Gorbachev Reforms to Face Challenge at Party Meeting : Soviet Central Committee to Weigh Economic Record Amid Resistance to Some Programs

The ambitious economic reform plans of Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev will face a serious challenge this week at a meeting of the Central Committee of the Soviet Communist Party.

The Central Committee is deemed the ultimate decision-making body in the Soviet system, and it is expected to examine particularly closely a proposed law that would give greater autonomy to factory managers.

But the 300-plus members will also be considering Gorbachev’s economic record as a whole. According to Western analysts, the overall results are not impressive: Industrial and farm production are both below target levels.

The Western experts do not think Gorbachev’s position as leader will be at stake at the meeting, which is expected to get under way toward the end of the week, yet the strong momentum that he displayed after taking over in the spring of 1985 seems to have dissipated.

Further, he has openly acknowledged that resistance has developed in the Central Committee and among leaders of the bureaucracy, which would be trimmed back sharply if Gorbachev had his way.

3 Years for New System

A leading disciple, economist Leoni Abalkin, has cautioned that it may take three years or more to set up a new system of economic management.

The Central Committee, which includes a significant number of military members, is also expected to take up the abrupt dismissal of Defense Minister Sergei L. Sokolov and the chief of the air defense command, Marshal Alexander I. Koldunov. Both were dismissed May 30, just two days after a young West German landed a light plane in Red Square without proper authority.

The committee may also move to fill a vacancy in the Politburo caused by the recent ouster of Dinmukhamed A. Kunayev, who had been the party chief in Kazakhstan. And a replacement may be sought for Sokolov, a candidate, or non-voting, member.

But the emphasis is expected to be on economic matters. Aspects of Gorbachev’s plan for perestroika, or reconstruction, have been under heavy fire for weeks in the officially controlled press.

Some critics complain that Gorbachev has not gone far enough. They propose such revolutionary steps as removing price controls and making the ruble fully convertible. But others contend that he has already gone too far.

Trial-and-Error Approach

Gorbachev, caught in the cross-fire, has talked openly of a trial-and-error approach to economic change, to be developed slowly and to not become fully effective until the five-year plan that begins in 1991.

That Gorbachev is running into opposition was made clear at a recent meeting of Moscow party leaders. In a report on the meeting, Moscow radio said:

“As regards a whole range of problems and organizations, it would be more appropriate to talk of a stirring rather than of progress, let alone acceleration. The main thing is that Muscovites have still not sensed an irreversible and fundamental breakthrough in specific matters of social justice and provision.”

In plain language, this means that the average citizen has seen little improvement in food and housing.

Izvestia, the government’s daily newspaper, said that a recent poll of more than 4,000 Soviet citizens representing more than 300 enterprises had found that only 7% thought the proposals to achieve radical economic reform could be carried out.

Tying Wages to Output

As for Gorbachev’s plan to tie wages to output, 30% of those polled said they did not believe their wages would decline even if they did less work than they do now.

Jean T. Toschenko, a vice president of the Soviet Sociological Assn., who gave Izvestia the results of the poll, called for a periodic turnover of top officials and some immediate, tangible results to satisfy a restless populace.

“People are no longer satisfied with well-meaning platitudes and vague promises that somewhere, sometime we’ll have it good,” Izvestia quoted Toschenko as saying. “They concentrate more on their own lives. . . . Let something change for the better here, this very moment--that’s what the majority of people want today. Here and now!”

A group of engineers at the Togliatti car plant, taking advantage of Gorbachev’s new policy of glasnost, or openness, recently denounced the Gorbachev-backed proposal for greater economic independence for factory managers.

Rather than encourage greater output, the group said in a letter that appeared in the magazine Ogonyok, such a move would stimulate phony reports, misuse of resources and higher pay for less work.

Incentive to Fudge Figures

They said that by focusing entirely on a factory’s profit and guaranteeing the enterprise a fixed share of the profit, this approach would increase the incentive to fudge production figures and use accounting tricks to show a surplus.

A group of milkmaids and tractor drivers on a collective farm near Moscow has assailed legislation that spells out a new formula for calculating bonuses.

They complained that their farm’s managers and top specialists were receiving enormous bonuses but that the milkmaids, tractor drivers and others at the bottom of the pay scale were getting none at all.

Pravda, the official party newspaper, investigated and found that there was truth to the complaints. It said the new law, adopted a year ago, favored the managers. Top officials on one farm, it said, got up to 3,000 rubles as a year-end bonus, or about 10 times the monthly wage of a milkmaid.

“On one collective farm in the Tula region . . . leading officials could expect up to 24 monthly salaries in premiums, while the rank-and-file workers would get many times less,” Pravda said. “At a number of farms in the Tula area there is simply not enough money to pay such exorbitant bonuses.”

Law to be Adopted

Despite the criticism, Gorbachev said earlier this month that the proposed law giving more authority to factory managers will be adopted and improved to whatever extent is necessary after it takes effect next Jan. 1.

But he also said it will be suspended until major changes in such key economic agencies as Gosplan, the central planning organization, can be adopted to reduce their power over factory production and prices.

Bureaucrats at Gosplan, notorious for its conservative control over the Soviet economy, are not likely to give up without a struggle, according to Western observers.

The outspoken weekly Moscow News recently repeated a bitter joke about the agency: “If you want to kill an idea, turn to Gosplan. They will arrange a funeral at the highest level.”

In addition to the task of reorganizing the entrenched bureaucracy, Gorbachev also faces the sensitive issues of food prices, housing costs and the cost of other services, all of which have been heavily subsidized by the state for most of its 70-year history.

Complaints Over Bread Prices

Consumers are already complaining that bread prices have been effectively raised by introducing a “higher quality” product, yet government economists have been arguing in the press that food prices in general must be increased.

Another problem Gorbachev faces involves pervasive shortages and the black market that flourishes as a result. In this connection, the newspaper Socialist Industry carried an article last week about a plant in Volzhsk, not far from Volgograd, that makes passenger tires.

It said the shortage of tires has reached the point that gangs of tire thieves have been organized, some of which include guards at the tire factory. The factory, it said, is like a fortress, with guards firing guns at the gangs to hold them off. It said thieves perch on the plant roof and, using grappling hooks, snatch tires off the production line.

Other thieves, it said, have tried to enter the plant through tunnels that vent superheated steam, and their bodies have been found there.

The newspaper said that an effort has been made to persuade motorists to refuse to buy stolen tires but that it has failed, and it quoted a car owner as saying:

“All legal trade in tires was stopped recently, so what do you expect us to do?”