Soviet Plan Stresses Better U.S. Relations : Party Blueprint Seen as Gorbachev Effort ‘to Seize High Ground’

The draft of a new Communist Party program called Saturday for “mutual understanding rather than hostility” between the Soviet Union and the United States.

The document, seen as one of the most important ideological statements issued by the Kremlin in the last quarter-century, said that conditions are right for fruitful Soviet-American cooperation in many areas.

While it accused the United States of being the citadel of imperialism and the greatest threat to world peace, the document nonetheless endorsed “normal and stable” relations between the two superpowers.

Gorbachev’s Imprint

The policy statement bore the stamp of Mikhail S. Gorbachev, who has been championing detente and coexistence with the West since becoming party leader in March. It was made public less than a month before Gorbachev is to meet with President Reagan in Geneva.

Western diplomats here said that the section on the Kremlin’s view of relations with the United States is “fairly mild” compared to usual Soviet rhetoric.

“It seems to be Gorbachev’s attempt to seize the high ground and stress peaceful cooperation rather than be accused of saber-rattling,” one of these analysts said.

On economic issues, the draft program contrasted sharply with the vision of a communist utopia in the last party document adopted in 1961 under the leadership of Nikita S. Khrushchev.

The 108-page program, published in major newspapers, will be debated before its consideration by the 27th party congress next February.

‘Uneven, Controversial’

As usual, it depicted capitalism as doomed and communism gaining the upper hand throughout the world. In a relatively cautious note, however, the draft said, “The advance of humanity toward socialism and communism, though uneven, complex and controversial, is inexorable.”

The draft program obliquely criticized the late Soviet dictator Josef Stalin by praising the party’s work in overcoming consequences of “the cult of personality,” a code phrase for Stalinist repression.

It also aimed a barb at Khrushchev, who was ousted in 1964 after charges of “subjectivism and voluntarism,” for trying to do too much too soon.

And it indirectly admonished Leonid I. Brezhnev, Soviet leader from 1964 until his death in 1982, by asserting that economic problems in the 1970s and early 1980s were caused largely by failure to make policy changes in time.

In the section on relations with capitalist countries, the draft program said that the Soviet ruling party will seek development of international detente as an essential stage on the road to a comprehensive security system.

“The Communist Party of the Soviet Union stands for normal and stable relations between the Soviet Union and the United States of America--presupposing nonintervention in internal affairs, respect for each other’s legitimate interests, recognition and practical observance of the principles of equal security and establishment of the greatest possible mutual trust on this basis,” the document said, adding:

“Differences between social systems and ideologies are no reason for strain in relations. There are objective preconditions for the establishment of fruitful and mutually beneficial Soviet-American cooperation in various fields.

‘Catastrophic Consequences’

“It is the conviction of the CPSU (Soviet Communist Party)that the policies of both powers should be oriented to mutual understanding rather than hostility, which is fraught with the threat of catastrophic consequences for the Soviet and American people and other nations.”

In another section devoted to struggles between “the forces of progress and the forces of reaction” in the world, however, the United States came in for harsh criticism.

“The imperialism of the United States is the citadel of international reaction,” the draft asserted. “It is first and foremost from it (the United States) that the threat of war emanates.”

The party’s draft program charged that the United States pursues a policy of diktat by trying to dominate other nations, supporting repressive regimes and discriminating against countries that oppose U.S. policy.

“The bloody war against Vietnam, the blockade of Cuba of many years, the flouting of the lawful rights of the Palestinian people, the intervention in Lebanon, the armed seizure of defenseless Grenada, the aggressive actions against Nicaragua--such are only some of the countless crimes that will remain forever most shameful pages in imperialism’s history,” the document charged.

Modest Improvements

Addressing the Soviet worker, the party held out modest hopes of shorter hours, less hard labor, improved health care and even more interesting television programs.

One of the few specific goals--reflecting a perennial housing shortage--called for a private apartment for “practically every family” by the year 2000. An estimated 15% of city dwellers still live in flats where they share kitchens and bathrooms.

In contrast to the Khrushchev program’s prophecy of the world’s shortest workweek and an end to manual labor, the new draft made it clear that such goals may be achieved only in the distant future.

And it called for stronger labor discipline, declaring the party’s opposition to “pilferage and bribe-taking, profiteering and parasitism, drunkenness and hooliganism, private-owner psychology and money-grubbing, toadyism and fawning.”