Soviet Union

MOSCOW -- The Soviet Union, in any form, was declared dead yesterday by Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin.Mikhail S. Gorbachev's efforts to mold a new central government have come to nothing, Mr. Yeltsin said, and now the republics will go their own way as independent states.The Russian leader, the most powerful politician here, had supported Mr. Gorbachev's plan for a union treaty. But yesterday, after meeting with the leaders of Byelarus (formerly Byelorussia) and Ukraine, he bowed to the new reality created by Ukraine's overwhelming vote for independence a week ago.Without Ukraine, he said, there can be no union.

MOSCOW -- The Soviet Union marched still closer to !c complete economic collapse yesterday as bread lines grew longer and the government reportedly edged toward bankruptcy.The situation is so serious, the head of the Russian KGB said, that rioting could erupt across Russia within weeks."A revolt would be most likely in December," Maj. Gen. Viktor Ivanenko told the weekly newspaper Argumenti i Fakti. "The main danger today is a series of directed social explosions. The people are exasperated, rumors are flying around about prices being freed very soon."

The question of aid for the Soviet Union -- or of inviting Mikhail Gorbachev to the Group of Seven meeting in July to ask for aid -- is much less complicated than that of the Soviet Union's security relationship to the rest of Europe.Aid bears on the security issue, of course. A Soviet Union in economic as well as political revolution jeopardizes the security of its neighbors. An insecure Soviet Union, believing itself menaced, will look for security remedies which the Western countries as well as the U.S.S.

MOSCOW -- Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin said yesterday that the idea of preserving the Soviet Union was a "failure" and that the Soviet republics should move toward forming a commonwealth of independent states.Mr. Yeltsin, speaking in Minsk, used the words "the former Soviet Union" for the first time as he dismissed Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev's plan to ratify a union treaty.Since the failed coup in August, Mr. Gorbachev has been ceding more and more power to the republics as an inducement to sign the treaty, which would give Moscow control of foreign and military affairs.

ABC's "The Koppel Report: Sex in the Soviet Union" is just what you think it is -- a cheap and titillating way to get viewers to watch a news documentary. But it is also something more.Because in examining Soviets' views toward this most personal of acts, this hour reveals much of the confusion about individual liberty -- the meaning of it, the limits to it, the appropriate relationship between the individual and the state -- that currently grips that nation in turmoil.There has been an outpouring of sexual material in the Soviet Union since Gorbachev's glasnost relaxed the strict rules that used to keep a tight rein on behavior.

Although hundreds of Soviets were clamoring to buy pizza from his Astro Pizza truck, Shelley Zeiger firmly asked the young sales clerk to stop selling."

Unbreakable union of free republics,United for the ages by Great Russia!Hail the great, mighty Soviet UnionCreated by the peoples' will!Glory to the fatherland, our free fatherland!Friendship of the peoples is a reliable bulwark!The Party of Lenin, strength of the people,Is leading us to the triumph of Communism!-- National anthem of the Soviet Union (1917-1991 R.I.P.)After 74 years, the grand strains of the Soviet national anthem resound only with irony. The unbreakable union has broken up. The Party of Lenin is banned.

On the evening of Dec. 25, 1991, in a small Moscow apartment, friends of mine drank the night away. Stoked by vodka and herring and pickled mushrooms, they cried and sang old songs and indulged themselves in heart-broken nostalgia. That night had brought the anti-climactic end of the Soviet Union. The big hammer-and-sickle flag was lowered for the last time at the Kremlin, and all across their worn and ragged country, millions of Russians were, like my friends, giving a thought to the country that had been theirs.

When the news bulletins came, some were busy building their biceps while others were pushing away from the breakfast table.Some -- like a city police officer -- cheered inside. Others, more familiar with the cold realities of politics in the Soviet Union, expressed cautious optimism. But most people in the Baltimore area were quick to voice their views as the fast-moving events of the political coup appeared to unravel today in the U.S.S.R.Patrick Mooney, a physical therapist and a patron at a Calvert Street restaurant, said, "If it's over, the people fighting for a freer way of life, maybe they'll be strengthened in showing their resolve."

"The Suitcase," by Sergei Dovlatov, translated by Antonina W. Bouis, 128 pages, Grove Weidenfeld, $16.95.SERGEI DOVLATOV died at the end of the summer in Coney Island Hospital, an emigre far from the Russian homeland he continued to find precious if still impossible to live in.Dovlatov was only 48, and he had lived about 11 years in the United States. He might have appreciated the irony of dying in a place best known for its broken-down amusement park.His books often depict the Soviet Union with spare, sometimes almost surreal, absurdity as a kind of decrepit theme park.