Soviet Union Running Out Of Gas?

By JOHN KOHAN VILNIUS

No one really expected Deputy Prime Minister Algirdas Brazauskas to be the bearer of good news when he appeared before the Lithuanian Supreme Council last Friday morning. But the report that he delivered still came as a shock. Standing beneath a huge yellow-green-and-red national flag, the burly leader of the Lithuanian Communist Party offered a gloom-and-doom scenario of what lay ahead for the breakaway Baltic republic in the aftermath of President Mikhail Gorbachev's decision to cut back drastically on oil and gas shipments. "Understand me correctly," said Brazauskas, leaning on the blond wood lectern. "I have never tried to frighten anyone or spread panic. We have to speak about things as they are. I see no way out."

As Brazauskas explained, with only one out of four natural-gas pipelines still in operation, the republic could meet just 16% of its daily needs. That would be enough to keep bakeries, meat-processing plants and other essential factories running but would bring most industries "to their knees." Meanwhile, oil shipments had been completely cut off. Though Lithuanian authorities immediately declared that each car could receive only 8 gal. of gas a month, the supply was not expected to last for more than two weeks. Lithuanians could also expect shortages of rubber for making cables and sneakers, sodium for soap powder and television screens, and sugar for candies and confections. Concluded Brazauskas: "We need new political decisions to get us out of our dead end."

Those were bitter words for a parliament whose members had voted only six weeks earlier, 124 to 6, to declare independence from the Soviet Union. But despite the economic crisis, there was virtually no sign last week that the rebellious Lithuanians were about to retreat. When President Vytautas Landsbergis addressed the group later in the day, he reaffirmed that the government was ready to carry on discussions with Moscow "at all levels, over any question" -- except the republic's declaration of independence. Moscow's use of "blockade as a means of political warfare," said Landsbergis, has turned the republic into a "disaster area, a zone of economic aggression." But if Lithuanians were going to be worse off, he declared, so were their neighbors. That was a reference to the heavily militarized Russian enclave of Kaliningrad, which receives its fuel supplies through Lithuanian territory.

The pain quickly became apparent at gas stations, where cars often waited 60 and 70 in line to buy their last 2 1/2 gal. before the stricter rationing rules took effect. Otherwise, there was a strange sense of unreality at the front line of Moscow's economic war. Vilnius residents, many of them following the parliamentary debate over transistor radios, took advantage of a brilliant spring day to stroll Gediminas Boulevard and look into shopwindows that even in the worst of times have been better supplied than Moscow's. There were no signs of hoarding or panic buying. Said a youthful patriot, with bravado: "How can our lives be any worse than they have already been under 50 years of Communist rule?"

That remained to be seen. The full dimensions of Gorbachev's shock treatment were simply too difficult for Lithuanians -- or anyone else -- to absorb. Lithuanians still held out hope that the West would exert more political pressure on the Kremlin. Or perhaps Gorbachev himself would relent and open the way for negotiations. And if not? Alluding to the 900-day siege of Leningrad by the Nazis during World War II, Landsbergis said: "We can survive a blockade just as Leningraders once did: by enduring strict rationing and helping one another. They never thought of capitulation, and we don't either."

What Landsbergis did not mention is that close to 1 million Leningraders died of starvation during the Nazi assault. Gorbachev's strategy is not to starve the republic into submission. Lithuania can feed itself, and consumes only about 60% of the meat and milk it produces. In fact, Moscow's strangulation strategy is carefully calibrated to hurt but not kill.

Thus, for the moment at least, Lithuanians could afford to unite around Landsbergis. As the impassioned debate about the republic's future was going on in parliament on Friday, word spread through Vilnius that special Soviet security units were moving in on a Communist Party printing plant. By the time a crowd of concerned local citizens had arrived on the scene, nearly 20 soldiers had already beaten twelve demonstrators and formed a phalanx. Printing workers waved Lithuanian flags from an upper window and used ropes to pull up parcels of food from the cheering crowd, over the heads of their unwanted guards. Some protesters even carried banners with the hammer and sickle of the Soviet Union linked with the Nazi swastika. Said newspaper editor Algimantas Cekuolis: "We will bring sandwiches, coffee and flowers -- even for the soldiers. That is the Lithuanian way. But we will watch this place day and night. As long as Mr. Gorbachev wants."

Until Moscow decided to reduce the energy flow to a trickle, the dispute with Lithuania had been a bizarre war of feints and jabs from the Kremlin. A month ago, the Soviets sent columns of armored vehicles rumbling through downtown Vilnius in an attempt at intimidation. Paratroopers seized control of local Communist Party buildings and hunted down army deserters who were seeking shelter in hospital wards. Now Moscow demands that Landsbergis and his colleagues repeal a series of laws passed in the past few weeks, including legislation that halted conscription into the Soviet army, allowed the seizure of Communist Party property and introduced citizen identity cards.

The Kremlin moves should not have come as a surprise. Two weeks ago, on Good Friday, the Kremlin gave Vilnius a deadline of two days to revoke its new "anticonstitutional" laws, noting that such actions "can no longer be tolerated." If the Lithuanians failed to comply, Moscow warned, the U.S.S.R. would stop deliveries of goods "sold on the external market for freely convertible currency." Just what that meant would become all too clear.

The Lithuanian government let the holiday weekend pass before discussing a response. Prime Minister Kazimiera Prunskiene asked Moscow for an urgent meeting to resolve the dispute. There was no answer. The Lithuanian parliament also showed willingness to compromise on the issues bothering Moscow -- short of independence -- but warned Lithuanians to be prepared for "spiritual endurance and strict economy on all consumption." While Vilnius residents paused to buy daffodils and listen to chanting Hare Krishna disciples in a park near Communist Party headquarters, they seemed unconcerned about a long siege.