"I Have Big Plans"

By JOHN KOHAN MOSCOW

Is Mikhail Gorbachev already planning a comeback? The former Soviet leader certainly gave that impression when he turned up at Moscow's swank Oktyabr Hotel for a farewell party the day after his resignation. Looking tired but relaxed, Gorbachev mingled with former aides and Moscow journalists, signing autographs, exchanging lemon vodka toasts and cracking jokes. "My mother has been telling me for a long time to give it all up and come home," he quipped. But anyone who believes the ex-President is going to slip quietly away to a dacha to write his memoirs or putter about in the garden could be seriously mistaken. "My role is changing, but I am not leaving the political scene," ; Gorbachev announced. "I have big plans."

It was a vintage performance, full of the verve Gorbachev displayed at the height of his powers. Former staff members also described how the boss had tried to buck up their flagging spirits the day before his television address with an unsentimental farewell chat in the Kremlin office, assuring them that they need not worry about the future. As a participant put it, "The moment anyone was tempted to give way to gloom and doom, he just would not allow it." But those who could read Gorbachev's lexicon of looks saw something more going on last week behind the remarkable show of self-control. The brilliant sparkle in his eyes that used to keep visitors riveted in place seemed to flicker out. Confided a close Kremlin aide: "Mikhail Sergeyevich knows how to take criticism. But this has come as a crushing blow."

During the Gorbachev era, political life in Moscow crackled with all the raw power of a performance of Boris Godunov. The Soviet leader's personality clashes with Russian populist Boris Yeltsin, their pendulum swings from angry betrayal to wary reconciliation, were as important for the process of perestroika as finding the right mechanisms for a free-market economy. Then came the high drama of the August putsch and the final unraveling of the union. Given his turbulent career, the Soviet leader probably never suspected that everything would come tumbling down just because three republic leaders decided to hold a weekend summit in Belorussia.

None of the "conspirators" in that peaceful second putsch could bring themselves to deliver the final political coup de grace. Instead the Soviet President was left to go through the motions of office while Yeltsin methodically chipped away at his powers, placing the entire territory of the Kremlin under Russian control, and pro-Yeltsin television commentators made daily calls for Gorbachev to step down.

Yeltsin added to the public humiliation of his old rival by offhandedly telling the press that the ex-President would be well taken care of: he would receive a pension of 4,000 rubles a month (roughly $40 at the present exchange rate), the use of two official cars and the services of a staff of 20. In private, overzealous Russian bureaucrats reportedly told Gorbachev's wife Raisa to pack up and vacate the presidential dacha for more modest housing no later than midnight on the day of his resignation.

Gorbachev has repeatedly stressed that he would do everything in his power to help Russia. He was clearly bitter, however, about sneering comments from Yeltsin and his entourage that a suitable job might be found for him. "I just could not go on," Gorbachev complained to journalists at the farewell party. "Yeltsin was always opposing everything I did in the last few months. It's easy to be against Gorbachev all the time. There is no one for them to oppose now. So, let them do what they can."

In the final days embarrassed dignitaries canceled Kremlin meetings, but Gorbachev continued to conduct diplomacy by telephone. It was not easy getting through to George Bush on Christmas Day. Later, Gorbachev recalled warning the U.S. President to be wary of the new order. "Watch out for Russia," he told Bush. "They will zig and zag. It won't all be straightforward." Gorbachev also found time to chat with the leaders of France, Germany and Britain in the final hours.

Gorbachev had few mementos to take home from his Kremlin office. As an aide put it, "He wanted to fold up the red flag on 74 years of history." But it was not to be. Once Gorbachev had made his resignation address, the hammer- and-sickle banner was lowered from the flagstaff above his office and unceremoniously carted off under the arm of a Kremlin honor guard, looking, as one eyewitness put it, "like a crumpled dishrag." Yeltsin then moved into Gorbachev's Kremlin office before the ex-President had even had time to clean out the desk. Gorbachev arrived Friday to find Yeltsin sitting there.

Yeltsin has pledged to end the Soviet tradition of "burying and reburying" outgoing leaders and branding them "criminals." But Gorbachev in retirement remains a formidable force. If the ex-President is too outspoken, the temptation will be great to try to discredit him -- perhaps by linking him to the investigation into billions of rubles in hidden party funds.

Still, Yeltsin would do well to remember his own career as political underdog. Russians have a tradition of idolizing fallen rulers. Any attempts to attack "pensioner" Gorbachev might have the opposite effect of refurbishing his reputation. As a Russian proverb puts it, "You never value what you have until you lose it." If so, Gorbachev may have a political future after all.