Mikhail S. Gorbachev told parliament Monday that the strikes that have swept the Soviet Union's major coal fields for nearly two weeks have been the "biggest test" of his four years in power.
He blamed coal ministry and local officials rather than the miners for the unrest - which halted work at mines in all the country's major coal fields - but warned that "deciding such questions by striking will ruin our tasks."The Soviet president said that most striking miners had returned to work, including at least half the 300,000 miners in the country's biggest coal basin, the 121-mine Donbass in the Ukraine.
"We are coming out of a very serious crisis, the biggest test during the four years of perestroika," Gorbachev told the Supreme Soviet, referring to his program of restructuring economic and political life.
On Sunday, Gorbachev said in a rare one-on-one television interview that he was "inspired" by the workers' initiative although he disagreed with their tactics. He also said he understood why the miners mistrusted a government that long had ignored them.
The Donbass strikers were among the last holdouts from the nationwide coal strike that started in western Siberia July 11 and spread to the Arctic Circle and Central Asia.
The strikes began to ebb Friday as the Siberia strikers returned to work Friday after exacting promises of higher pay, better food, clothing and housing and greater control over their industry.
The government said those concessions would apply to striking miners nationwide.
Strikers in the Donbass have held out for legal guarantees from the Supreme Soviet that the government would keep the promises it made to miners in a settlement signed Saturday by strike leaders and government officials.
A lawmaker from the Pechora coal basin in the far north told the Supreme Soviet that miners around the city of Vorkuta also remained on strike, in part due to "disinformation" by the media.
Miner Vladimir P. Lushnikov said state-run media had reported erroneously that the Vorkuta strike had ended.
According to recent reports, miners remained on strike at 11 of the 13 mines in Vorkuta and at all 12 mines in Chervonograd in the western Ukraine.
Deputies speaking at Monday's Supreme Soviet session, which was broadcast nationally with a slight tape delay, said the strikes showed that the country needed more effective trade unions.
"We have to admit that the trade unions don't have the workers' faith," said Lithuanian deputy Kazimeras Uoka. "We have to give them the right to establish independent trade unions."
Soviet trade unions act as adjuncts of the government, handling the distribution of various benefits rather than fighting for workers' rights.