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Sajudis officials say they will nationalize those 95 factories at first, though they intend to sell them to Lithuanian buyers later. "We'll simply do the same thing they did in Russia 70 years ago," says Leimut Andrikene, a member of the government's economic reform committee. Moscow argues for a transition period during which accounts would be drawn up to provide for compensation, including the bill for the factories. But the Lithuanians are putting together a counterclaim, which will include costs of property the Soviets seized in 1940. "They have been lining their pockets with profits made on Lithuanian soil for 50 years," says Andrikene.
In nearby Estonia, the Supreme Soviet recently passed a resolution calling for an immediate start on negotiations toward re-establishing the republic's independence. But some Estonians have come up with an ingenious path to secession. Two weeks ago, they held elections for the old 499-member Estonian Congress, which claims direct descent from the body that existed before the Soviet annexation. Organizers claim that more than 500,000 people participated -- almost 90% of the eligible voters. Independence activists are now urging that elections for the Estonian Supreme Soviet, scheduled for March 18, be canceled and local authority handed over to the Congress.
No matter what avenue the secessionists choose, Gorbachev hopes to be ready for them with blocking legislation. As promised, he is planning to introduce a bill in the Soviet legislature on the right to withdraw from the Union. It will require a republic to hold a referendum in which at least three-quarters of adults cast ballots and two-thirds of the votes cast favor secession. The People's Congress in Moscow would then check the results and set a transition period of up to five years to settle all "questions arising" and reach "corresponding agreements and consents." Clearly, Moscow would demand payment for what it considers state property and compensation for those groups that want to remain inside the Soviet Union.
Gorbachev's plan seems to be to delay the process as long as possible to give him time to design a federation that might satisfy national sensibilities in most republics. The Baltics almost certainly will proceed to independence, but as they rightly point out, they are a special case. Their departure would not mean they would start a stampede or that Gorbachev would fall from power. After Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, most speculation has centered on Moldavia, Georgia, the Ukraine and the predominantly Muslim Central Asian republics. None of them are rushing for the exit at the moment, and none seem likely to break away in the near future.
Secessionist sentiment is strong in the western Ukraine, which was seized from Poland in 1939, but only moderate in the rest of the republic. The Ukrainian national front, Rukh, claims several hundred thousand members and widespread support, but says it does not favor full independence. Rukh aims for a new treaty of union in which the republics would be able to gain more control over their own economies -- an important point for the grain-rich region. The Ukrainian Communist Party is still rigidly conservative, and managed to limit Rukh's candidates to only about a third of last weekend's races for Supreme Soviet seats.