Soviet Party Calls for Harder Work by Everyone

Reporting a slowdown in economic growth over the winter, the leading Communist Party newspaper called Wednesday for harder work by everyone from government ministers to rank-and-file workers.

The front-page editorial in Pravda, the party’s chief publication, sounded as if new Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev was following the labor discipline policies laid down by the late President Yuri V. Andropov.

It said that officials, managers and workers all must get ready for a turn toward more intensive economic development, echoing Gorbachev’s first speech after he assumed office March 11.

The 54-year-old Gorbachev took power after the death of 73-year-old Konstantin U. Chernenko, who spent 13 months in the top office after Andropov died in February, 1984.

“Strengthen planning discipline,” the headline on the Pravda editorial said, reviving a slogan associated with Andropov’s tenure.

Gorbachev, who worked closely with Andropov, has been identified with economic experiments designed to put new life into the sagging Soviet economy.

A harsh winter “slowed down progress in the economy somewhat,” Pravda said, singling out the metallurgical, transportation and energy industries for failing to achieve many of their output goals.

“Strengthening of organization, order and discipline in all spheres of production and management is of ever-growing importance for the decisive turn of our economy onto the path of intensive development,” added Pravda.

Recently published statistics for the first two months of this year show declines from the same period of 1984: oil and coal production down; industrial production growth down from 5.6% to 3.7%; increase in labor productivity down from 5.4% to 1.3%.

In another article on the economy, the weekly Literary Gazette discussed economic experiments in the Ukraine that give factory managers greater independence from central planning authorities in spending their plants’ income.

“The current economic situation simply does not allow us to mark time,” the Literary Gazette article said. “We must take the plunge.”

The same theme of welcoming change in economic policy was sounded by Pravda on Monday, headlined, “Against Inertia.”

“What has grown obsolete must be torn down, and we must adopt new methods of running the national economy,” the article said, possibly reflecting Gorbachev’s impatience to begin reshaping Soviet industrial management.