A skeleton Soviet legislature followed Mikhail Gorbachev's lead Thursday, voting itself out of existence after a parade of nations recognized Russia and other states of the new Commonwealth of Independent States.
Russia's red, white and blue flag was flying alone over the Kremlin, but the mood in Moscow was anything but ebullient. The ruble is nearly worthless, shortages are widespread and residents are wondering how they will cope when President Boris Yeltsin of Russia lifts price ceilings next week.Rifts among the members of the new commonwealth were also coming into sharper focus.
Ukraine on Wednesday accused Russia of refusing to distribute new rubles to other republics and renewed its complaint about the dominant former Soviet republic's unilateral decision to free prices, Radio Russia reported.
Russia, which has taken over the Soviet mints, started printing 500-ruble bank notes for the first time this week and had promised to distribute them throughout the former Soviet Union. The new 500-ruble notes reflect the plummeting value of the currency.
In a poignant, 40-minute session in the Kremlin Thursday, the Supreme Soviet voted itself out of existence and recognized the new loose federation of sovereign states replacing the Soviet Union.
About three dozen people convened the legislature that once was the pride of Gorbachev's reforms. They had nowhere close to the number needed for a quorum in the moribund, 374-member body.
The recently appointed speaker, Kazakh writer Anuarbek Alimzhanov, concluded the session with a farewell to lawmakers, "Until we meet again, wherever that may be."
Outside the pastel yellow building during the session, a bronze plaque identifying their edifice as the home of the USSR Supreme Soviet was unceremoniously removed.
In a further sign of the new order, defense ministers of the commonwealth's member republics met in Moscow, the Tass news agency reported.
Also Thursday, lawmakers in Turkmenistan ratified the commonwealth agreement reached last week, making the former republic the sixth to approve the document, news agencies reported.
The parliaments of Russia, Byelorussia and Ukraine, which originally devised the commonwealth on Dec. 8, already have ratified it, and lawmakers in Kazakhstan and Tadzhikistan's parliament gave their consent this week.
Former Soviet citizens showed little regret over Gorbachev's resignation. Many directly blame him for their tumbling living standards."He should have gone three years ago. His perestroika brought us nothing. He is to blame for our poverty," said Ivan Petrov, a war veteran who receives 185 rubles a month, or about $2.
But Gorbachev, whose reforms freed tens of millions from authoritarian communist rule and encouraged the end of the Cold War, said in his televised resignation speech that he had no choice but to follow the course of reform.
Gorbachev made clear he was withdrawing only from the government and said he would continue to play a role in the loosely formed commonwealth endorsed by 11 of 12 former Soviet republics on Saturday.
After the speech, he signed a decree giving Yeltsin charge of the 27,000-warhead Soviet nuclear arsenal.
Russia also inherited the complex of buildings put up by the czars that came to symbolize Soviet power.
After Gorbachev's resignation speech, the hammer-and-sickle Soviet flag was lowered from the tallest Kremlin building and the red, white and blue Russian flag raised in its place.
Diplomatic recognition for Russia and the other former Soviet republics by leading world powers coincided with Gorbachev's resignation.
Yeltsin and other commonwealth leaders now face the formidable task of restructuring economies ravaged by decades of a brand of central administration that regularly ignored the law of supply and demand.
The Russian president said in an interview Wednesday that more hard times are ahead, acknowledging that the unfreezing of prices on Jan. 2 in his republic "is extremely unpopular with the people."
Ukraine's prime minister, Vitold Fokin, called a Cabinet meeting to discuss disputes with Russia over ruble distribution and price increases, Radio Russia said. It did not say when the meeting would take place.
Other republics are annoyed at Russia's plans to deregulate prices because they fear it will lead to an influx of Russians stripping their stores of cheaper food and consumer goods.