Editors Spotlighting Soviet Ills Win Support From Gorbachev

Kremlin leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev has told editors of leading Soviet journals that he approves of their frank treatment of the country’s problems and once-taboo issues in its history, literary sources said Monday.

According to the sources, Gorbachev and close ideological aide Alexander N. Yakovlyev called the editors to a six-hour meeting late last week to discuss the role of the journals in the reform process he has launched.

“It was a very progressive meeting. He told them they should press ahead in airing all the controversial issues of past and present,” one source who had been briefed on the discussions said.

The session came a week after Yegor K. Ligachev, the Kremlin’s ideology chief, openly lined up behind conservative writers who have expressed alarm over the current extent of open debate.

Ligachev made his remarks in a meeting with journalists at the end of a two-day visit to the newspaper Soviet Culture, which has taken a strongly liberal line on cultural and historical issues.

Ligachev, who has called on writers and journalists to focus more on the positive elements in Soviet history, was reported by Moscow television last week as being on vacation in Hungary.

Yakovlyev is widely regarded by liberal intellectuals as one of the key figures behind Gorbachev’s glasnost --”openness”--policies. They say he has backed the publication of long-suppressed literary works dealing with the era of dictator Josef Stalin.

Once a student at New York’s Columbia University and longtime ambassador to Canada, Yakovlyev was promoted to the ruling Communist Party Politburo two weeks ago in a move seen as strengthening Gorbachev’s grip.

Liberal intellectuals and journalists say they have no doubt that Ligachev’s visit to Soviet Culture only days after Yakovlyev’s promotion was intended as a signal that he intends to defend his ideological portfolio.