200,000 End Soviet Strike as Officials Agree to Talks : Byelorussia: But the news from the rest of the country bodes ill for Gorbachev’s latest reform efforts.

MOSCOW —  About 200,000 striking workers in Byelorussia agreed to go back to their jobs Thursday after republic officials consented to discuss their demands, which include Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev’s resignation and a rollback of stiff consumer price increases.

That piece of news from Minsk was about the only cheerful development of the day for Gorbachev and the national leadership, which on Tuesday unveiled an “anti-crisis” program to prevent their increasingly turbulent country from sliding into chaos.

In the southern republic of Georgia, rail service halted as workers heeded a call from pro-secessionist President Zviad Gamsakhurdia and refused to allow trains to enter or leave for other regions of the Soviet Union, the local Sakinform news agency reported.

The Presidium, the supreme executive authority in the Georgian government, appealed to Gorbachev to create working groups to begin negotiations on independence, which the Transcaucasus republic proclaimed on Tuesday.

From coal pits near the Pacific Ocean to the Ukraine, 300,000 miners stubbornly continued a strike that is now in its sixth week.

They are demanding Gorbachev’s departure, the dissolution of the Soviet parliament and creation of a government of national unity.

All of these protests and work stoppages took place despite Gorbachev’s call this week for a moratorium on strikes and demonstrations until the end of the year.

In an often gloomy speech to trade union leaders in Moscow, Prime Minister Valentin S. Pavlov detailed the ravages of the work stoppages and the simultaneous unraveling of the country’s economic fabric.

Crude oil exports have dropped by 60 million tons, he said. For want of coal, the output of rolled metal will probably plummet by 5 million tons this year.

Minsk, the normally docile capital of Byelorussia, looked ready to become the next flash point for popular frustration over the Kremlin’s inability to better the common citizen’s lot and fears over what new hardships the “anti-crisis” plan might entail.

On Thursday, workers at more than two dozen factories in the city of 1.5 million had been off their jobs, in part to demand higher wages to offset price rises of 200% and more this month on foodstuffs and consumer goods sold in state-run stores.

On a gorgeous spring day, 50,000 people jammed Lenin Square outside the Byelorussian government’s headquarters and jeered at the bureaucrats and elected leaders inside.

Reversing its decision of a day before, the Byelorussian government agreed to negotiate the strikers’ demands, although they were obviously powerless to do anything about some of them--for example, obtaining Gorbachev’s resignation.