Gus Hall Startled by Gorbachev Congress

Even for Gus Hall, who says he was born a Communist 75 years ago, the 27th Communist Party Congress here has been an eye-opener.

“I have never been in a meeting where there has been such a total, critical examination of everything,” Hall told a small group of reporters Saturday as the meeting was ending.

The longtime general secretary of the U.S. Communist Party, who is accustomed to a more conformist and complimentary attitude on the part of party members, said that it is a good sign for the Soviet Union.

“It is shaking up the whole country,” said the white-haired, heavyset Hall, natty in a blue blazer and gray flannel trousers.

“I want to predict that the Soviet Union is in the midst of the greatest leap forward ever--a great leap ahead in production, science, quality of life, culture, education.” Hall used the phrase associated with a Chinese radical period of the late 1950s, an attempt at rapid industrial and economic growth that the current group of pragmatic leaders in Peking regard as a disaster.

However, Hall used the phrase as a compliment to the Soviet drive for economic advances under Mikhail S. Gorbachev.

During a brief meeting with the Soviet party general secretary, Hall said, he urged him to travel to the United States this year and go through with the planned second summit meeting with President Reagan, a session on which Gorbachev has recently expressed misgivings.

“Even without reservations?” he quoted Gorbachev as replying, perhaps in jest.

“Yes, even without reservations,” Hall responded.

Hall said Reagan’s response to Gorbachev’s sweeping disarmament plan and his plea for a continued U.S. military buildup were two negative factors for the Soviets in setting a summit date.

But a House vote to endorse a halt in nuclear tests, as urged by Gorbachev and rejected by Reagan, was a big positive factor to the Soviets, Hall said.

Soviet-American relations, he said in a speech to the congress, will move “one step forward, half a step backward” in coming months. “But then, I tend to be optimistic about things,” said Hall, in counterpoint to the anti-Reagan and anti-American rhetoric heard almost hourly at the gathering of 5,000 Soviet Communists.

In ending their session Saturday, the delegates endorsed the sentiments of Defense Minister Sergei L. Sokolov, who had pledged that the Soviet Union would take whatever steps were necessary to neutralize an American “Star Wars” missile defense system.

They also approved changes in a 1961 party program of then-Soviet Premier Nikita S. Khrushchev, under which the nation 10 years later, by 1971, would surpass U.S. industrial production.

Hall, who has served 26 years at the helm of the American Communist Party, said he was struck by delegates’ criticism aimed at the Soviet Union’s past performance in a variety of areas.

“Trade unions were criticized for not being militant enough on issues, and the head of the trade unions accepted the criticism,” he recalled in something like awe.

An 81-year-old coal miner, he said, attacked the Soviet Academy of Sciences for not devising better coal-digging machinery.

“Where the hell are they with jackhammers that don’t vibrate and make so much noise?” he quoted the miner as asking.

Hall avoided a direct answer when asked if he, at 75, might be affected by Gorbachev’s youth movement in the Politburo and other high places. Today is Gorbachev’s 55th birthday.

“Years don’t really count; it’s how you feel,” he replied with a twinkle in his pale blue eyes.