Gorbachev Tightens Hold on Soviet Leadership : Adds More Supporters to Key Party Posts; Dobrynin Elevated to Secretariat

Anatoly F. Dobrynin, the Soviet ambassador to Washington for the last 24 years, was transferred Thursday to a top-level post in the Communist Party’s governing Secretariat as leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev moved to consolidate his control at the close of the 27th party congress.

In a departure from tradition, a woman was one of five new members appointed to the Secretariat as Gorbachev put his stamp on the body that has day-to-day responsibility for governing.

Although Gorbachev’s previous reshuffling of the Politburo left little to be done at the congress, where major changes usually take place since it is held only once every five years, he emerged from the nine-day meeting with greatly enlarged support in the party’s Central Committee and with new allies on the dominant Politburo.

While one new member was added to the Politburo, two octogenarians were removed as non-voting members, and newcomers were selected in their place.

The largest reshuffle occurred in the Central Committee, where only 171 of the 319 former members were reelected this year. A Central Committee spokesman said about 40% of its members were newcomers, apparently chosen by Gorbachev and his advisers.

Advisory Role Likely

The 66-year-old Dobrynin’s new duties remain unclear, but it seemed likely that he will take charge of the Kremlin’s relations with foreign Communist parties and advise Gorbachev on issues involving the United States. He has played a key role in East-West diplomacy because of his long experience with American political leaders.

In a closing address to the congress, Gorbachev charged that some U.S. officials prefer to continue Soviet-American confrontation, but he said Moscow would not “slam the door” to detente.

He appealed to President Reagan and other Western leaders to show “responsibility” on issues of war and peace.

Speaking of Washington’s ways of thinking, Gorbachev said, “It looks as though some people are simply afraid of the possibility . . . of a serious and long-term thaw in Soviet-American relations. . . .

“The militaristic and aggressive forces would, of course, prefer to freeze and perpetuate the confrontation. But what should we do, comrades, slam the door?

Nuclear Threat

“We do not intend to play into the hands of those who would like to force mankind to get used to the nuclear threat and the arms race,” he concluded.

The main theme of the congress, however, has been Gorbachev’s drive for a speed-up in the economy and greater discipline in party ranks.

With Gorbachev and his new-generation supporters taking the lead, many speakers sharply criticized the Soviet Union’s past performance and agreed to back the leader’s call for “radical reform.”

The chief target--never mentioned by name--was Leonid I. Brezhnev, the late Soviet leader who held office for 18 years before his death in 1982.

Relatively Muted

While it is customary for new Kremlin chiefs to attack their predecessors, Gorbachev’s critique was relatively muted, and he made it plain that the problems were far from solved during his first year as leader.

Western diplomats said the congress was more critical than such gatherings in Brezhnev’s time but far more subdued than the 20th congress in 1956 when Nikita S. Khrushchev exposed Josef Stalin’s terror tactics in a famous “secret speech.”

“On a scale of 1 to 10, I would give this congress an 8 for openness,” a veteran Soviet political observer said.

Other Soviet sources said Gorbachev showed “tact and diplomacy” by sidestepping personal attacks on Brezhnev and focusing on contemporary problems instead.

Although the leader implied that he, too, was subject to criticism, none of the 5,000 delegates upbraided him during the discussions. and, as usual, every vote was unanimous.

Genuine Enthusiasm

Even so, there appeared to be genuine enthusiasm for the amount of criticism that was made, in contrast to past assemblies where delegates competed in forms of flattery.

“Nothing remained outside the sphere of our critical analysis,” Gorbachev said in his closing remarks. Earlier, however, his second-in-command, Yegor K. Ligachev, cautioned the delegates that some criticism of the party’s leaders had gone too far, suggesting that there are clear limits on fault-finding.

Despite the radical turnover in the Central Committee’s membership, however, some party veterans associated with Brezhnev and other former leaders kept their seats on the committee, including former Premier Nikolai A. Tikhonov, who resigned from the Politburo last fall on grounds of ill health.

Among the other personnel changes made by the congress:

--Lev N. Zaikov, 63, a Gorbachev ally who has been party secretary in charge of heavy industry since last July, was promoted to full membership in the Politburo after serving as a candidate member for the last eight months.

--Nikolai P. Slyunkov, 57, the party chief for Byelorussia, and Yuri F. Solovev, 61, who succeeded Zaikov as the Leningrad party boss, were named candidate, or non-voting, members of the ruling body.

--Two veterans, Central Committee International Department chief Boris N. Ponomarev, 81, and Soviet First Vice President Vasily V. Kuznetsov, 84, lost their posts as non-voting members of the Politburo. They both kept their seats on the Central Committee, however.

--Alexandra P. Biryukova, 57, a trade union official and former textile worker, was selected for the party Secretariat. She is the first woman to hold such a high rank since Yekaterina Furtseva left the Politburo a quarter-century ago.

In addition to Dobrynin, other new party secretaries chosen were Georgy P. Razumovsky, 50, head of the Central Committee’s organizational party work department; Alexander N. Yakovlev, 61, a propagandist, and Vadim A. Medvedev, 56, chief of the Scientific and Educational Institutions Department of the committee since 1983.