Questions, Answers on Crumbling Old Union

Here are answers to some of the questions asked most often about the old Soviet Union:

Question. Has the Soviet Union ceased to exist?

Answer. The Soviet Union still exists but is disintegrating so quickly that it is now just a matter of days. Of the 15 republics that made up the Soviet Union at the start of the year, all have now declared their independence save Russia.

Q. What is replacing it?

A. On the initiative of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus, the three core Slavic republics of the old Soviet Union, a new Commonwealth of Independent States is emerging.

Q. How does the commonwealth differ from similar groupings of political entities elsewhere?

A. The commonwealth is meant to be a loosely structured political, economic and security alliance of independent states. It will not have a real central government. It will be probably more like the European Community, particularly in its formative years, than the former British Commonwealth.

Q. What is Mikhail S. Gorbachev’s current status? Is he a man without a job?

A. Mikhail S. Gorbachev remains president of the Soviet Union--for a few weeks anyway. He wants to help guide the country through the transition. What he will do after that is not settled.

Q. Will Boris N. Yeltsin become even more powerful under the new arrangement?

A. As president of the Russian Federation, largest and richest of the states in the new commonwealth, Yeltsin will be its key political figure.

Q. Will it be accurate to label members of the commonwealth republics, or nations?

A. Even before they opted for the commonwealth, the former Soviet republics wanted to be called states to demonstrate their break with the old system.

Q. Will each commonwealth member be as much an independent nation as, say, France? Will each have a seat at the United Nations? Will Russia sit on the Security Council?

A. In theory, each member will be a sovereign and independent state, as is each member of the European Community. Each wants a U.N. seat, although Belarus and Ukraine already have theirs. Russia wants the Security Council seat, but other states, notably Kazakhstan, believe it should be rotated among them or otherwise shared.

Q. Since Russia is the biggest and richest of the commonwealth members, will it be effectively running the show, as it did in the old Soviet Union?

A. Russia will make the key decisions, perhaps in consultation with key allies, such as Ukraine and Kazakhstan, but potentially alone. Other republics would then face a choice of going along or coping with the difficulties that arise from pursuing different policies.

But this is much different from the old Soviet Union. There, the Communist Party’s Politburo ruled, making decisions at the top with the 19-million-member party to implement them at all levels of government, economy and society.

Q. Who is now the No. 2 Russian?

A. Gennady E. Burbulis, first deputy prime minister of Russia, the architect of the commonwealth.

Q. Will Minsk, designated site of commonwealth headquarters, become the most important city in that part of the world or just an administrative headquarters--a kind of Bonn to Berlin?

A. Minsk will remain Minsk. In time, administrative bodies may take root there as the European Community’s headquarters grew in Brussels, but initially Minsk will be a place to hold meetings.

Q. To what extent will the commonwealth have a centralized government, the role the Kremlin played in the old Soviet Union?

A. The political philosophy of the commonwealth is decentralization. The old Soviet republics no longer want to accept dictation from Moscow, and Russia no longer wants to bear the burden of empire. How the commonwealth will work is unclear. To a large extent, decisions made by the Russian government will set the pattern. But the Kremlin, from Jan. 1 the seat of the Russian government, will rule only Russia.

Q. Will the commonwealth be an economic union?

A. Even before plans for the commonwealth were laid, most of its members had already signed agreements establishing an economic community to preserve the common market they had within the Soviet Union. Present plans call for maintenance of a “common economic space” so that the economies of the member states remain integrated. But there are a number of “opt-out” clauses.

Q. Will it be a political union in any way?

A. The commonwealth will attempt to coordinate a wide range of political issues, including foreign relations and security policy, but each state will retain potentially greater independence than members of NATO or the European Community now exercise.

Q. What about the military? How much central control, how much local autonomy?

A. Plans call for a unified strategic command, probably headed by career military officers, to control the Soviet Union’s nuclear arsenal. Although details must still be settled, this “strategic deterrence force” will include the former Soviet Union’s land- and sea-based missiles, attack warning system, missile defenses and satellite monitoring and control system.

Each state, however, apparently will have its own conventional forces under its own president; Ukraine, for example, initially spoke of a 420,000-man army, larger than Germany’s, but has scaled that back to 150,000. No plans have been made to integrate this proliferation of armies into an alliance.

Q. There has been much discussion lately of nuclear controls in the new commonwealth. How much do we know about the plans?

A. Very little is known about the new command structure and what the safeguards will be against accidental launch.

Q. How will the assets of the old Soviet Union be divided up?

A. The republics began dividing up Soviet holdings a year ago, declaring their “sovereign” ownership of natural resources on their territory, taking over state-owned enterprises there and now taking possession of central government installations of all types. They have divided among themselves the approximately $80 billion the Soviet Union owes foreign creditors, but questions remain about what revenues will go to pay those debts.

Q. What happens to the KGB?

A. The KGB, or Soviet State Security Committee as it was formally known, was broken into a number of components nearly two months ago by Gorbachev, who had already ordered it out of domestic politics. Some of its duties, such as investigation of serious crimes, are already being carried out by republic police agencies. Others, such as foreign intelligence and counterespionage, were assigned to new or reconstituted bodies, whose authority must now be reaffirmed.

Q. If I should want to visit someplace like Minsk, how would I get a visa?

A. It is possible that the separate commonwealth members may one day want to set up their own embassies and/or consulates in the United States. For the moment, however, the old Soviet diplomatic missions, now operating under the Russian Foreign Ministry, are still issuing visas for the republics.

Q. There have been so many changes lately, how do we know this commonwealth is the final form? If it isn’t, what else might take its place?

A. The commonwealth exists now only in the most skeletal form; it will be fleshed out through extensive negotiations among the member states as they define concepts, such as “common economic space,” and as they replace the structures of the old Soviet system.

Success is not guaranteed, however, and those watching the new commonwealth take shape recall how the new American states joined together after the War of Independence under the Articles of Confederation only to replace them a few years later with the U.S. Constitution and a federal system.

Other, more pessimistic observers believe that the chaos that will result from such a loosely structured system will bring a counterattack from the conservatives, perhaps assisted by the military.