Radical Change Vital, Gorbachev Tells Party : He Calls for a ‘Full-Blooded Democracy’

Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev, battling to broaden his reform program, called Tuesday for sweeping political changes that would transform the Soviet Union’s entire governmental system as the Communist Party moves to share the power that it has held alone for 70 years.

Opening a special Communist Party conference in the Kremlin, Gorbachev warned that unless radical changes are pushed through now, overcoming strong conservative opposition to the entire reform effort, the country will never realize its hopes of modernization because the party alone cannot achieve this goal.

“The Soviet people want full-blooded and unconditional democracy,” Gorbachev told the conference, arguing the case for his overall reform program, known as perestroika, for glasnost (or political openness) and for much greater democracy throughout Soviet life. “They want the rule of law, without reservations. They want glasnost in all things, big and small.”

National Radio, TV

In the 3 1/2-hour speech, broadcast nationally on radio and television, Gorbachev outlined a program of far-reaching political and constitutional change that attempts to develop an elective democracy out of the present one-party Communist system.

It marked the first time that the Soviet party’s general secretary had discussed his widely anticipated proposals in such detail.

“Our state must be made a people’s state in the full sense of the term,” Gorbachev said, explaining the philosophy behind the proposed changes. “We should organize state power and the government so that the people will always have the final say, and the processes of self-regulation and self-government will be given the widest possible scope. . . . Half-measures just won’t do.”

Controversy Certain

The proposals are certain to stir controversy among the 5,000 delegates to the conference, according to Soviet observers, who expect fierce debates over the next four days. During Gorbachev’s speech, the most radical calls for change were received silently.

Among the major elements:

--A president with broad powers who would be chosen by the country’s Parliament in a secret ballot and answerable to deputies elected by all the people, not just the 10% who belong to the Communist Party.

The president, who probably would be the party’s nominee for the post and might be Gorbachev himself, would oversee legislation and major socioeconomic programs, decide key issues of foreign policy and national security, head the defense council and appoint the premier.

--A full-time national legislature of perhaps 400 people, who would be drawn from a broader Parliament of 2,500 popularly elected deputies, which would have full lawmaking powers and monitor the government’s activities. Deputies representing special interest groups and professional organizations would be added to the current Parliament, which is acknowledged to be little more than a rubber stamp for the party and government.

--A reconstituted system of popularly elected local and regional councils, known as soviets, that would oversee lower levels of government. Deputies would be chosen in competitive, multiple-candidate elections, which are still an experiment here.

Sufficient Votes Needed

The soviets’ chairmen, under the proposed reorganization, would be the local party leaders--if they received sufficient votes in a secret ballot among the council members, who could also vote to remove them from office.

--The withdrawal of the party from all day-to-day management of the government, economic enterprises and other institutions to streamline their operations and increase productivity. The party would exercise its leadership by drafting policy guidelines and working through its members in those organizations.

--Legal reforms to ensure independence of the judiciary; to introduce more jurors, known here as assessors; to improve criminal investigations, particularly of corruption and the abuse of power, and to oversee the police.

--Scores of new laws to protect human rights, to guarantee the freedom of conscience, to enforce the principles of glasnost and democratization and to implement the whole perestroika program.

--Reorganization of the Communist Party itself, including a review of the personal qualifications of its nearly 20 million members. With the transfer of power to governmental bodies, economic enterprises and other organizations, the party apparatus would be sharply reduced.

‘National Patriotic Movement’

Gorbachev also said that, in ending its monopoly on political power, the party would accept formation of a “national patriotic movement” supporting the reform program. Although the Soviet Union would remain a one-party state, the country needed “a permanent mechanism for comparing views,” he said.

Officials, whether elected or appointed, would be restricted to two terms, each five years, in a post in order to prevent political “stagnation.” Until now, many senior Soviet officials remain in jobs they have held for 15 or even 20 years.

Taken together, Gorbachev said, the reforms are intended “to rule out the possibility of power being usurped and of wrongdoing . . . (and) to ensure dependable guarantees for the protection of the constitutional rights and liberties of our citizens.”

Conservative Foes Attacked

Gorbachev fiercely attacked his conservative opponents, who have fought his attempts at political, economic and social reforms for the last three years and, when they failed to halt perestroika, have worked to sabotage it from within the party and government.

“The economic reform would have made much better headway if conservatism had not been so tenacious in the managerial apparatus,” he said. “The methods of command and administrative order are hanging on doggedly. As the reform is being put into effect, we tangibly feel the resistance of the forces of inertia. . . .

“With perestroika in its third year now, we still have a cumbersome managerial apparatus, and a large part of its functionaries do all they can to retain their positions without regard for the interests of society.”

But the first criticism at the opening discussion Tuesday afternoon came from a leading liberal economist, Leonid Abalkin, who questioned the proposal that party leaders be nominated as chairmen of local soviets, calling it a violation of the principle of separating the party from the government.

Defended by Aide

However, Alexander N. Yakovlev, one of Gorbachev’s closest aides and a member of the party’s ruling Politburo, defended the proposal at a news conference later, calling it a mechanism to make party leaders responsible to the general public. “They will have to get two mandates--one from the party and the other from the masses,” he said.

Although the party’s proposal for an executive president suggested that Gorbachev would be the likely candidate, Yakovlev declined to comment on the issue.

“To say in advance who we should predict would be nominated or what would happen would be very negative, especially now,” Yakovlev said.

Andrei A. Gromyko functions as the current president, a largely ceremonial role, in his capacity as chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet.

Gorbachev said party leaders hope to win support from the delegates for a series of resolutions on these and other reforms so that the implementing legislation could be drafted for enactment this autumn, to be followed by elections next spring.

“There can be no compromise,” he said. “The next few years will determine the fate of our country.”

Edge of a Crisis

In an unsparing review of Soviet history--and Communist Party rule over seven decades--Gorbachev said that a “bureaucratized power . . . of commands and orders from above” had brought the country to the edge of a crisis before he assumed the leadership in March, 1985.

He said the party now has to step back from its ubiquitous command role, first assumed under dictator Josef Stalin but continued in another form under Leonid I. Brezhnev. The party must, he advised, clear the way for elected government bodies to act independently at all levels.

Even when they launched the initial reform program three years ago, he said, “we did not appreciate the depth of stagnation and the degree of abandonment in many aspects of the country’s life.”

Resistance to the reforms has been widespread within the party, he added. “Not all party organizations are refashioning their work to meet the new demands,” he said. “Some party functionaries, and even whole committees, stick to conservative positions. Many still find it hard to master new methods of work and to act in the situation of openness and democracy.”

Gorbachev’s remarks were echoed by several of the first speakers as the debate opened, and speakers rallied to support him, according to Tass, the official news agency.

“So far, the effort to overcome the methods of administration by command from the center is proceeding too slowly and inconsistently,” Vadim K. Bakatin, first secretary of the Kemerovo regional party committee in Siberia, told the conference. He called for industrial managers to be freed from the orders of Moscow-based ministries and departments.

‘Old Thinking’ Hit

Gorbachev complained, meanwhile, that many of the economic reforms have been undermined by party and government bureaucrats and their “old thinking.”

“We still cannot rid ourselves of the old approaches,” he said of the Soviet economic planners. “We do not need millions of tons of steel, millions of tons of cement or millions of tons of coal as such. What we need are concrete end results.