8 Republics Sign Soviet Common Market Pact; a Fearful 4 Stay Out : Treaty: A majority rejoices in the step to break up the old union. The holdouts fret about yielding control of their economies.

Eight of the Soviet Union’s remaining republics signed a treaty on Friday creating a common market among themselves in an effort to prevent the total collapse of the country’s economy.

But four others, including the Ukraine, the richest republic after Russia, refused to sign the accord, fearing that it would preserve central control over their economies and prevent them from establishing full independence.

Still, there was rejoicing in the fact that the majority of republics, with three-quarters of the country’s population, had come to terms in taking a deliberate step to break up the old Soviet Union, acknowledging each other’s sovereignty but recognizing their mutual dependence.

And there was hope that the action, although late in coming and less than unified, will halt the accelerating disintegration of the Soviet economy and the political and social chaos that it threatens.

“We have a great event today,” Russian Federation President Boris N. Yeltsin said after signing the accord in a glittering Kremlin ceremony. “The sovereign states have signed an economic agreement on a new basis--without a rigid center and with almost everything guided by inter-republican bodies.”

The accord seeks to preserve the integrity of the Soviet economy, even as the state itself breaks up. It establishes new authorities to control finance and banking and to coordinate food, energy and industrial supplies. And it lays the foundation for transforming the state-owned, centrally planned economy into one ruled by market forces and private enterprise.

“I think this agreement will be effective because there is no other, more reliable means of coping with the present crisis,” Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev told journalists after the signing. “Hard times, difficult decisions and unpopular measures are ahead of us as we take control of the situation. Without a consensus, we will not cope. Society needs consensus, the (Soviet) Union needs consensus, the economic community needs consensus. . . . If we do not have it, all our concepts will go bankrupt, and the reforms will be delayed.”

Western leaders had come to regard establishment of this new “economic community” as a precondition for the billions of dollars in assistance that Gorbachev is seeking to underwrite the transition to a market economy.

“Our partners now know whom they should deal with,” Gorbachev commented. Yeltsin added: “There had been a wait-and-see policy, for they did not want to decide on their relations with us until this economic agreement was signed.”

Yet the great fear, as Kazakhstan’s President Nursultan A. Nazarbayev noted, is that the agreement will not be honored, that the republics will fail to meet their commitments of deliveries of goods to each other or of taxes to the central authority and that the rampant nationalism will undercut the treaty.

“The most important thing now is for all the paragraphs of the agreement to be fulfilled,” Nazarbayev said. “All the republics, their parliaments and local councils must finally feel a much greater responsibility than before and realize that, without a common economic environment, we will not be able to cope with the crisis and create normal conditions for the people.”

Yeltsin added tartly, “We should not become euphoric over this signing or become dizzy from the glass of champagne. There are are 18 to 20 agreements still to be signed to implement this treaty.”

Negotiations had continued up to the signing ceremony itself as the republic leaders pressed points--such as division of the $65-billion Soviet foreign debt--that will be included in implementing agreements.

Success of the accord, however, would augur well politically, as Gorbachev and others pointed out, for a foundation of trust would be laid as the basis for a new Union Treaty and a confederation of independent republics.

“It took us a long time to get here, and we had to overcome major obstacles,” Gorbachev said as he and the republic leaders took their places at a round table in the Kremlin’s historic St. George’s Hall. “But today’s step is evidence that the feelings are strong in society . . . that we should live together, solve problems together, climb out of the crisis together.”

The four republics that refused to sign--Azerbaijan, Georgia, Moldova and the Ukraine--had objected that the treaty failed to provide sufficient guarantees of their independence. But they still may join the new “economic community,” as the agreement calls it, after further negotiations.

Ivan Plyushch, deputy chairman of the Ukrainian Parliament, predicted that his republic would join after first settling its often tense relations with Russia, which many Ukrainians fear will try under Yeltsin to dominate the new economic grouping.

“We don’t want people to think that the Ukraine slammed the door and does not want to consider this treaty,” Plyushch said after attending the signing as an observer. “We think that such an economic community is very necessary, but we want to sign only after we sign bilateral agreements with Russia and all the other republics.”

The Ukraine’s participation is regarded as essential for the success of the economic community because of its key position in Soviet industry and agriculture as well as its sheer size.

“We hope that reason prevails, and the Ukraine will sign the agreement,” Yeltsin said. “If it does not, it may become an associate member.”

Azerbaijan apparently refused to sign out of pique. The republic is locked in a bitter conflict with neighboring Armenia over the future of Nagorno-Karabakh, an Armenian enclave on its territory. Members of the Azerbaijan Parliament criticized the agreement as failing to serve its interests.

Georgia and Moldova (formerly Moldavia) had said earlier they would not join the new economic community, though Moldova might seek observer status.

Besides Russia, the republics signing the treaty included Armenia, Belarus (formerly Byelorussia), Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan (formerly Kirghizia), Tadzhikistan, Turkmenistan (formerly Turkmenia) and Uzbekistan.

The former Baltic republics of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania--now independent--have been invited to join or to accept associate or observer status to preserve economic links between them and the Soviet republics. But the Baltics, so far, have declined.