Gorbachev to Offer New Union Plan, Says He Will Not Resign : Soviet crisis: Draft for new association of republics will be presented to Parliament today. Leader indicates his acceptance of Baltic states' independence.

By ELIZABETH SHOGREN

Sept. 2, 1991 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

MOSCOW —

President Mikhail S. Gorbachev said Sunday that it would be “immoral” for him to quit his post and announced that he and leaders of most of the Soviet republics have designed a new political structure for the vast country and will introduce it during the upcoming meeting of the national Parliament.

“I will not resign now. It would be immoral . . . to do so at this difficult stage when decisions have to be made that will determine whether the course we took in 1985 is preserved or not,” Gorbachev said in reference to the reforms he started more than six years ago. “I will not allow myself--as a man or as a citizen--to step aside. . . .

“But there is one condition,” Gorbachev added--”that there remains a (Soviet) union.”

Gorbachev said that the attempted reactionary coup late last month had exposed the fundamental flaws of the existing system, so he and the leaders of 11 republics have drafted a plan for a “new union” of independent states, which he plans to outline today at the opening of an emergency session of the Congress of People’s Deputies, the national Parliament.

“We will introduce proposals at the Congress to restructure the system of power in the country,” the Soviet leader said. Gorbachev spoke in a joint interview with Soviet television and Cable News Network.

He also indicated that he is prepared to accept the independence of the three Baltic republics, which have been recognized over the past week by dozens of countries, including the 12 members of the European Community. The United States has not yet formally granted them diplomatic recognition but is expected to do so today.

“If this is the ultimate will and the intention of the people of these republics,” Gorbachev said, “I believe we have to agree to this.”

A debate on the issue of Baltics independence is high on the agenda of the Congress of People’s Deputies.

In other developments:

* British Foreign Minister John Major met with Gorbachev, Russian Federation President Boris N. Yeltsin and Baltic leaders and promised Western food aid for the winter.

* Gorbachev canceled an order he made a year ago stripping retired KGB Gen. Oleg Kalugin of his awards and military rank after he criticized the security agency and described the details of his life as a spy, the official news agency Tass said. Kalugin, a member of the national Parliament, was an outspoken critic of the putsch, and during its most critical moments he addressed crowds gathered outside the Russian Parliament.

Many Muscovites took a break Sunday from the political tension of the last two weeks, trying to forget--for a moment--about their country’s political troubles.

The parks were full of elderly couples strolling hand in hand, young mothers teaching their children to ride bicycles and teen-agers roller-skating in the sunshine.

But a gap-toothed Gypsy taxi driver predicted that the respite after last month’s failed coup will not last long.

“That was a very interesting time,” he said with a tone of foreboding in his voice. “But I’m afraid things are going to get a lot more interesting.”

Lawmakers Gather

Lawmakers from across the country flocked to Moscow for today’s session of the Congress of People’s Deputies, which many Soviet politicians predicted will be the last showdown between liberals and conservatives.

Alexander N. Yakovlev, the author of Gorbachev’s reform programs and a man who quit the Communist Party warning of a “Stalinist coup d’etat “ just days before reactionaries temporarily ousted Gorbachev, said in a televised speech that the danger is not over.

“I personally am especially worried about the forthcoming Congress,” Yakovlev said. “It can, to an extent, turn out to be a putsch. Democratic forces may be cheated again and ousted--as has happened before.”

The Congress is meeting to try to control the upheaval in the country that has followed the downfall of the reactionary junta and set a legal and constitutional basis for a different kind of Soviet Union. Both the Communist Party--which has ruled the country for 70 years--and the national government collapsed in the wake of the hapless takeover attempt.

Valentin I. Karasev, a Gorbachev adviser, said he expects sparks to fly during the Congress as reactionaries make a last attempt to regain power.

“There will be colossal clashes,” Karasev, a member of Parliament from Donetsk in the Ukraine, commented.

Karasev agreed that there is a chance that the conservative majority in the Congress will vote to establish a system resembling the one imposed on the country by the plotters. At the last meeting of the Parliament, 80% of the members said they were Communists, and many of them are career bureaucrats whose privileges would disappear with the old system.

“There is a possibility that the putsch will be legalized,” Karasev continued. “There could be a conservative majority again . . . and that would be a terrible situation.”

Other deputies were concerned that the 2,250-member Parliament--which elected Gorbachev as president more than a year ago--would now try to bring about his demise.

“There has been no criticism against Gorbachev yet--the conservative forces are holding it in reserve for the Congress,” Leningrad Deputy Alexei M. Yemelyanov said. “There could be great criticism against Gorbachev.”

Liberal Plans

Leaders of the liberal, pro-reform wing of the Parliament were busy Sunday planning strategies to prevent a conservative comeback.

The Democratic Reform Movement, whose leader is former Foreign Minister Eduard A. Shevardnadze, issued a statement stressing that the Congress, in its present composition, must be limited to providing a legal basis for the functioning of state power structures during a transition period.

It should not, the statement said, “adopt strategic decisions that would determine the life of our country’s people in the future.”

Leaders of various deputy groups called their people together to admonish them ahead of time against any plotting against Gorbachev or the movement toward democracy.

Air Marshal Yevgeny I. Shaposhnikov, the new pro-reform defense minister who replaced putsch leader Dmitri T. Yazov, called a meeting of Congress members who are also in the armed forces and strongly warned them against trying to achieve through parliamentary means what the junta failed to do, according to Col. Yuri A. Koltsov, a pro-reform deputy who attended the meeting.

“He made it clear that the conservatives present should abandon their positions,” Koltsov said. “This was his order to them.”

Although liberals and centrists fear that hard-liners will mount an offensive, Col. Viktor Alksnis, a leader of the conservative Soyuz faction in Parliament, said he doubts that the hard-liners are capable of any kind of coordinated attack.

“The conservatives are demoralized and beaten,” Alksnis said. “They don’t even have a leader anymore.

“I’m sure there will be no constitutional coup at the Congress,” Alksnis added with a hint of disappointment in his voice.

Alksnis said he initially supported the junta because he approved of its law-and-order tactics but then changed his mind and called it an “illegitimate” group.

Conservative forces in the country, which were gaining strength before the coup, have now totally lost the support of the people, according to a legal adviser to Alksnis, who asked not to be quoted by name.

“If the putsch had not taken place, perhaps a constitutional coup could have succeeded,” he said.

The three-day putsch further splintered the already fractured Soyuz group, the largest faction in the Parliament, the adviser said. About 20% heartily supported it, 50% were awaiting its outcome and another 30% came out on the side of the Russian Federation government, which defied the putschists, a primary factor in the coup’s failure.

“Many of them strongly supported the putsch,” he said. “Although Soyuz members still have the legal right to speak at the Congress, they no longer have the moral right.”

Before the putsch, leaders of at least nine of the republics had been ready to sign a Union Treaty for a new federation of Soviet republics. But now they have come out strongly in favor of a “confederation” of independent states that could freely enter both economic and military alliances.

Ten of the 15 Soviet republics have declared independence--most of them doing so in the last two weeks--and in response Gorbachev said that leaders of 11 of the republics are drafting “a new union treaty, a new economic agreement . . . and a new constitution.”

“It is clear to us that we must have a new union,” Gorbachev said. “We must develop a formula of a union of sovereign states that are free in a very important way.”

Gorbachev also stressed that reactionaries would never again be able to create instability in the country by pitting him against Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin.

“I think we have been taught by a bitter experience not to allow ourselves to be provoked,” Gorbachev said.