Soviets Predict Largest Harvest in Eight Years

The Soviet Union expects a grain harvest this year of about 210 million metric tons, the largest crop in eight years, Yegor K. Ligachev, a member of the Politburo, announced Thursday.

Ligachev said the harvest will be 30 million tons above the average figure for the last five years. Even so, the crop was well below the 250 millions projected in the Kremlin’s five-year plan.

The bumper harvest may reduce costly Soviet purchases of wheat, corn and other grains from the United States, Canada, Argentina and other suppliers, but perhaps further depress world grain prices, according to Western diplomats.

On Eve of Anniversary

Ligachev, the No. 2 man in the Kremlin hierarchy, gave the main speech at a meeting of top government and party leaders on the eve of the 69th anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution. An elite audience of party officials, including Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev and nine other members of the Politburo, applauded the announcement.

Harvest figures often have been a state secret here. The grain harvest for last year--191.6 million metric tons--was reported only a few weeks ago. There had been no official word on this key indicator of economic health since 1981.

Western agricultural experts said that a 210-million ton harvest is believable this year despite drought in some grain-growing regions and an official U.S. estimate of 180 million tons. (The metric ton, used in the Soviet Union and some other countries, is equal to 2,204.62 pounds; the ton used in the United States, Canada and elsewhere is 2,000 pounds.)

Best Harvest Since ’78

Extensive use of fertilizer, together with excellent crops in the so-called Virgin Lands of Kazakhstan, apparently has raised Soviet grain production to the highest level since the 237 million tons of 1978, the experts said.

The results were considered even more impressive because the Ukraine, known as the breadbasket of the Soviet Union, failed to reach its target for 1986.

In a report issued in September, the Politburo, which is the executive committee of the Communist Party, said this year’s grain harvest would exceed the 1985 level because of increased productivity and less waste in getting the crop from field to storage areas.

Defense Minister Sergei L. Sokolov was not present at Thursday’s meeting, and this gave rise to increased speculation that he is seriously ill. Sokolov, 75, is an alternate member of the Politburo. In normal circumstances, he would be on hand today to review the troops at the customary military parade in Red Square. But Gen. Pyotr Lushev, a first deputy defense minister who is considered a possible successor to Sokolov, has been named to preside.

Campaign of Candor

Ligachev, who championed the concept of glasnost, or candor on public issues, also reported that the first 10 months of this year showed the highest growth rate of the decade in industrial output.

In a kind of “state of the union” speech, he criticized U.S. arms control policies and praised the Soviet proposals put forth at last month’s superpower summit conference in Iceland.

“The Soviet Union came up with bold and drastic plans for sweeping, balanced cuts in nuclear potentials and for their subsequent early elimination,” he said. “The United States showed its inability not merely to go halfway or even make a first step. But that meeting also showed that agreements leading to nuclear disarmament are possible.”

Ligachev repeated the Kremlin’s condemnation of President Reagan’s Space Defense Initiative, the “Star Wars” program, calling it a “concentrated expression of militarism.”

But elsewhere in his speech he said that national security is primarily a political task, not a military task, and added that “security for oneself cannot be guaranteed if others feel threatened.”

Alcohol Consumption Drops

On the domestic front, he reported that the consumption of alcohol has dropped by a third since a Kremlin crackdown on the production and sale of vodka and other intoxicants.