday to test sympathy for continuing the Soviet federation could facilitate secession by some republics and altered relations among others.

What is the evidence for this speculation? It is obscured by the clear signs of counterreformation in the Kremlin. One by one the Soviet president’s progressive allies have departed in dejection, leaving the field to vocal advocates of a hard line toward the Baltic freedom movements and similar stirrings elsewhere.

Yet glasnost has already wrought a revolution that works against the proponents of Soviet empire. Note the reluctance of those in command to acknowledge a role in decisions to use force against citizens in the rebellious republics. Months ago, when violence took many lives in Baku and Tbilisi, there was a striking sense of apology among authorities at the center. Military officers and defense ministry officials muttered that their job was to defend the Soviet Union against foreign adversaries, not to suppress Soviet citizens.

The pattern repeated itself in the January crackdown in Lithuania. Interior Minister Boris K. Pugo and Defense Minister Dimitri T. Yazov were at pains to stress that there had been no directive from Moscow to fire on people in Vilnius. The finger pointed to the local commander, incited and abetted by party activists.

Some observers conclude that Gorbachev and his current cronies want the benefits of bloodshed without the onus of ordering it. Yet when national-salvation committees call on Moscow to preserve the union against dangerous dissidents, the ploy is too transparent to bring credit on anyone. The effect is not to confirm the viability of repression but to call into question the judgment of those proposing it.

Even more than in the outbursts in Georgia and Azerbaijan, the assaults on Lithuanians served to rally leaders of other republics who worry that the same fate could strike them.

Notably, the Kremlin’s objections to Lithuania’s Feb. 9 plebiscite on independence were verbal, not physical. The maneuver carried real risks for the Lithuanians, but the fact that the Soviets did not disrupt the proceedings suggests an awareness that brute force is no solution to their dilemma. That Gorbachev allowed popular sentiment to express itself with such clarity--not only in Lithuania, but also in Latvia and Estonia-- may be the critical clue to his plans. In recent private encounters he has shown himself surprisingly serene, still professing determination to shape a political settlement of his country’s raging discontents.

There is pronounced ambivalence in Russia itself toward the Soviet Union’s future character. Some count the Baltics and Transcaucasian republics as vital to the grandeur of their state; others see them as burdens to be set aside while Russia revitalizes itself. Given such mixed emotions, those who favor a multinational state--and this surely includes Gorbachev--find themselves on the slipperiest of slopes. Inept coercion on the periphery promises only to aggravate resistance in the heartland, no matter how much old-guard communists argue the authoritarian case.

These observations run against the grain of Gorbachev’s public vehemence about the danger of disorder if the union breaks up. He sharply rebukes Russian leader Boris Yeltsin and others who are pressing for drastic decentralization of authority. The situation is too fluid and interests are too varied to permit a neat resolution of these tensions.

Surely Gorbachev does not expect next Sunday’s referendum to produce a rousing vote of confidence in the existing federation. Six republics are now even refusing to participate. Too shrewd to bank on the improbable, he may well be using the device to corner the reactionaries. His purpose may be to demonstrate that they have no hope of imposing an order after it has been publicly repudiated.

Wishful thinking? Perhaps. If that is his purpose, however, the world is about to witness a political masterstroke.