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Gorbachev: Does He Mean It? : He Suggests Arms Respite, but There’s Reason for Skepticism

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<i> Ernest Conine is a Times editorial writer</i>

Although they were not widely reported in this country, some of the most interesting passages of Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev’s interview with a group of visiting American editors dealt with the guns-vs.-butter issue.

Explaining his professed desire to end the arms race, the Soviet leader said that “we would prefer to use every ruble that today goes for defense to meet civilian, peaceful needs.”

After discussing his determination to overcome deficiencies in the Soviet economy, Gorbachev pointedly suggested once more that the Soviet Union needs a respite from the arms race in order to deal with deep-seated economic problems.

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At the close of the interview, published last week in Time magazine, Gorbachev posed the question: “If we in the Soviet Union are setting ourselves such truly grandiose plans in the domestic sphere, then what are the external conditions that we need to be able to fulfill those domestic plans? I leave the answer to you.”

If he means it, U.S.-Soviet relations could be on the threshold of a profound change for the better. But how seriously should his remarks be taken?

Gorbachev has been in office for 182 days, and it is still a mystery whether he represents a new and refreshing kind of Soviet leader, or is only a snake-oil salesman telling us what we want to hear.

So far the evidence is not encouraging.

The treatment of dissidents and would-be emigres is, if anything, rougher than ever. Military action in Afghanistan, where more than 100,000 Soviet troops are waging a cruel war against peasant guerrillas, has been stepped up. There has been no evident diminution of the massive Soviet espionage activities directed not only against the United States but neutral and Third World countries as well.

There is also good reason, to put it mildly, to be skeptical about Gorbachev’s suggestion of willingness to make do with fewer guns in order to have more butter--if only the troublesome Americans would meet him “halfway.”

The 54-year-old Soviet leader is the product of a system that has consistently indulged its military-industrial complex. The Kremlin spends almost twice as great a proportion of its gross national product on the military as does Washington.

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What President Jimmy Carter’s defense secretary once said about the Soviet military buildup has been true since at least 1962: “When we build, they build. When we don’t build, they build.”

As U.S. Ambassador Richard Schifter told a gathering in Ottawa not long ago, “Though the Soviet population is only 12% greater than that of the United States, its military forces are almost 200% greater, its police forces more than 100% greater and its prison population, including forced labor, over 1,100% greater than the corresponding figures in the United States.”

From the U.S. perspective, it’s obvious that Gorbachev could free substantial resources for the civilian economy merely by making Russia less of a garrison state.

As for his vaunted interest in economic reform, we apparently will have to wait until early next year, when Gorbachev has said that he will disclose his new system of flexible management, to see what he has up his sleeve. So far, however, there has been much talk and very little action.

Gorbachev has let it be known that the Hungarian economic model, with its unusual degree of reliance on market forces, is not appropriate for the Soviet Union. What he has in mind appears to be not radical restructuring of the economic system but tinkering with incentives to make it work better--that, and a crackdown on corruption and worker malingering.

In any event, while a substantial cut in Soviet military outlays is unlikely no matter what happens in the arms-control talks, it is easy to believe that the new Kremlin leadership desperately wants to avoid the even higher defense expenditures that would be needed if it is unable to avoid full-scale competition with America in “Star Wars” technologies.

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The Soviet Union has the world’s largest gas reserves. It is the largest oil producer. It is third after the United States and China in coal production, and has the world’s largest steel industry. It claims to have three times as many scientists and engineers as the United States. According to the Economist, Russia spends 1 1/2 times as much of its national income on research and development as does Japan.

It’s probably true that Westerners tend to magnify the weaknesses of the Soviet economy. But the weaknesses are very real, as Gorbachev has said strongly.

Economic growth is stagnating at a level far below the American GNP. Quality is frequently abhorrent. Workers don’t work hard, and managers don’t manage well. Agriculture remains in a state of crisis.

The civilian economy is only in the beginning stages of the computer revolution. Labor shortages exist side by side with blatant overmanning. Soviet military gear is world class, but the standard of living remains appallingly low by European as well as American standards.

If Gorbachev is serious about modernizing the creaky Bolshevik economy--and the preoccupation of the kept Soviet press shows that he is--he may indeed be worried about the allocation of resources between the military and civilian sectors.

Nobody ever accused Jeane J. Kirkpatrick, President Reagan’s former U.N. ambassador, of wishful thinking toward the Soviets. Yet, in an interview with U.S. News & World Report, she held out the possibility that the combination of economic pressures and generational change just might affect Soviet behavior.

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“In a closed society such as that in the Soviet Union,” she observed, “generational change offers one of the very few possibilities for authentic change in the society. That generational change is now taking place . . . . There is a possibility that we have today in the Soviet Union a leadership group with somewhat different goals than their predecessor. It’s very important that we are sensitive to that possibility.”

In sum, we would be foolish to take Gorbachev’s smooth public-relations exercises at face value. But, until we have enough experience to have a better idea as to where he’s really coming from, there’s a lot to be said for not closing any doors.

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