Gorbachev Ends Local Control of Moscow Police

Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev stripped Moscow’s liberal city government of control of the capital’s police force on Tuesday as radicals declared that they would proceed with a protest rally despite a new ban on demonstrations.

Gorbachev acted a day after his Cabinet prohibited all political meetings and protests in Moscow until April 15 to prevent the rally planned Thursday in support of Gorbachev’s rival, Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin, whom conservatives are trying to oust.

But Democratic Russia, a coalition of liberal and radical parties, announced its intention to hold the demonstration in a square just outside the Kremlin with the backing of the Moscow City Council.

“After this decree (banning protests), we expect even more people to take part,” said Igor Kharichev, a Democratic Russia official.

Denouncing the government decisions as tantamount to a state of emergency and unconstitutional, the group again demanded Gorbachev’s resignation.

Moscow Mayor Gavriil Popov, a radical economist who took over City Hall last year, also criticized the ban on rallies.

“Despite the difficult time Moscow is going through, the situation in the capital is not so serious as to demand such extraordinary measures as to deprive Muscovites of the basic human rights guaranteed in the Soviet constitution,” Popov said in a statement.

Gorbachev, in strengthening the central government’s control over Moscow, seemed to be preparing for a showdown with Yeltsin’s supporters in their continuing struggle over the course of the nation’s political and economic reforms.

“Moscow has become a hostage of the political confrontation now under way in the country,” Gorbachev said in a lengthy interview on state television Tuesday evening. “One cannot allow an atmosphere in the capital that would not permit all our constitutional bodies to function normally. It is necessary to protect them and secure them against these meetings. Pressure on the deputies won’t do--is that real democracy?”

Under Gorbachev’s decree, Moscow’s police will be in a new department of the Soviet Interior Ministry and no longer be subordinate to the city and regional councils, under control of liberals since last year’s local elections.

With tensions mounting, Soviet Prime Minister Valentin S. Pavlov appealed to Moscow residents not to become involved in “risky political games.”

Pavlov accused Democratic Russia members of “deceiving people, frightening them with the phantom of dictatorship. In fact, they are using force themselves to satisfy their political ambitions.”

Meanwhile, Soviet lawmakers ordered 300,000 striking coal miners to suspend their 3 1/2-week work stoppage for two months and return to work while their grievances are discussed.

The Supreme Soviet, the country’s legislature, also directed the national and republic governments to consider immediately the miners’ economic and social demands, dealing with the mine managements and the unions to improve working and living conditions.

“The Supreme Soviet adopted this drastic measure in view of the grave economic situation caused by the continued labor unrest in the mining industry,” the official news agency Tass said. “It aims to prevent irreparable damage to the country’s economy and a possible disruption of major social programs.”

More than 165 of the 600 mines in the country were on strike Tuesday, according to the Independent Miners’ Union. Although it did not have a current total of miners on strike, last week the union estimated that 300,000 workers were taking part.

Reacting with anger to the legislative action, miners declared their determination to continue their protest until their leaders, who were gathered in Moscow for an all-night strategy session, ordered them to return to work.

“I personally think we should continue our strike,” said Anatoly I. Snegurets, a member of the miners’ union. “But the official decision of the Independent Miners’ Union will be clear only in the morning.”

The strike--which began March 1 in the Karaganda coal fields of the Central Asian republic of Kazakhstan and in pits in the Ukraine’s Donetsk Basin--has spread to all major and most minor mining regions across the Soviet Union.

“The legislators found time to vote to end our strike, but they never found time to solve our demands,” complained Ivan D. Olenig, a member of the strike committee in the Donetsk, the heart of the Ukrainian coal region. “The Supreme Soviet did not want to listen to us, so the miners don’t want to listen to the Supreme Soviet.”

The union has called for the resignations of Gorbachev and of the Supreme Soviet, saying that they have lost the confidence of the people.

“I think the Supreme Soviet has political motives for trying to stop the strike,” Snegurets said. “They are trying to avoid facing a question of ‘no confidence.’ ”

Political tensions have risen sharply with the miners’ strike. Pro-Yeltsin liberals have strongly backed the miners, using the strike as leverage against the central government in the continuing struggle for control over the pace and extent of reforms in the Soviet Union.

Conservatives sought a special session of the Russian Congress of People’s Deputies to censure Yeltsin over his demand that Gorbachev resign as well as for Russia’s economic problems.

But Yeltsin has clear voter support from the March 17 referendum in which about 70% of those participating favored the creation of a popularly elected presidency for Russia, the Soviet Union’s largest republic.

At its last demonstration, Democratic Russia drew more than 200,000 people into Manezh Square near the Kremlin to support Yeltsin and call for Gorbachev’s resignation.

In an interview published in the Communist Party newspaper Pravda, Moscow’s police chief, Pyotr S. Bogdanov, warned citizens to stay away from the city center on Thursday.

But Bogdanov denied reports that armored vehicles, tear gas or other special equipment would be used for crowd control.

Gorbachev’s decree placing Moscow’s police directly under the Interior Ministry is part of the long-running battle between Gorbachev and the liberals for control of the city.

Moscow’s law enforcement agency was formerly accountable both to the City Council and the Interior Ministry. But the ministry vetoed the new police chief appointed by the City Council this year in an effort to ensure that it retained control.

Vadim V. Bakatin, a Gorbachev adviser, told a news conference that the president’s decree on the Moscow police force was a temporary measure that would be formalized later in a law on the status of Moscow.

Gorbachev has proposed making Moscow a federal district and appointed a committee in January to research what measures should be taken. But Moscow city officials have charged that Gorbachev is trying to decrease the powers of the democratically elected City Council and its liberal leaders.