Union Treaty

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.

MOSCOW -- The Russian Parliament has approved a resolution allowing private ownership of land for the first time in 70 years.The vote was seen as a blow to the reform policy of Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, who earlier declared his opposition to the idea. Gorbachev had favored grants to peasants under 100-year leases.After the vote, the Russian president, Boris N. Yeltsin, said his republic, the largest and richest in the Soviet Union, would not sign a new national union treaty until Moscow acknowledged the republic's rights over its enormous natural wealth, including gold, oil and timber.

MOSCOW -- The Soviet Congress of People's Deputies risked confrontation with the 15 republics by voting overwhelmingly yesterday for preserving the U.S.S.R. as a socialist country and for holding referendums on the union's future and on private ownership of land.Even President Mikhail S. Gorbachev -- still general secretary of the Communist Party -- previously had proposed substituting "sovereign" for "socialist" in the country's name to stress the republics' rights.Several republics already have dropped "socialist" from their names.

MOSCOW -- The Soviet Union spun further toward disintegration yesterday.Leaders in its two largest republics called the Soviet Union dead, the national parliament voted to suspend Communist Party activities, and still more high-level officials were purged.One of President Mikhail S. Gorbachev's closest associates was stripped of his parliamentary immunity so that he could be charged with high treason for allegedly plotting the coup.Then, a half-hour after bringing that case, the Soviet prosecutor general resigned, saying his office had not sufficiently resisted the coup.

MOSCOW -- Russian leader Boris N. Yeltsin said yesterday that he had assured President Mikhail S. Gorbachev that he strongly supports the preservation of the Soviet Union and that his insistence on sovereignty for Russia is not aimed at undermining the U.S.S.R."We stand for a strong alliance with the U.S.S.R. and for a union treaty," planned as the basis for a renewed Soviet Union, Mr. Yeltsin told the commission drafting a new Russian constitution. "We are unquestionably in favor of the union."

MOSCOW -- Russian Federation leader Boris N. Yeltsin said yesterday that President Mikhail S. Gorbachev's plan to take control of the government along with republican representatives will not solve the country's problems and could deepen its political crisis."

MOSCOW -- Sticking to his new, tough line, a beleaguered President Mikhail S. Gorbachev said yesterday "restoring order" in the troubled Soviet Union is now his highest priority.In a move to go over the heads of nationalist republican leaders to their people, he proposed referendums to decide the structure of the Soviet Union and to settle the controversy over private ownership of land.But his largely lackluster state-of-the-union address to the fourth Congress of People's Deputies contained few new ideas and left both conservatives and radicals deeply dissatisfied.

There has been so much alarming news from the Soviet Union recently that the stabilization pact signed by President Mikhail S. Gorbachev and nine Soviet republics comes as a relief. After months of turmoil and disintegration, this agreement finally creates the possibility that a new, mutually satisfactory power-sharing agreement can be worked out between the Kremlin and Russia, the Ukraine, Byelorussia, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Tadzhikistan, Kirghizia and Turkmenistan.In a surprise move, leaders of those nine republics agreed to draft a treaty forming a successor state to what today is the Soviet Union.

For the past five years, events in the Soviet Union have been taking place at a head-spinning pace as Mikhail S. Gorbachev tries to resuscitate the crumbling communist giant. He has worked miracles in erasing the Stalinist legacy of fear. He has not been able to stop the economic rot, however. As a result, the country is now plunging into disintegration and chaos.In Moscow, a group of erstwhile perestroika cheerleaders has told Mr. Gorbachev: "Either affirm your ability to take decisive measures, or resign."

Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin demanded Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev's resignation a fortnight ago. Mr. Gorbachev soon responded, saying Mr. Yeltsin and his "so-called democrats" favored the "restoration" of capitalism and the "collapse" of the Soviet state."