Pact Integrates 4 Ex-Soviet States

In a drive to seize the initiative from his Communist opponent, Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin joined the leaders of three other former Soviet republics Friday in a pact to strengthen integration between states that broke apart five years ago.

While the move may be more symbolic than significant, it was clearly aimed at appeasing Russian voters nostalgic for the lost superpower status of the Soviet Union and usurping a campaign theme of Communist Party presidential challenger Gennady A. Zyuganov.

But the 28-point integration accords signed by the leaders of Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan won immediate praise and backing from Zyuganov and ultranationalist Vladimir V. Zhirinovsky, raising concerns that Yeltsin may be dancing too vigorously to his opponents’ tune.

With its pledge to intensify economic interdependence and create joint administrative councils, the accord appeared to be a step toward reconstruction of the defunct Soviet Union and a reaction to the vote two weeks ago by the Communist-led Duma to nullify the 1991 disbanding of the old federation.

Yeltsin and other leaders of the reconciling foursome insist that the new union is voluntary and no threat to any state’s sovereignty.

But the partial reunion could signal a willingness by the current Russian president to let his opponent set the political agenda in the already heated campaign for the June 16 presidential election.

“It is difficult to separate political expediency from historical necessity,” observed Yuri N. Afanasyev, a noted historian and reform proponent in the last parliament of the Soviet Union. “Certainly at the moment such an operation is economically unprofitable for Russia and may seem even hasty to some analysts.”

The deputy chairman of Russia’s Central Bank, Alexander A. Khandruyev, warned on the eve of the agreement that it would cost Russia dearly if the budgets of the states were ever consolidated.

But Afanasyev said the political points were largely scored by Yeltsin, as he shows himself to be in a position to do what his opponent can only promise.

The value of the agreement for Yeltsin may be in its vagueness, as even the four signatories gave differing interpretations of its meaning.

“We were not afraid that we would be called unionists,” Belarussian President Alexander G. Lukashenko told the nightly news program “Podrobnosti” (“Details”), borrowing from the Soviet vocabulary and predicting that the reemerging federation would eventually have a single constitution, a common currency and “a unified state.”

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Yeltsin, on the other hand, quoted an unnamed colleague as warning: “The person who does not regret the dissolution of the Soviet Union does not have a heart, but the one who wants to reproduce it in full does not have a brain.”

Kazakh President Nursultan A. Nazarbayev described the agreement as a mutually beneficial reunion of those former Soviet republics with the most in common, and Kyrgyz President Askar A. Akayev termed it “a really strong commonwealth.”

The documents signed by the four leaders pledged to work toward common markets and integrated transportation, energy and social security systems, while specifying that the independence of each member would be retained. They also proclaimed the creation of an Intergovernment Council of the presidents, prime ministers and foreign ministers of each republic, as well as committees uniting the heads of parliament and overseeing budgetary integration.

A five-year term was announced for the agreement, and renewal was described as automatic unless any member state objects. But there were no deadlines set for achieving any of the integration objectives.

The loose structure of the agreement and its sudden appearance only two weeks after Zyuganov’s allies pushed through the first superpower nostalgia legislation gave rise to speculation that Yeltsin was acting to capture some of the popular support for symbolic resurrection of the Soviet Union stirred by his opponent.

Zyuganov, who leads Yeltsin in public opinion polls, immediately endorsed the four-state declaration and promised that it would win swift ratification by the Duma.

Zhirinovsky also praised the integration accord and attributed it to the March 15 vote by the Duma, which prompted denunciations from those former Soviet republics, such as Ukraine and the Baltic states, that have made clear their intentions to remain independent of the Kremlin.