Historic Soviet Power Transfer : Centralized Authority to End; Republics Gain : Reform: A determined Gorbachev pushes the new law through a fractious Parliament. It vests control in a trio of institutions until a union treaty can be signed.

Manhandled by President Mikhail S. Gorbachev, the Soviet Parliament reversed itself Thursday and took a historic step, voting to demolish the centralized state built by V. I. Lenin and the czars and to shift the bulk of power from the Kremlin to the republics.

Russian television news led off its report on the changes, saying, “Today, Sept. 5, 1991, we all begin living in a new country: The Soviet Union is no more.”

Gorbachev, jubilant, said his much-tried country had given itself a “chance to do everything anew.”

With the determination of a bulldozer driver, he plowed through resistance in the Congress to win acceptance of a law vesting central power in a trio of institutions until a union treaty can be signed by republics that once were Moscow’s fiefdoms but now want to be free.

To get his way, Gorbachev, a jurist by training, threatened to dissolve the chamber, amend the Soviet constitution or attain his goals by simply issuing presidential decrees. For one particularly controversial clause of the law, defining how the Soviet legislature will be revamped, he conducted three consecutive ballots until the Congress gave him what he wanted.

It decisively approved the law as a whole, 1,682 to 43.

“I won’t yield the floor because all that needs to be said has already been said in commissions,” Gorbachev said at one point, smothering debate. He refused to switch on the microphones in the hall and talked loudly into his own microphone to drown out yells of protest.

Approval of the law effectively dooms the Congress, which was elected in 1989 as the “supreme organ” of state power and is dominated by Communist Party members and bureaucrats of all kinds. It opens the way, instead, for the new political, economic and military alliance among “sovereign states,” as envisioned by Gorbachev, Russian Federation President Boris N. Yeltsin and the heads of nine other republics.

Another resolution, passed 1,699 to 24 by the Congress, sketches the new bonds that are to prevail in the future, with each republic allowed to “independently decide the form of its participation in the union,” up to and including secession.

Gorbachev and the republic leaders moved quickly to capitalize on their victory. Gorbachev’s chief of staff, Grigory I. Revenko, said that the newly created supreme body of the central government, the State Council, will be convened for the first time today.

Its agenda will probably include plans to shore up the battered Soviet ruble, now worth less than 3 U.S. cents even at official exchange rates, down from $1.60 at the dawn of the Gorbachev era, as well as “stabilization” of the domestic situation, Revenko said.

While charging through the lobby of the Kremlin Palace of Congresses, Gorbachev stopped when a reporter asked whether the Soviet Union was about to recognize the independence of the three Baltic states--Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. “Tomorrow at the State Council, we will consider that question,” Gorbachev shot back from inside his ring of bodyguards.

Gorbachev and Yeltsin, who joined forces to overhaul central power and the Soviet Union itself in the wake of last month’s failed, rightist coup d’etat, were initially rebuffed by the Congress when deputies failed Wednesday afternoon to pass the new institutional blueprint.

Two-thirds of the Parliament’s 2,250 members, or 1,500 deputies, were required to approve the law because it contravenes the Soviet constitution. But there were only 1,200 da votes to be had Wednesday.

But much had changed by the time the assembly convened again in the Kremlin at 10 a.m. Thursday. In one of the most significant developments, the 250-member Ukrainian delegation decided overwhelmingly during a night caucus that the law did not impair their republic’s campaign for sovereignty and that they could support it.

“This is not an effort to set up a new center, it is an effort to ensure continuity in the process of transferring power to the republics,” said Sergei M. Ryabchenko, a progressive deputy from Kiev.

Yeltsin also turned the screws at a late-night gathering of the Russian delegation. Point by point, Russian Parliament members were made to vote with a show of hands, making clear to everyone in the hall--including Yeltsin--the identities of opponents.

“Frankly, I slightly disliked Yeltsin’s action,” said Alexei I. Kazannik, a law professor from the Siberian city of Omsk and a political ally of the Russian president. ‘I am not a proponent of these methods.”

He said that approval by the Russian delegation finally became “unanimous.”

In a pragmatic act of insubordination, a score of deputies from Latvia, strictly barred by their legislature from taking part in the decisions of the “foreign” Soviet Congress, pushed their “yes” buttons to ensure that Gorbachev emerged victorious.

“We asked ourselves what was worse--for Gorbachev not to get his law, or for him to succeed, and, thus, open the way for the transformation of his country,” said Andrei V. Eizans, deputy representative of the Latvian government in Moscow.

Asked if their votes were the price agreed upon with Gorbachev to win Kremlin recognition of Latvian independence, Eizans replied: “Let’s call it a barter arrangement. It is true that Gorbachev did appreciate our gesture.”

Thursday’s decisions by the Congress--which Sergei B. Stankevich, a deputy and a historian said were the equivalent of the freeing of the Russian people from Tatar domination more than 400 years ago--create a new triangle of institutions to serve for a “transitional period” at the apex of Soviet power:

* The State Council, to be presided over by Gorbachev and to include leaders of the republics. It will decide domestic and foreign issues of common concern. The council and Gorbachev will run the government machinery dealing with defense, security, law and order and foreign affairs. That means a sizable national bureaucracy will remain in place, at least temporarily.

* A newly minted Inter-Republic Economic Committee, in which each republic is to have an equal voice. It will try to harmonize the rapidly diverging economies of the republics and stem national collapse. Gorbachev will appoint its chairman, subject to approval by the State Council.

* The existing Supreme Soviet, or legislature, will be modified so that a new upper chamber, the Council of the Republics, gives each republic a single vote, a guarantee that Yeltsin’s Russia cannot bully the other republics. The lower house, the Council of the Union, is to be filled by proportional representation.

In a compromise worked out overnight, Russia will be allotted 52 seats in the Council of the Republics so that “autonomous formations”--territorial units where ethnic minorities such as the Yakuts and Khanty live--will have their own seats.

The other Soviet republics will each have 20 seats in the chamber, and each of their autonomous republics or regions will have a seat. (Even though a republic has many representatives in the Council of Republics, it still gets only one vote, and it is unclear how the multiple delegates will figure how to cast it.)

The new law gives republics the right to void Supreme Soviet legislation when it contradicts their constitution. That stipulation makes the highest law in the land what parliaments in Baku, Ashkhabad and other capitals say it is, and it ends any pretense of a monolithic Soviet state.

Further, members of the Supreme Soviet, until now elected by direct popular vote, will be chosen by the leaderships of the republics, making the republics the hands-on actors in the drafting and passage of Soviet legislation.

But immediately, problems of the new power structure were glaringly apparent. For example, if the 10 Soviet republics that supported the power-sharing deal are the only ones to join the future union, the majority voice in the legislature’s upper chamber will belong to the country’s six mainly Muslim republics.

“Of course we recognize that such a problem exists,” said Stankevich, a close adviser to Yeltsin. Russia, he told reporters, “must learn to be self-sufficient.”

The Congress resolution on the framework for the union also calls for “united armed forces,” including central control over the estimated 27,000 Soviet nuclear warheads. But in the Ukraine, policy-makers envision a defense alliance like NATO, linking independent republics having their own armed forces.

“We should differentiate between the desires of politicians and strategic realities,” Stankevich said, expressing what he said is Yeltsin’s viewpoint. “I think our army shall remain united. That doesn’t exclude that republics can have their own national guards--for internal purposes, just to keep stability in their republics. But the task of strategic defense will remain under the control of some union power.”

One of the greatest mysteries about the law is how long the “transitional period” will last, especially given the Russian adage that “nothing is more permanent than what is supposed to be temporary.”

Ukrainian deputies said they have agreed to consider the cutoff Dec. 31, 1992, by which time their republic is to be independent and a member of a Soviet version of the European Community or (British) Commonwealth. In his remarks to reporters in the lobby, Gorbachev said speed is of the essence to construct a successor for the present-day Soviet Union.

“We must not lose time,” Gorbachev said. “These two big documents must not be put off--I mean the new treaty between the sovereign states, in the interpretation that it has received at this Congress, and the new economic agreement covering our entire economic space. My impression is that we must move toward these documents in the next month or two, and in no case later than that.”

Few if any deputies said the action by the Congress will solve the country’s daunting problems, including the disheartening shortages and subsistence-level lifestyle that are the lot of millions. If the power shift doesn’t deal with those difficulties, deputies said, it will be seen by many as a mistake.

“If the people don’t see an improvement, they will ask, ‘Why did you tear down the Communist empire? Why did you declare independence?’ ” Yuri N. Shcherbak of the Ukraine said. “And those will be very good questions.”

Many of the soyuzniki, die-hard partisans of the old-style Soviet Union, fumed that they had been victimized at the four-day Congress session by a blend of pressure campaigns, fancy parliamentary footwork and deputy burnout.

“I have nothing good to say about the deputies; I think they betrayed their country today, they betrayed their voters,” fumed Col. Viktor I. Alksnis of Latvia, a member of the conservative Soyuz faction. “They think they have saved themselves from the anger of the people. But a day will come when the lists will be pored over, and these people will be charged with high treason.”

But army Col. Nikolai S. Petrushenko, Alksnis’ comrade-in-arms, said many conservatives were regrouping and he did not rule out a political marriage of convenience with Yeltsin, since the putsch, the most powerful figure in the land.

“We see things as they are and must compromise,” said Petrushenko, also of Soyuz. “The trouble is, the process of Balkanization, or Lebanonization if you prefer, has begun. But we now have some structures like the State Council or the Supreme Soviet that would allow us to slow the process down.”

One of Gorbachev’s top confidants defended the way in which the Soviet leader ran the Congress by asserting that the country--prey to ethnic violence, the decay of authority and economic paralysis--could not afford to have let the 1,900 or so deputies prattle on forever.

“The coup nearly brought the country to the brink of catastrophe, to a blood bath and after that, to spend a week listening to all sorts of opinions--no, that’s not what’s needed, and people understand it,” said Georgy K. Shakhnazarov, Gorbachev’s adviser on political matters. “The uncontrolled disintegration dictated an effort to save what’s left, so that people do not perish under the rubble.

“Forget about his methods; look at the results we now have,” Shakhnazarov said.

As a concession to the members of the Congress, they were allowed to retain their $175-a-month stipends until their five-year terms expire in 1994. They also were guaranteed the right to participate in proceedings of the Supreme Soviet. Although the law was amended before passage to no longer exclude future Congress sessions, the power realignment makes them superfluous.

When Gorbachev ended Thursday’s session by cheerily telling Congress members, “Comrades, until we meet again!” it was doubtful they ever will.

Latest Developments

* MONUMENTAL SHIFT: The Soviet Parliament, pressured by President Mikhail S. Gorbachev, reversed itself and took a historic step: it voted to demolish the centralized government. Gorbachev crashed through the chamber’s resistance to win acceptance of a law vesting ultimate state power in a trio of institutions until a union treaty can be signed by freedom-seeking republics.

* WASHINGTON REACTION: The White House had a noncommittal response to the Soviet legislature’s action, but the Administration privately welcomed the development because it helps stem disintegration of the country. Separately, the National Academy of Sciences issued a report calling on the United States and Soviet Union to cut long-range nuclear arsenals by more than a half no matter what the outcome of the Soviet restructuring.

* ECONOMIES IN TURMOIL: The dismemberment of the Soviet Union is expected to have a mixed impact on the ability of breakaway republics to meet Western demands that would put their economic houses in order as a prerequisite for substantial economic aid. Bankers, business people and economists in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania were caught off guard by the sudden turnabout in the Soviet Union and are scrambling to prepare for the responsibilities posed by independence.

* A STEP CLOSER TO INDEPENDENCE: Boris N. Pankin, the Soviet Union’s third foreign minister in nine months, held his first news conference in Moscow and said that the newly created State Council will likely approve a presidential decree granting independence to the three Baltic states at its initial meeting today. He also said that Moscow’s foreign aid to Cuba, long a stumbling block to winning major U.S. financial assistance, will be reviewed and that he will conduct bilateral talks with U.S. Secretary of State Baker at next week’s Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe meeting in Moscow.

Source: Times Wire Services