The Supreme Soviet legislature voted Thursday to suspend the activities of the Communist Party across the Soviet Union.
The vote followed a series of blows to the party that had ruled the Soviet Union for more than 70 years. Party leaders had been deeply involved in the coup against President Mikhail Gorbachev.After the takeover failed, Gorbachev resigned as party secretary-general and urged its Central Committee to disband itself, thus leaving the party in a shambles.
The lawmakers, by a vote of 283-9, with 52 abstentions, passed a resolution to suspend the party's activities because of its role in the abortive coup.
"On the basis of evidence in hand on the participation of leading organs of the CPSU in the preparation and implementation of the state coup from the 19th to the 21st of August 1991, the activities of the CPSU on the entire territory of the USSR are suspended," the resolution said.
The resolution also froze the Communist Party's bank accounts and halts all financial operations by the party.
The language of the legislation makes no provision, however, for the liquidation of the party.
The resolution also urged that all evidence from the Soviet prosecutor's investigation of official involvement in the coup be turned over to the national Supreme Court.
The resolution also calls for a group of lawmakers to prepare a "national security concept"for the Soviet Union as soon as possible, including proposals to reorganize the KGB, the Interior Ministry and the Defense Department.
Meanwhile, the two richest and most populous Soviet republics, Russia and the Ukraine, announced Thursday the formation of a temporary military and economic alliance that appears to leave the Kremlin out in the cold.
The pact came as Gorbachev rushed to restore his central government in the wake of last week's coup.
The two republics invited other states "of the former USSR" to join their alliance, striking a serious blow to Gorbachev's efforts to regain some semblance of the power he wielded before the failed coup.
Thursday's agreement was a victory for Russian President Boris Yeltsin, who led the opposition to the Communist-led takeover and has since forced Gorbachev into a weaker, power-sharing role.
It also underscored the diminished stature of such institutions as the national Supreme Soviet legislature, which began Thursday's session by hearing reports on the Russian-Ukrainian accord.
"The results of these negotiations are that . . . the old union does not exist and there can be no return to it," said Leningrad Mayor Anatoly Sobchak, who was sent to Kiev by Gorbachev and the Supreme Soviet to observe the talks.
But the reformist mayor also told lawmakers that he still sees a future role for Soviet institutions such as the national parliament.
"It ought to play a coordinating, an arbitrating role to prevent a misunderstanding from growing into a conflict," he said.
As he spoke, new problems arose in the republic of Kazakhstan. Its president, Nursultan Nazarbayev, sent a message to Yeltsin that tension was rising in Kazakhstan because there has been no clear-cut renunciation of Russian territorial claims there, the Interfax news agency reported.
"This can force the republic to take the same steps as the Ukraine. Special danger lies in the fact that Kazakhstan is a nuclear republic," Interfax quoted Nazarbayev as saying, an apparent reference to the warheads located in the vast republic.
Gorbachev told the Supreme Soviet session that he was dispatching a special delegation to Alma-Ata, the capital of Kazakhstan, because the situation there "got more complicated today." He said he had three telephone conversations with Nazarbayev, a key Gorbachev ally in holding the union together.
"It is necessary that . . . we do not let matters get to a situation where there is no escape. . . . Things can snowball," Gorbachev said, without further explanation.
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(Additional story)
Envoy promoted
President Mikhail Gorbachev named Moscow's envoy to Czechoslovakia, Boris Pankin, as foreign minister, rewarding him for his outspoken opposition to last week's failed coup.
In promoting Pankin Wednesday to head the Foreign Ministry, Gorbachev scotched reports he was preparing to ask Eduard Shevardnadze to reclaim the post.
Pankin would replace Alexander Bessmertnykh.