COLUMN ONE : Voices of Hope and Anxiety : In the Soviet Union, ordinary people are assessing what their lives will be like in a new era. They know one thing--it won’t be easy.

Politics, ordinarily remote from the daily lives of most people, has suddenly become what everyone thinks about and talks about, even eats and breathes in the Soviet Union.

At the bus stops, in the queues at the grocery store, on factory floors and in the offices of the government itself, there is discussion and debate on an unprecedented scale as people learn that what happens “up there” affects the lives of those far below.

And running through all the talk is the plaintive theme, “What will become of us?”

No wonder. The abortive coup d’etat by Communist hard-liners last month thrust the country into such a cataclysmic upheaval that little is certain, every past truth is in doubt, almost nothing has been left untouched.

“I am afraid,” said Mikhail M. Smirnov, 88, a retired carpenter living in Moscow. “I don’t know whether I should expect good things or trouble. It’s all so wobbly now.”

In conversations last week with Times correspondents in Moscow and Leningrad (just renamed St. Petersburg) in the Ukrainian capital of Kiev, and in Tallinn, Estonia, people spoke with new candor about their fears and hopes for their country and their families, of their joy and their anger at the momentous changes under way.

The republics that have made up the Soviet Union are spinning away into new political orbits. The Communist Party’s rule has ended after seven decades. Socialism as an ideology has failed. In place of all that was so familiar and accepted are coming reborn nation-states, raw and vigorous, bold moves toward capitalism and a return to a belief in God.

But, the people asked repeatedly, will things really be different? For their experience with politics has taught them that, whatever happens at the top, life at the bottom remains a struggle--one that seems to get harder, not easier.

Olga F. Minayeva, 28, teaches Russian language and literature in Moscow.

When I learned about the coup at 8 a.m. Aug. 19, I felt a deep panic. On my way to work, in the subway, I saw only dark, gloomy, depressed faces. It was so scary.

For the first time in my life, I saw tanks. Fear in the face of military machines is different from ordinary fear--it was a physical fear.

That day, we could not work; we only marked time during classes, waiting for the breaks to listen to the news. People were silent at work and in public. They did not chat over the phone as usual. They were paralyzed with fear that they might say something that would hurt them afterward.

I called my friends at night. They didn’t answer. My God, I was so scared for them! Only the next day, I found out that they all went to the White House (the Russian Parliament building).

On Aug. 21, it became clear that the democracy was winning over dark despotism. People began talking again. I noticed that fear had affected the middle-aged generation the most. The revolution was made by people of between 16 and 19, my former students.

I’m not optimistic about the future. I’m very worried, despite the victory of democracy. Nobody knows what will happen, (but) I don’t think there will be any economic changes soon. For a while we forgot about the empty shelves in the stores, but now we realize we will have a very difficult winter. And with high prices and an insecure future, I can’t even think about having a baby. It’s too risky.

(Russian President Boris N.) Yeltsin proved to be the best leader. He’s our only hope. Yeltsin’s team is capable of managing the situation and getting something done. But we need young leaders, people of my age, without any connection to the old power structures.

(Soviet President Mikhail S.) Gorbachev looked miserable and depressed (after the coup). I feel sorry for him. He says he’s in control. But that’s far from true. He surrounded himself with people who betrayed him en masse.

For the time being, Gorbachev should remain president. His personal stature in the world is high. They (foreigners) are ready to help us, but they want stability here. Gorbachev can be their symbol of security for now. But he shouldn’t even think of standing in the next presidential election! I’d like to see someone with totally new thinking replace him.

I became a teacher when Gorbachev proclaimed perestroika . I am lucky about the timing. I teach my students to say what they think and not just to learn what is written in textbooks. The fact that 16-, 17-, 18- and 19-year-olds came to the (Russian Federation’s) White House to defend democracy is a natural result. They have been educated . . . through reading newspapers, watching TV, by just being in the streets. My students did not join the Komsomol (the Communist Youth League). It is vital to develop independent thinking in students.

Valentin Saunin, 60, a Russian deputy director for personnel at the Poogelmann electronics factory in Estonia, where 90% of the workers are non-Estonian.

I am worried what will become of Russians in Estonia. We have no country. We don’t belong in Russia--we don’t belong here.

I came here 30 years ago to serve in the navy. My old navy buddies are very worried. Who will pay our pensions? We’re not sure we will be kindly treated.

I’ve been at this factory for five years, and I know the people here. They’re afraid Russians won’t get equal rights in education and jobs. Many are very worried about the economic situation. Prices have skyrocketed and workers complain that they no longer can afford to eat at restaurants or go to resorts.

Estonia is my second homeland. I am used to living here. I always thought I could stay in Estonia, but still be a Soviet citizen. It is something special to be a citizen of such a powerful country. We may not have been rich, but we were the first into space and we were proud. Now we feel like aliens in a tiny, independent country.

I would have liked to have learned Estonian, but I’ve always associated only with Russians. There have always been two societies here--Russian and Estonian--and the two rarely mixed. There was no stimulus to learn Estonian. In 25 years in the navy, I only knew four or five Estonian officers, and we conversed in Russian.

Maybe I will go back to my hometown, Voronezh (in central Russia), but I don’t have anything there and there is no chance that I could get an apartment of my own. Five of my relatives live in one two-room apartment. There is no place there for me and my wife and a young son.

Mikhail M. Smirnov, 88, a retired carpenter and veteran of the civil war that followed the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution as well as of World War II. He lives in Moscow with his daughter, 48, and her daughter, 24.

I’ve been a pensioner for 30 years already. Life is very difficult. There is no food, no clothes. Thank God, I have a roof over my head.

I’d like Gorbachev to stay. He is not perfect, but we can’t expect (Western) aid without him. And he’s an honest man--he acknowledged that the Communist Party was leading us down a suicidal path and began fighting it.

Yeltsin is as strong as Gorbachev, and he has a big following. But we need stability to get support from the West. (When I say we, I still mean the Soviet Union.) If I were a Balt, I would say we must secede from the union. But as a Russian, I think it is wrong. We must climb out of this ditch together. We can and must help each other.

We’ll have lots of hardships on the way to building a normal system, and I don’t expect improvements soon. I’m afraid. I don’t think things are going to turn out well.

The former big shots will change their spots and their language and adapt to a new situation--they are all swindlers.

We have many new capitalists now. People become millionaires overnight. This is not as bad as it may seem. I think these young capitalists will turn the country into what Russia was before the revolution. And that wasn’t bad compared to what we have now. I’m sure of this.

I was born into a peasant family. If only I were at least 30 years younger, I would set up my own farm and work. The time has come to live freely, but it is too late for me.

Tamara Zinchuk, 38, a computer programmer from Kiev.

It’s very hard for foreigners to understand: Here we lack everything.

In the state stores you can’t buy anything, and in the private stores everything is so expensive that a person on an average wage cannot afford to shop there. It would take a month’s wages to buy a simple pair of slippers.

And dishes--there are none. We’re eating off dishes we bought 10 years ago, and they’re all chipped.

All that perestroika has done is to make the injustices different, not fewer. In 1980, they wouldn’t let me go to Bulgaria for a vacation--they never told me why. Now I have the opportunity to go there. I have a visa. But now it costs 2,000 rubles to buy a passport and I earn only 450 rubles a month. They don’t have to justify this cost to anyone.

Sergei A. Dyadya, 33, an army major and lecturer in political science at the Lenin Military-Political Academy in central Moscow.

I joined the party 13 years ago when I was 20. About two years ago, I concluded that to remain in the party was immoral. Many of my fellow officers shared that stand. But we were afraid to announce it. If you left the party, you were immediately fired--this was a rule. The system did not accept “traitors.”

Working at the Lenin Military-Political Academy meant that you were under constant control of the senior officers, of the main political department of the Soviet armed forces, of the Communist Party’s Central Committee. We had no choice. . . . We understood and saw everything but could not break out of the framework of the army orders. Those who resisted were “taken away”--dismissed on a pretext of professional incompetence. . . . People who thought differently--the dissidents--were immediately fired.

When I began my military service I thought, like many others, that serving in the army is the dignified duty of every Soviet citizen. I do not know what to say now. I am a Ukrainian by nationality, and the Ukraine--my homeland--has its own defense minister and will soon have its army. I serve in the armed forces--but of what country? I do not know whom I will serve. But I am convinced (that) the Slavic peoples will have no borders between them.

I will probably quit the army in two years, when I have the right to retire. I almost have my doctorate, I’m a major of the Soviet army and I get only 650 rubles a month (about $360 at the official exchange rate, but $20 at the tourist rate). A street-sweeper is paid 600 rubles a month. How unfair!

We probably won’t get to live under a new system here, but our children must have that chance. My wife is pregnant, and we are expecting the baby in December. I want him to live in a calm and secure country and to be sure of his future.

My generation experienced a collapse of our ideals. I remember how I once cursed (Russian writer and Nobel Prize laureate Alexander I.) Solzhenitsyn, although I had not read any of his books, just a few years ago while brainwashing my soldiers. I feel ashamed of that now.

I have been a party member until recently. But you must understand that the party members and its corrupted leadership are different things. My generation still has time to change. But what will happen to the old colonels and generals?

Elle Ninaemets, 65, a grandmother and retired accountant in Estonia.

I was born in 1925 when this was the Estonian republic. I remember that we lived very well. We had many more beautiful possessions, but we also worked a lot harder. Now as we are free again, Estonians will have to learn to work once more. We learned bad habits under the Soviets.

The coup helped us to achieve our independence and I believe the Red Army will soon leave Estonia, too. My 6-year-old grandson will live in a free Estonia. He will think what he wants to think and do what he wants to do. No one will command him.

His father and my other son had to belong to the Komsomol (Communist Youth League) because they wanted to get higher education. Someone always told them what they should believe, how they should act and what they should think.

We never talked about politics at home when my children were small. We were afraid that a neighbor would overhear and their futures would be ruined. We always wanted our freedom, but we couldn’t even talk about it. We were so afraid. You cannot imagine what it is like to live in constant fear.

My grandson already knows all about what it means to be free in Estonia because we always talk about politics at home now.

Alexander Barnev, 43, head of the workers committee at Kirovsky defense plant in Leningrad, where 35,000 are employed. He, his wife and 16-year-old daughter live in a single room and have been fighting for the right to spread into a vacant room in their communal apartment.

With this second room--it’s quite large, about 30 square meters (about 320 square feet)--we would have six square meters more than we are allowed in view of Leningrad’s notorious housing shortage. Instead, we are condemned to live without dignity, for the sake of a mere six meters.

We have to think about when our daughter is a few years older and wants to marry. Where will she and her husband live, if not in the same room with us? Our society has always spoken out decisively against pornography, yet the worst pornography is when married children have to live packed into the same room with other adults. It’s uncivilized.

Alexei Zagrebin, 23, university graduate and a Moscow cabdriver.

I was at the barricades (protecting the Russian government building) for all three nights and days (of the coup attempt). I took days off from work for that. I was there because I thought that in this way I could help my son Sasha--he’s 2 now--to become a citizen of a new capitalist Russia.

As much as I cared about what was happening at the (Russian) White House during the coup, I did not care about the Congress. We do not need those blabbermouth deputies--they are just a burden on our budget. Let them all go to work and do something. The country can be managed by a much smaller group of people--economists, businessmen--not workers, peasants and the army, as it used to be.

If the government works well, we will immediately see the proof for this in our stores. So far, they are empty. I don’t care what philosophy they use to explain their actions--I don’t need theories. I need peace, security and full shops. If we have this, we will be happy.

I’m sure the Communists would never have achieved that--they failed to do it in 70 years, so who would trust them to give them another chance to experiment on us. We are not guinea pigs!

I’m worried about instability, though. I feel the tension in people. Money is worth nothing. People tip generously, and a few years ago I would have been happy to make so much money. What I make now is just enough to survive. We don’t save anything--there is simply no point in that.

Crime is on the rise. Every time I go to work my wife is worried something might happen to me. It is not a safe world.

But I’m optimistic. Yeltsin will get rid of all Communists and will try to build a regular capitalist society here. I support this. The sooner we start our movement toward capitalism, the better.

Leonid Sanduliak, 54, head of the physiology and zoology department at Chernovtsy State University in the Ukraine.

Maybe because I’m a Ukrainian, I feel what’s happening now especially acutely. The thing is that the Ukraine lost its statehood almost 600 years ago and . . . in the 340 years of union with Russia we have always been in the position of the younger brother. If we don’t get out now, we’ll never get out of slavery.

I’ll go further: If the Soviet Union doesn’t split into separate independent states now, we’ll all die. It will become a mass grave. It is not capable of survival. Experience shows this state has no future. This is an objective process and we can’t stop it, and those who try to hold it back could start a civil war . . . . All the government can do now is to oversee the civilized dismantling of the union, so that this nuclear reaction does not become uncontrollable.

All the republics have declared their sovereignty or independence, but our economy is totally unified. One republic produces one part and another does another. If these ties are broken, in the big industrial centers and factories, hundreds of thousands of workers who will have no work and no means of support will pour out onto the streets. So we must have a strong (central) economic council under the president.

I think there can be a Ukrainian miracle, like the Japanese miracle, because my people have a very high intellectual potential. We have the best black earth in the world, and we’re hard-working, and I think the Ukraine can become the breadbasket both for Europe and for Russia, if only it becomes free.

In the Ukraine, there’s a popular slogan: “Give Ukraine earth and freedom, and we’ll do all the rest ourselves.”

These interviews were conducted by Times staff writers Carey Goldberg, Elizabeth Shogren and Carol J. Williams and Times Moscow Bureau researcher Andrei Ostroukh.