Reports Cite Shortfalls in Gorbachev’s Reforms : Some Food Shortages Worsen, Bureaucracy Rampant, 2 Party Leaders Say

Two senior Communist Party officials gave downbeat year-end reports Thursday on major aspects of Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev’s reform program.

Politburo member Viktor P. Nikonov acknowledged that there are not enough meat, potatoes, fruits, vegetables and dairy products to satisfy Soviet customers. In some regions, he said, the situation is getting worse instead of better.

Another assessment by Georgy P. Razumovsky, the party Central Committee’s secretary in charge of organizational work, said the lower-level party bodies were poorly prepared for the new methods of work that Gorbachev advocates.

Their views, published in the Communist Party newspaper Pravda, indicated that the fate of perestroika , or restructuring, is still very much in doubt.

Subsidy Controversy

Other reports showed that controversy is raging over the Kremlin leader’s plans to change the price structure to eliminate heavy state subsidies for rent, food and other basic items, thus raising living costs.

Lack of preparation for the new law on state enterprises, to take effect Jan. 1, was indicated by another report that 2.3 million copies of the law were just published following complaints that it was not available outside Moscow.

Nikonov, addressing the leaders of the newly formed state agro-industrial organization, said it has failed to resolve serious problems in food production.

Despite an overall increase of 10% in agricultural output this year, he said, “shortage of food still persists, and this causes serious, and justified, dissatisfaction by the people with the work of the agricultural conglomerate.”

Bureaucratism is still rampant, Nikonov added, and some officials have no idea of how to change things for the better.

‘Actually Worsened’

“On the whole, the practice shows that the situation in this field (agriculture), instead of improving, actually worsened in some regions,” he said.

Razumovsky, interviewed by Pravda, acknowledged “acute” problems in getting party leaders to change their dictatorial style and consult more with rank-and-file party members before making decisions.

“It is noted that so far we find it very difficult to exorcise from practical work the technocratic methods of work, command and pressure style,” the article said.

Razumovsky, widely regarded as the “enforcer,” for the party Central Committee, indicated that widespread purges have taken place at the lower levels of leadership.

During annual party review meetings, he said, the work of a number of district party committees and 2,600 party committees and bureaus at primary cells was judged to be unsatisfactory.

200 Leaders Purged

About 200 party leaders were dropped from city and district committees, Razumovsky added, while 13,000 leaders and 57,000 members of party bodies of primary cells were removed.

There was no way to compare the magnitude of this purge with previous ones, however. Soviet sources said it was the first time that such figures had been published in the national press.

In another ominous sign for Gorbachev’s economic reform plan, Razumovsky said the changeover to self-financing and self-accounting for industrial enterprises is proving “very difficult.”

Many people have complained that they were not consulted about the coming changes in their workplace, he said.

“Although the line for greater democracy finds support everywhere, there are still a lot of functionaries who are simply unable to maintain a dialogue with people, to convince them, and still rely on administrative methods and prohibitions,” the Pravda article said.

Critical Letters

The plan to phase out state subsidies for transport, meat, milk and other products came under increasing fire this week in letters printed by Pravda and other leading newspapers.

Defending the idea, an economist writing in Moscow Komsomolets referred to rumors about the proposed price changes, planned to take effect in 1990, that indicated they were damaging Gorbachev’s drive for renovation of the economy.

“People started creating legends,” he said. “They allege that under Stalin, prices were dropping; under Brezhnev, they were steady; and now, under perestroika, they were promised a lot of things but all they have is increased prices.”

In another recent article in the government newspaper, Izvestia, the author said that the rhetoric of perestroika was strong but that its actual achievements so far are few.

“The signboards have been changed, but the novelties have yet to reach down to the deep layers,” wrote N. Tikhonov, a member of the Academy of Sciences. “There is still no (economic) independence there.”

The recently approved law on state enterprises, designed to revolutionize the way industries operate in the Soviet Union, “already is being forgotten and ignored,” Tikhonov said.