And Now, Divorce?

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ARMENIA. Legislators amended the republic's constitution to give the regional legislature primacy over its national counterpart, enabling Armenia to veto national laws that conflict with its interests. The parliament then defied the Kremlin by voting to include in its budget the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region, geographically nestled in the republic of Azerbaijan.

AZERBAIJAN. Citizens promptly protested Armenia's actions, blockading government offices and seizing a local radio station in the Caspian Sea port of Lenkoran. An officer of the Interior Ministry troops on peacekeeping duty in Nagorno-Karabakh was killed in the village of Akhullu. Azerbaijanis wearing bulletproof vests and carrying automatic weapons attacked Manashid, another village in the disputed district. Farther south, in the Nakhichevan region, where Azerbaijanis are demanding an open frontier with their ethnic kin across the border in Iran, angry crowds continued to tear down border installations and destroy guard posts.

GEORGIA. Violence flared over the release of four Ossetians detained in connection with the fatal shooting of a nine-month-old infant last fall. Ossetian activists are campaigning for greater autonomy and cries persist to ) "overthrow the Communist regime in the republic." In Kareli, 50 miles northwest of Tbilisi, protesters demanding independence drove government workers out of their offices.

LATVIA. Following the lead of Lithuania, Latvian lawmakers amended the constitution to create a multiparty system.

Of all the problems confronting Moscow, however, the challenge for independence mounted by Lithuania threatened to have the most serious consequences. Nothing less than the territorial integrity of the Soviet Union, and possibly the survival of its leader, seemed to be at stake. The stage was set on Dec. 20, when Lithuania's Communist Party declared independence from its national counterpart. At the time, Gorbachev angrily told a group of Lithuanian parliamentarians that they had "stabbed perestroika in the heart." But Gorbachev knew that the party's maneuver was merely a dress rehearsal for the day when the republic would try to secede from the nation. In local elections on Feb. 24, Lithuanians are expected to elect a republican parliament dominated by uncompromising nationalists. It was a challenge that could not be solved with traditional Kremlin politics. Stalling for time, Gorbachev announced that there should be a "fact-finding mission" to Lithuania.

When Gorbachev arrived there last week for a three-day visit -- his first in more than nine years and the first ever by a General Secretary -- party issues were all but forgotten as the Soviet leader plunged straight into the more dangerous debate over secession. He came armed with his own compromise, a vague plan that would allow for "sovereign states" within a new federation. Then he tried every sales pitch he could think of.

The comradely approach: "We will decide everything together."

The paternal pitch: "Where are you running to? Why are you running? You must think these things through."

The patriotic appeal: "If someone succeeds in pitting us against each other and it comes to a clash, there will be tragedy."

The historical argument: "Over 50 years we have become tied together, whether we like it or not."