Gorbachev Ends Party Rule : He Seizes Communist Assets, Disbands Cells : Coup aftermath: The president steps down as general secretary and names panel of reformers to oversee economy.

President Mikhail S. Gorbachev, delivering a death blow to the party that made him and ultimately betrayed him, quit his post as general secretary of the Soviet Communist Party on Saturday and, using his presidential powers, nationalized the party’s property and assets and disbanded its cells in all state organizations.

Gorbachev also declared his intention to dissolve the present Soviet Cabinet, and he appointed a committee headed by Russian Prime Minister Ivan S. Silayev to oversee the country’s economy in a further step forward forming a coalition government.

Together, the moves effectively end nearly three-quarters of a century of the party’s rule over the Soviet Union and herald a new, post-Communist political era for the country.

Denouncing the party leadership for failing to oppose last week’s conservative coup d’etat and accusing some of its top officials of helping to plan it, Gorbachev called for the dissolution of the party’s policy-making Central Committee and urged other party bodies to assess their roles.

“I do not think it is possible for me to continue to fulfill the functions of general secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union,” Gorbachev said, after reviewing the complicity of party officials in the coup, “and I’m relinquishing the corresponding powers.”

Although Gorbachev stopped short of quitting the party, and he praised its honest members, he virtually called for the creation of a new, democratic party in its place with a commitment to radical reform of the country’s political and economic system.

Gorbachev’s dramatic decisions, read without warning by a broadcaster at the end of the nightly news on Soviet television, climaxed a week that began with a rightist putsch last Sunday aimed at preserving Communist power and reversing his reforms but that ended with the party in full retreat and radicals, led by Russian Federation President Boris N. Yeltsin, dominating the political scene.

In other developments:

* The Ukraine, the second-largest of the Soviet Union’s 15 republics, declared its independence, taking effect in December if approved by voters in a referendum. The republic’s Parliament said the decision was spurred by the danger of armed attack on the republic by Moscow-backed forces that the putsch had posed.

* Russia, in decrees signed by Yeltsin, recognized the statehood of two Baltic republics, Latvia and Estonia, bolstering their position in negotiations with the Kremlin for independence. Russia had already recognized Lithuania, the third Baltic republic, as independent.

* Speaking at the funeral for three men killed last week in fighting during the failed coup, Gorbachev pledged that the organizers of the conspiracy would be punished. “Those who participated in the coup will get what they deserve,” he said. “They won’t be pardoned.” Hundreds of thousands of Muscovites took part in the funeral in a huge and emotional tribute to the men.

* Preparing for an investigation of party and government officials, Yeltsin and the new chief of the KGB, Vadim V. Bakatin, moved to protect the files of both the party and the intelligence agency. Yeltsin put all files on Russian territory under control of his government; Bakatin appealed to the public not to take its anger out by destroying KGB property and records.

* A top Yeltsin adviser said that a “coalition government of national consensus” is being formed to replace the Cabinet that turned against Gorbachev during the coup. The new structure, with its popular support, would allow Gorbachev to push his reforms.

* The new American ambassador, Robert S. Strauss, presented his credentials to Gorbachev and talked at length with the president and, separately, with Yeltsin to discuss the vast political changes under way in the wake of the coup and to pledge U.S. support for more rapid reform.

The Resignation

Gorbachev’s resignation as the Communist Party’s general secretary, a post he had held since March, 1985, casts the party adrift, and the dissolution of the party committees in all state organizations, enterprises, military and police units deprives it of all remaining influence.

Since the time of V. I. Lenin, the Bolshevik revolutionary who founded the Soviet state, the party had ruled through its committees and network of cells in every institution of importance. As party members, government officials, enterprise managers and military commanders were all subject to the party committees and bound to obey.

Even with the party’s loss in March, 1990, of its constitutional monopoly on power, it had retained a decisive role in most organizations through the party committees. The party now has a reported 15 million members, down 4 million in the last year.

With his decree placing all party property under the country’s popularly elected governments, Gorbachev stripped the party of all its immense wealth--a punishment meant to assuage the popular anger over the party’s role in the coup d’etat as well as over the privileges it has enjoyed for seven decades.

In addition to thousands of buildings around the country, the party owns a vast amount of other property, including 23 resorts, 114 publishing houses, 406 newspapers and two hotels. Its substantial bank accounts have been built up over the years through the earnings of its businesses as well as members’ dues.

Gorbachev’s moves, announced as anger over the coup continued to build around the country, were clearly intended to secure his own position by jettisoning the party.

But he may be moving too late. Many of his own advisers have been pressing him for more than a year to resign as the party leader, freeing himself from the popular dislike for the party and concentrating on his duties as president.

Until the coup, Gorbachev had argued, however, that only by remaining the general secretary could he control the conservatives; the party could not be left to them, he contended, for then it would surely become an instrument to oppose reform. In fact, conservatives still attempted their coup.

Although the old Communist Party now appears doomed, Gorbachev indicated he supports a reformed party, perhaps one such as Europe’s social democratic parties.

“I believe that democratic-minded Communists loyal to constitutional lawfulness, to the course of renewal of society, will call for creation on a new basis of a party capable of joining in the ongoing radical democratic transformations along with all progressive forces in the interests of the working people,” Gorbachev said in his resignation statement.

Gorbachev, who was taken hostage by the plotters last Sunday at his vacation home in the Crimea but freed and returned to Moscow on Thursday, expressed his outrage at the role of other party leaders in the coup.

“The secretariat (and) the Politburo failed to stand against the coup d’etat, “ he said. “The Central Committee proved unable to take a resolute position of condemnation and opposition to the coup; it didn’t urge Communists to fight against the suppression of constitutional legality.

“Members of the party leadership were among the conspirators; a number of party committees and mass media organs supported the actions of the state criminals. . . .

“In this situation, the Communist Party Central Committee should take the difficult but honest decision to dissolve itself. The republic Communist parties and local party organizations will decide their own fate.”

Coalition Rule

As he abandoned the party, Gorbachev strengthened his alliance with Yeltsin, who led the resistance to the coup--and now sets the country’s political agenda.

At the urging of Yeltsin as well as his own advisers, Gorbachev appointed a committee of proven reformers to oversee the economy and speed up plans for its radical transformation.

Headed by Silayev, the prime minister of the Russian Federation under Yeltsin, its deputy chairmen include Grigory A. Yavlinsky, a leading free-market economist; Yuri Luzhkov, an executive of the radical Moscow city government, and Arkady Volsky, a former Communist Party official and now a business leader and advocate of economic reforms.

The appointments followed those on Friday of a new defense minister, interior minister and KGB chief to replace men who took part in the coup. The new officials were agreed upon by Gorbachev and Yeltsin.

What is fast emerging, according to Sergei B. Stankevich, a key Yeltsin adviser, is “a coalition government of popular consensus.”

Gorbachev, who long resisted the idea of a political “round table,” as it was then formulated, now accepts that only a government with enough popular support to take the tough economic decisions needed can rule, Stankevich said.

“The task now is to bring together, in the re-forming of the government, the interests of the republics and other political forces so that the vast majority of people in the country see the government as their own,” he said.

Lev Ponomarev, a leader of the broad Democratic Russia movement, said, however, that the government now under discussion between Yeltsin and Gorbachev would be made up from nominations by republic leaders rather than political parties.

“It’s basically a coalition of Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin and Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev,” Ponomarev said.

Gorbachev’s actions, almost unthinkable a week ago, indicated that political developments were still accelerating, not slowing, in the wake of the attempted coup, and some political leaders now speak of a new revolution--and worry that it might spin out of control.

With thousands of Muscovites flocking to the streets every day of the past week, first to defend the Russian government and then to tear down the statue of the founder of the Soviet secret police and force the closing of the Communist Party headquarters, passions appeared to be growing dangerously fast.

Former Foreign Minister Eduard A. Shevardnadze, who warned Gorbachev of impending dictatorship when he quit last December, said: “Until now, we talked about a revolution from above. Now, we have a revolution from below.”

Stankevich, a former deputy mayor of Moscow, said that with victory assured, the “revolutionary momentum that is more than visible on the streets of Moscow must be stopped.”

Enormous Energy’

“This moment of opposition to the putsch unleashed enormous energy, and now this energy is looking for an outlet,” Stankevich said. “A great temptation is appearing to form a corps of professional revolutionaries who haul away monuments, break into buildings and set up revenge courts on the spot.”

Stankevich said that people were descending on Moscow from other parts of the country just to take part in the street action, and “semi-criminal elements” were also becoming more active.

“Under no circumstances can we let the great victory of democracy turn into barbarian acts of violence,” he said.

Shevardnadze cautioned that for all the current euphoria, the country is still facing the gravest of economic problems, and instead of basking in victory it should be turning its attention back to “bread, preparations for winter. The harvest is bad, production continues to drop, inflation to rise. . . .”

“In a short time could come the most terrible thing, when people come spontaneously out into the streets,” he said.

Despite the calls to return to normal life, a crowd of thousands on Saturday made the first attack on a massive statue of Lenin in the central October Square. They dispersed after failing to topple it, but radicals said they would be back today --with cranes.

Stankevich had proposed that, instead of destroying all such statues, they be relegated in orderly fashion to a sculpture park that could serve as a historical guide to the epoch of communism.