Soviet Unity Vote Divides Ukrainians

This country’s future will be placed today in the hands of, among others, Alexander I. Demyensky, a ruddy-faced foreman at the sprawling shipyards here on the banks of the Dnieper River.

With the hour of decision fast approaching, the 42-year-old Ukrainian, like many of his countrymen, was still puzzling over what to do.

“In Italy, you know, they live pretty good, and in Norway, too,” said Demyensky, chief of a work team that welds sections of steel plating into hull sections for tankers and other merchant vessels. “Maybe we, too, in the Soviet Union should break into smaller units like those places, instead of trying to feed 290 million people at one go.”

In a sentence, that is exactly the issue President Mikhail S. Gorbachev wants the country to decide today. From the Pacific Ocean to the Polish border, Soviet citizens will be asked in a non-binding referendum to approve of Gorbachev’s vision of a “renewed” union of “sovereign republics,” all--in theory--equal.

Plagued by flare-ups of nationalism and secessionist fever in the outlying republics, Gorbachev has warned that the implosion of the multi-ethnic superpower he heads would be more catastrophic than the Chernobyl nuclear accident.

Dismantling the Soviet Union would be “virtually a criminal offense,” because it took czars and Communist commissars centuries to build it, Gorbachev said during a recent speech in Byelorussia.

The breakup of the continent-size country is precisely what millions want. In Georgia, Armenia, Moldova and the Baltic republics--all of which have refused to organize local participation in today’s referendum, let alone to be bound by the results--the motivation is nationalist, anti-Communist and, perhaps, in some cases, anti-Russian.

For countless others, including Demyensky and his welders and steel cutters, the overriding consideration seems to be what will help people live better. Will a “renewed” union bring an end to the rationing of socks, shampoo and sugar in this city of 360,000? Or is it just snazzier repackaging for a centralized state that Peter the Great would have no trouble recognizing?

“One thing is sure: We don’t need the kind of union we have now. It’s given us workers nothing,” complained Tolik Petrechenko, 42, a steel-toothed father of two, as he and his comrades, dressed in grease-smeared quilted vests, lay down their tools at the Kherson shipyard’s welding and assembly shop No. 4 to talk to a visitor about politics.

Both Gorbachev and his foes hope to exploit that kind of grass-roots dissatisfaction.

“We can only get out of this mess separately,” said one avowed opponent of the Soviet president, Nikolai M. Litvinov, Kherson metalworker and member of the Ukrainian Democratic Party. “The center (Moscow) is supposed to redistribute resources, under the way our state now runs. But I don’t think that’s normal. If I work harder, or my republic works harder, why shouldn’t I, or the Ukraine, earn more?”

Victor Lesnoy, another Kherson-based advocate of Ukrainian independence, said flatly: “The point of the referendum is to keep Gorbachev in power. If the vote is positive, it will be exploited as the people’s will. If not, the enterprise will be dismissed as merely an opinion poll.”

Lesnoy put his finger on one of the murkiest aspects of the first referendum in Soviet history--its very reason for being. The results do not commit the country to any specific action because Gorbachev’s draft for a new “union treaty” has to be approved by the republics separately. With Soviet politics in chaos, Gorbachev seems to want a plebiscite to show that his policies are still in tune with the people.

With more territory than France and 51.7 million inhabitants, or roughly the same population, the Ukraine is a vital member of Gorbachev’s federation, as well as an ideal candidate for independence. A trip through the Ukraine on the eve of the referendum found it a fitting microcosm for the country at large: It was badly divided, although overall approval for Gorbachev’s plan did not seem in doubt.

In the green, hilly western regions, only incorporated into the Soviet Union on the eve of World War II as one of the fruits of the Nazi invasion of Poland, elected officials and grass-roots nationalists want to turn the referendum into a vote on secession.

In Lvov and two nearby oblasts, a separate question has even been put on the ballot to gauge support for Ukrainian independence.

“I tell people that if we do not found our own state, we will vanish as a people. We will be swallowed up in the vast Russian swamp, along with our culture, our language,” said Lyubomir T. Senyk, a gray-haired researcher on 20th-Century Ukrainian literature, who as Lvov regional chairman of the pro-independence movement Rukh is a key agitator for secession.

In Lvov and neighboring Ternopol and Ivano-Frankovsk, only a minority is likely to vote in favor of Gorbachev’s brand of federalism. In other parts of the Ukraine, including the coal-rich Donetsk Basin, the Black Sea rim and the monotonous and wind-scoured southern steppes, the ties that bind people to “the center”--Moscow--remain numerous and strong.

In Kherson, where two-thirds of the population is nominally Ukrainian, ethnic “consciousness” is so muted that the mayor, Oleg V. Shvydky, confused a recent American visitor by referring to “our collective Russian character,” forgetting for at least a moment that he is in fact another kind of Slav altogether, a Ukrainian.

Of Kherson’s 42 middle schools, only six deliver instruction in Ukrainian, meaning that the vast majority of children in the city--founded by Catherine the Great in 1778 as an outpost of the Russian Empire against the Turks--learn to read, write and do arithmetic in the czarina’s mother tongue.

Significantly, unlike the experience of Transcaucasia, Central Asia or the Baltics, no Ukrainian blood has been shed in political strife. Many say a measure of the credit for what consensus there is belongs to the republic’s president, Leonid M. Kravchuk, the former No. 2 official in the Ukrainian Communist Party and a convert to the cause of “sovereignty.”

“In five years, I want the Ukraine to have a democratic constitution and laws that will allow it to integrate itself fully into Europe,” the silver-haired Kravchuk declared during a pre-referendum swing through Lvov. “The Ukraine must become a mighty state that the entire world will respect.”

As some nationalists point out, such ringing generalities could be construed to be in favor of either independence or the federation that Gorbachev seeks. Mary Mycio, editor of Rukh’s English-language news bulletin published in Kiev, said tartly that the jury is out on whether Kravchuk “is actually a wily nationalist, or an even wilier Communist.”

To reinforce his mandate, Kravchuk has placed a separate question on today’s ballot, asking Ukrainians whether they agree that their republic should belong to Gorbachev’s union, but on the basis of the Ukraine’s own declaration of sovereignty. It proclaims the Ukraine’s right to its own army and its intention to become a neutral, nonaligned state.

Kravchuk’s actions have split Communist ranks and won him plaudits from the nationalists he had so vigorously lambasted when he was the Ukrainian party’s chief ideologue. During Kravchuk’s visit to Lvov, pro-independence Mayor Vasily I. Shpitser handed him a glass replica of a bulava , the scepter that was the badge of a Cossack leader’s authority, in a gesture impregnated with respect and hope for the future.

As the country prepared for the referendum, Pravda, the Communist Party’s top newspaper, warned darkly that there is only a choice between “union or chaos.” In a full-fledged retreat from glasnost , the news columns and radio and TV news shows of Kremlin-controlled media have been transformed into virtual nonstop commercials plugging the “yes” vote that Gorbachev wants.

While smoking harsh Express cigarettes one afternoon in his office, the leader of Kherson’s Communists tallied the reasons for preserving the Soviet Union. “If this country breaks up, then we lose the right to sit on the (U.N.) Security Council, right?” asked Georgy I. Naidya, 51. “Also, who will defend us from the territorial claims of our neighbors, like Poland, Czechoslovakia and Romania?

“And who gets the Soviet Union’s gold?” he continued. “And the diamond fund? And of course, how about the nuclear arms?”

Legitimate questions all.

If any of the Soviet Union’s constituent republics could survive and even flourish on its own, it would seem to be the Ukraine, rich in natural resources and industrial muscle. According to economists, the Ukraine makes roughly a third of all Soviet steel, rolled ferrous metals and steel pipe. It produces half of the country’s granulated sugar, a third of its vegetable oil and a fourth of its butter.

But almost three-quarters of a century of state socialism have built a Rube Goldberg-esque economic contraption in the Ukraine that defies an outsider’s logic. It may be one of the biggest barriers to a separate existence.

Lvov’s 50th Anniversary of the U.S.S.R. Bus Plant is an eloquent example of how the Ukraine is both a beneficiary, and a hostage, of the Soviet economy.

Behind the plant’s mint-green, two-block facade, workers turn out 13,000 buses annually, including a bone-jarring yet durable 34-seater, the LAZ 695. Only the bodies are made in the Lvov plant; everything else gets shipped in. The engines come from Moscow or the Kamaz works in the Volga Basin. The gas tanks come from the Urals, 1,500 miles away. Such “socialist division of labor” sometimes does not make sense.

“We have metal pipes in the Ukraine, but we have to bring them here from Lipetsk because Gossnab (the State Supply Committee) has so ordained,” Stepan I. Davydyak, the Lvov plant’s deputy director for economic affairs, said with a shrug of resignation.

What is more, just as government bureaucrats allocate raw materials for the manufacture of buses, they also decide who gets the product and what its price will be. A LAZ 695 is deemed to be worth 21,000 rubles, or only about $1,000, according to the best barometer of Soviet supply and demand--the black market.

Thoughts of breaking the web of economic ties spun over decades--and the knowledge that many of their products cannot compete on the world market--terrify Soviet economic managers. These ties are some of the most common reasons cited for retaining the union and its single economy.

“We have more than 500 suppliers from all over the country--to say we should sever our connections is crazy nonsense,” said Vladimir N. Babyar, deputy technical director at Kherson’s 60th Anniversary of the Leninist Komsomol Shipyard, which employs 13,000 people and each year turns out three tankers with a 30,000-ton capacity, along with a host of smaller craft.

In the final analysis, what the Soviet people will be voting on today is their vision of the future. Some see the union as a drain on their own republics’ prosperity or place more trust in local leaders, such as Russian Federation President Boris N. Yeltsin or the Ukraine’s Kravchuk, than in Gorbachev. Others, with the age-old Slavic fear of disorder, are afraid of what might happen if strong central authority is dissolved.

Official referendum vote counting may take as long as a week. Two voices, heard at opposite ends of the Ukraine, summarize in advance the clash of views:

“In our long history, we have seen before what price we have had to pay for division,” said Grigory V. Yakubovsky, an executive at the Lvov bus plant. “Once, it was every Russian prince for himself. The result was invasion from abroad and great sorrow for the people.”

Said Vladimir Yukhno, chairman for the Ukrainian Democratic Party in Kherson: “We are being told that we can belong to a new union of ‘sovereign’ states. I have the impression that a big fish has swallowed a little fish, but to make the little one feel better is now trying to persuade it that it’s sovereign.”

THE SOVIET SHOWDOWN

Q: Do you consider that the preservation of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics as a renewed federation of equal and sovereign republics, in which the rights and freedoms of a person of any nationality will be guaranteed in full, is necessary?

On Sunday, 200 million Soviet voters will be asked to respond “yes” or “no” to that question, which President Mikhail S. Gorbachev wants answered in the affirmative to justify his plan for reforming the Soviet political system but also preserving it as a federal state. In many places, local lawmakers have refused to heed Gorbachev and to organize the first referendum in Soviet history, or they have added their own ballot questions. Six republics are refusing to participate. Radicals and progressives are seeking a “no” vote to show dissatisfaction with Gorbachev’s six years in power.

Here’s what each republic plans:

1. LITHUANIA: Will not participate. Held own referendum on Feb. 9, when more than 90% of voters favored Lithuanian independence.

2. LATVIA: Will not participate. Held own referendum on March 3, when more than 77% of voters supported independence. The legislature has said that if Soviet loyalists, Moscow-controlled factories or military units stationed in the republic try to organize some sort of unsanctioned vote Sunday, the result will not be valid.

3. ESTONIA: Will not participate. Held own referendum on March 3, when 78% of voters favored Estonian independence. The legislature has said “Soviet citizens” in the republic can vote in Sunday’s referendum if they wish, but the results will have no legal consequence.

4. RUSSIA: Will participate. But will ask voters two added questions: Whether they believe it necessary to preserve the Russian Republic “as a united, federative multiethnic state within a renewed union,” and whether Russia should have a popularly elected president.

Russian Republic President Boris N. Yeltsin sought to have the latter question put on the ballot so a new Russian presidency, directly chosen by popular suffrage, could be created that would give him greater leverage and undisputed proof of grass-roots support in his political struggles with Gorbachev and the national leadership. In a similar question placed on the ballot in Moscow, voters will be asked if the mayor should be popularly elected.

5. BYELORUSSIA: Will participate.

6. UKRAINE: Will participate. But will ask voters an added question--whether they want the Ukraine to be part of the Soviet Union on the basis of the republic’s Sovereignty Declaration, which proclaims the Ukraine’s right to its own armed forces and currency. In three regions of the Western Ukraine where nationalists are in power--Lvov, Ivano-Frankovsk and Ternopol--voters will be asked to consider yet another issue: “Do you want the Ukraine to become an independent state, to resolve all domestic and international issues independently and to ensure equal rights to citizens regardless of their nationality or religious convictions?”

7. MOLDOVA: Will not participate. But Slavic-dominated enclaves in Tiraspol and Bendery and the region populated by Turkic-speaking Gagauz in the republic’s south intend to vote anyway.

8. GEORGIA: Will not participate. Plans referendum on March 31 to ask voters if they favor an independent Georgia.

9. ARMENIA: Will not participate. Plans own referendum on Sept. 21 on “secession from the U.S.S.R.”

10. AZERBAIJAN: Will participate.

11. TURKMENIA: Will participate.

12. KAZAKHSTAN: Will participate. But has altered question to read: “Do you consider it necessary to preserve the U.S.S.R. as a union of equal, sovereign states?”

13. UZBEKISTAN: Will participate. Will ask voters added question: Whether they want a sovereign Uzbekistan to be part of the Soviet Union.

14. TADZHIKISTAN: Will participate.

15. KIRGHIZIA: Will participate.

(Bulldog Edition) THE UKRAINE

The Ukraine, slightly smaller than Texas, is the second most populous of the Soviet republics. Its capital, Kiev, played the leading role in the first three centuries of Russian history. As the power center moved north, ultimately to Moscow, the Ukraine fell prey to invading Poles and Tatars. The Ukraine’s Cossacks formed a Cossack state, but it became part of the Muscovite state in 1654. After the 1917 Russian Revolution, a Ukrainian national council, the Rada, proclaimed the existence of an independent “people’s republic.” In January, 1918, the Bolsheviks overthrew the Rada, and the Red Army overran the Ukraine. The nationalist renaissance is now strongest in Lvov and other areas of the west, but the pro-Moscow Ukrainian Communist Party, with 3 million members, remains the dominant political force in the republic.