Soviets Consider Limit on Party Leader’s Term

A national Communist Party conference next month will consider limiting the term of the top Soviet leader in what would be a major departure from the usual Soviet practice of lifelong tenure, a top official said.

Dmitri A. Lisovolik, a deputy to party Central Committee secretary Anatoly F. Dobrynin, told a group of American business leaders that proposals have been introduced to limit the party general secretary to two or three terms of eight years each.

General Secretary Mikhail S. Gorbachev raised the idea of creating a mechanism to replace aging officials in top party jobs at a January, 1987, meeting of the Central Committee, but it apparently met with opposition then because the meeting’s final documents made only passing reference to it.

The Soviet leader has said more frequent turnover would make officials more accountable to the people.

Letters in Soviet Press

Many letters have appeared in recent weeks in the Soviet press proposing fixed terms and age limits for the country’s leaders, an indication that the idea is being brought back under consideration.

Lisovolik, speaking at a reception Monday night to several members of the Young Presidents Organization, a group of American and some foreign business leaders, said he could not predict whether the proposals for fixed terms will be adopted, but he indicated that support for it has been growing.

Communist Party general secretaries commonly serve life terms. An exception was Nikita S. Khrushchev, who was forced from office in 1964.