8 Join Soviet Commonwealth : Historic Decision Groups 11 Former Republics : Alliance: Pact emphasizes states’ independence. It lays basis for joint control of nuclear arms. Leaders tell Gorbachev union has ceased to exist, along with his job.

In a historic decision marking the rise of a new political order on the ruins of the old Soviet Union, eight former Soviet republics joined three others Saturday in a loose Commonwealth of Independent States.

The agreement emphasizes the independence of each member state but lays a basis for a joint defense structure, including future control of Soviet nuclear weapons.

Although Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin, under terms of the agreement, apparently will control the nuclear forces, differences among the four republics with strategic weapons--Russia, Ukraine and Belarus on one side and Kazakhstan on the other--must still be resolved.

The agreement signed here Saturday creates a Council of Heads of State to run the commonwealth, recognizes each republic’s present borders and gives Russia the Soviet seat in the United Nations.

“Excellent!” Yeltsin said jubilantly after more than five hours of meetings in Alma-Ata, the snowy mountain capital of Kazakhstan in Central Asia. “We have signed it all! Eleven states!”

The agreement effectively brought to an end Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev’s role as a national and world leader, for he has no country left to govern. Gorbachev and Yeltsin agreed last week that the Soviet Union would disappear as an entity by the end of the year, and Saturday’s agreement virtually completed that process.

Yeltsin later told a news conference that “we respect Gorbachev and want him to retire smoothly,” adding that the 11 republic leaders had agreed that Gorbachev should be offered no role in the commonwealth, just a comfortable pension.

In a message to Gorbachev, the 11 leaders told him that the Soviet Union has formally ceased to exist, and with it his position as president, and they urged him to resign now, according to the independent Interfax news agency. “In the appeal, the republic leaders thanked Gorbachev for his large, positive contribution,” Interfax said.

In Moscow, a presidential spokesman said that Gorbachev planned to study the decisions of the Alma-Ata meeting and then would probably address the country on television.

His aides were cleaning out their offices in the Kremlin on Saturday, and Gorbachev’s resignation was clearly only a question of timing.

With eight republics signing the commonwealth treaty worked out Dec. 8 by Russia, Belarus and Ukraine, the commonwealth as it coalesced on Saturday covers almost all of the old Soviet Union’s territory.

“When we’re not bound by chains,” said Yeltsin, dapper in a dark, double-breasted suit, “when we’re not tied by force to the center (and) the totalitarian Communist system is destroyed and the field for our actions is cleared of mines, it opens the way for democratic cooperation on a maximally democratic, civilized basis.”

Of the 15 original Soviet republics, only Georgia and the now-independent Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, all small in size and population, did not join on Saturday, but some may later. Some speculation has even included Bulgaria and Romania as possible future members of the commonwealth.

As the leaders of its member states outlined it, the commonwealth is meant to be a non-binding amalgam of truly independent states. It will not have a unified budget, a common citizenship or even a central secretariat. It is an arrangement designed by people opposed to any central control after so many years of rule from the Kremlin.

Ukrainian President Leonid M. Kravchuk, in particular, emphasized Ukraine’s independence and the commonwealth’s role as a broad grouping of independent states, prompting Yeltsin to add quickly, “The commonwealth is not a state.”

For all the commonwealth’s looseness, however, the leaders clearly had trouble Saturday--as they have had during the last two weeks--working out their future relationship, particularly in terms of military forces.

Kazakhstan President Nursultan Nazarbayev, host of the meeting here, announced that the commonwealth’s leaders would have to meet again Dec. 30, this time in the Belarus capital of Minsk, to work out the final agreement on the armed forces.

Air Marshal Yevgeny I. Shaposhnikov, the Soviet defense minister, will continue commanding the 3.7-million-member armed forces until then. He was asked to propose ways to restructure the Soviet forces as they come under the authority of the commonwealth and its member states.

The main problem, delegation members said, is that the presidents of Ukraine and Azerbaijan have each declared themselves commanders in chief of the troops in their republics, except for the strategic forces; both are unwilling to accept a unified commonwealth command over conventional forces.

“Having your own armed forces is a necessary attribute of an independent state,” asserted Rasim Musabekov, an adviser to Azerbaijani President Ayaz Mutalibov.

At the same time, Kazakhstan, one of the four republics with strategic nuclear weapons based on its territory, is challenging Yeltsin’s plan to move all nuclear arms into Russian territory eventually.

Ukraine and Belarus, the other two nuclear republics, both declared Saturday their desire to become nuclear-free areas and said they would adhere to international treaties prohibiting the spread of nuclear weapons.

But Kazakhstan’s position, according to presidential spokesman Seit-Cazy Matayev, is that “no one republic, no matter how big, has a right to be the only republic to have nuclear forces.”

More disputes can be expected to surface as the parliaments of the republics discuss the ratification needed to give Saturday’s agreements legal force. The Ukraine and Belarus parliaments added substantive amendments to the Dec. 8 pact that they have already ratified, making the exact provisions underlying the commonwealth unclear.

Cracks also appeared in the coordination of economic reform programs that the agreement requires, with the poor and politically conservative Central Asian republics appearing extremely unlikely to go along with the plans of the three Slavic republics--Russia, Ukraine and Belarus--to end state subsidies and lift price controls Jan. 2.

The haste with which the agreements were drawn up--experts toiled until 3 a.m. Saturday on them--also made it likely that new weak spots will show up in coming weeks.

“The main question is, will it work?” said Musabekov, the Azerbaijani adviser. “There are no unconquerable obstacles, but a lot will depend on how the economy turns out. That could bring a lot of pressure from below, which could in turn bring new leaders with new slogans.”

The future shape of the republics’ foreign policies also remains to be worked out by the republic leaders at their meeting Dec. 30, which will be held 70 years to the day after the the formation of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.

Russian Foreign Minister Andrei V. Kozyrev said that each republic will seek individual membership in the United Nations. Ukraine and Belarus are already members. Republic leaders said they do not object to Yeltsin’s takeover last week of Soviet embassies overseas because Russia has promised to share them with other republics’ diplomats.

Kozyrev said that Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard A. Shevardnadze will probably have no active role to play in commonwealth diplomacy. “He will be just a respected figure,” Kozyrev said of his former boss. “I called him from Rome and paid my regards and respect, and he agreed that he will give advice.”

If many of the commonwealth’s new institutions remain foggy, even in outline, the final demise of virtually all old Soviet structures is now unquestionable.