Soviets Vow to Match U.S. Arms Budget : Parliament Opens With Discussion of Spending in 1987

The fall session of the Supreme Soviet opened today with a vow to keep pace with the United States in military spending, including “Star Wars,” and a call for more innovative management and better quality control of consumer products.

The regular session of the Soviet Union’s parliament, expected to last three days, commenced with a discussion of the 1987 budget and projections of Soviet economic growth.

According to figures given to the 1,500 delegates by Finance Minister Boris Gostev, the 1987 budget called for revenues of $609.7 billion and expenditures of $609.4 billion--giving the state a small surplus and basically a balanced budget.

“The U.S.A. aims to achieve military superiority and we will allocate corresponding resources to the military to keep pace,” Gostev said.

Meaningless Figure

He said the 1987 budget allocated $28.3 billion to defense, but Western diplomats at the session said the figure is meaningless because most of the defense budget is buried within other sectors of the economy, such as heavy machine building.

Western governments nevertheless regard the official figure as a political signal.

The United States will spend $292 billion in 1987 for defense.

Gostev said defense spending would have to be maintained at its current level because of U.S. refusal to curb the arms race, pointing to Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative for a space-based missile shield as a factor in the decision.

Moscow has stepped up criticism of the U.S. arms control stand since last month’s summit in Reykjavik, which foundered on a U.S. rejection of defense initiative testing limits demanded by the Soviets.

Soviet GNP Rises

Nikolai Talyzin, chairman of the Central Planning Committee, said the Soviet equivalent of the gross national product rose 4.3% in the first 10 months of 1986 and the 1987 budget called for a rise of 4.1%.

Talyzin said 1987 would see better quality goods for the Soviet consumer. He said managers will be given freer rein to hire and fire workers, and wages and bonuses will be more closely tied to productivity.