Gorbachev Appears to Win Fast, Widespread Support

Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev appeared to be winning quick and widespread approval Wednesday for his program of radical reforms as delegates to the special Communist Party conference here debated the nation’s future.

Although the daylong discussions grew emotional and combative at times, participants said the delegates were accepting, largely unchallenged, Gorbachev’s basic proposals for the sweeping transformation of the country’s entire governmental system in search of greater democracy.

“The main provisions contained in (Gorbachev’s keynote) report are supported by delegates, but there are differences regarding the nuances,” Yuri A. Sklyarov, head of the party’s Propaganda Department, said after the closed-door meeting in the Kremlin.

In his 3 1/2-hour speech opening the party’s first special conference in 47 years, Gorbachev on Tuesday had proposed the creation of a powerful state president, the establishment of a full-time national legislature with broad lawmaking powers, renewal of the system of popularly elected local and regional councils and a far-reaching legal reform, including greater independence for the courts.

The thrust of the proposed changes is the withdrawal of the Communist Party from the day-to-day management of the government, economic enterprises and other institutions in order to concentrate its efforts on political leadership and policy-making.

Some speakers were uneasy about details of this apparent retreat from the almost absolute power the party has held for 70 years. But according to official accounts of the debate, they accepted the necessity of a radical decentralization of the Soviet system and pledged their support to Gorbachev, who had complained of strong resistance from party conservatives.

In discussing Gorbachev’s specific proposals for restructuring the basic institutions of Soviet society, the delegates made clear through their comments that there was no serious challenge to the recommendations and that Wednesday’s debate had centered instead on detail.

Yet the sentiment remained strong that the conference constituted a watershed for Soviet society.

‘Turning Point in History’

“We are living at a turning point in history,” Mikhail Ulyanov, chairman of the Union of Theater Workers, told the other delegates. “There was a time when the bureaucratic veto was the ultimate truth. If perestroika (restructuring) fails, the future will be fraught with grave dangers, not just for us, but for the entire world.”

As the 5,000 delegates began debating Gorbachev’s proposals, commissions were formed to draft six resolutions intended to shape life in the Soviet Union for decades to come and serve as a framework for party strategy.

The two major documents will focus on the dramatic process of perestroika undertaken over the past three years and on Gorbachev’s proposals for the broad democratization of Soviet society.

The other four resolutions will outline a new policy to ease the country’s growing ethnic conflicts, a campaign to combat government and party bureaucracy, further steps to ensure glasnost, or political openness, and the proposed legal reforms.

The delegates are expected to adopt the resolutions at the conclusion of the conference, and the real debate is believed to be concentrated in the special committees drafting those declarations.

Wording Could Be Crucial

The wording of the resolutions could prove crucial in the political maneuvering that will follow the conference. Gorbachev’s supporters will seek to enlarge any gains they make here, while his opponents will attempt to use the resolutions to limit the speed and scope of the reforms.

Several points of conflict emerged during the debates Wednesday.

Gorbachev’s proposal that party leaders also head the revitalized local councils, known as soviets, was criticized by one of his own advisers, economist Leonid Abalkin, who said this violated the new principle of separating the party from government and could concentrate too much power in too few hands.

In restructuring the Soviet political system, Abalkin said, the conference had to face the issue of power in the hands of one party and consider ways to prevent its abuse.

“We must not deal with petty details,” he warned the delegates. “We know . . . what is expected of this conference. The question is very serious: Are we able, while preserving the Soviet system of society and the one-party system, to ensure democratic organization of public life? Yes or no?”

He continued: “If yes, then how? While preserving these principles and foundations, preserving the leading role of the party, the one-party system, the Soviet organization of society should ensure broad opportunities for comparison of points of view and the expression of ideas.”

Most Controversial Speaker

Abalkin, by far the most controversial speaker of the conference, expressed concern as well that without some degree of political pluralism--an end to the Communist Party’s monopoly of political life--the reforms could fail.

But Sklyarov, summarizing the debates, said no one else spoke in favor of such a radical step.

Other delegates questioned suggestions that top government and party officials be permitted to serve more than two terms of five years.

No exceptions should be allowed, said Georgy A. Arbatov, director of the government-run Institute of the United States and Canada. Had this rule been in force, he noted, the country would have been spared the worst of the long rule of dictator Josef Stalin as well as what is now called “the period of stagnation” under Leonid I. Brezhnev.

‘Exception for Gorbachev’

But union leader Ulyanov declared, to the applause of the delegates, that “we should make an exception for Gorbachev and elect him for three times.”

“We are now living and working in a very important period,” Ulyanov said, “and it is impossible to change people at that dangerous time--we need him.”

Unexpectedly, one of the hottest issues was the role of the Soviet press which, with its new freedom under the policy of glasnost, has become the cutting edge for those pushing a faster pace of reform.

Vladimir V. Karpov, first secretary of the Union of Writers, reportedly joined in the criticism, describing the current literary climate in the Soviet Union as a “fish market where fishwives dig at each other’s hair,” as writers, editors and many other intellectuals fight their private feuds in the name of the country’s reform program.

Yuri Bondarev, a leading novelist, declared that glasnost had become lopsided and was aimed only at discrediting.

“The immorality of the press cannot teach morality,” Bondarev declared, expressing concern that writers were now doubting everything--morality, courage, love, art, family and even great revolutionary ideas--and becoming nihilistic.

Leader Intervenes

After several more speakers had criticized the press for criticizing the party too much, Gorbachev himself intervened, according to official accounts of the session.

“Perestroika will die if we give up advancing the process of glasnost, criticism, self-criticism and democracy,” he said. “We have firmly embarked on the road of glasnost and will follow it unswervingly. . . .”

Yet the country could not permit the press to become an advocate of just one point of view, he said. “At a time when we shape our future, what is needed is not thinking who will occupy one or another seat, but thinking about the country, about the fate of the country, and then we will find the truth,” Gorbachev said.

Could Be Extended

The conference was originally scheduled to end Friday, but with hundreds of delegates unexpectedly asking to speak, it could continue into the weekend and beyond as Gorbachev puts into practice his own principles of broader political participation.

Sklyarov said that 24 delegates had addressed the conference since Gorbachev completed his opening speech early Tuesday afternoon but that more than 200 more had registered to speak.

“It has not yet been decided how to resolve this,” Sklyarov said. “They may all be allowed to speak or, as has happened on previous occasions, they may be invited to submit their contributions in writing.”

He said a proposal to cut each speaker’s time from 15 minutes to 12 had been defeated as delegates remained determined to hear each other out and not to be rushed through a debate that will shape the country’s future.

2 Speakers Cut Off

But Sklyarov added that for the second time in as many days, one delegate was cut off with loud, rhythmic hand-clapping for spending his allotted speaking time more on self-promotion than on the issues under debate.

“Delegates are aware this time is important and it should not be wasted,” Sklyarov said. “He wasn’t offering anything new.”

Briefing reporters, the party official characterized the atmosphere of the conference as intense, concerned and focused on the country’s future.

Delegates in the Kremlin’s crowded Palace of Congresses were sharp in their condemnations of previous Soviet policies and in questioning present ones, he said. Animated, heartfelt arguments continued long after the formal sessions ended, and the corridors were filled with all the turmoil and uncertainty that defines much of Soviet society today.

Stagnation’s Imprint

For example, Guri I. Marchuk, president of the Soviet Academy of Sciences, declared that the political “stagnation in society had made its imprint” on Soviet science, long the country’s pride, and stunted its development.

And high school history teacher Svetlana A. Fedotova, from Perm in the Ural Mountains, told how she was forced to teach her students from newspapers--often wrong or contradictory--because old textbooks were rendered useless as a result of the hard look the country was taking at its history.

Part of Wednesday’s debate focused on the sensitive issue of recent ethnic unrest in the country, which opponents of Gorbachev’s reforms have seized upon as an example of how dangerous his course is.

Nagorno-Karabakh Troubles

The party leaders from the southern Soviet republics of Armenia and Azerbaijan told the conference that conditions remained “hazardous” in the disputed area of Nagorno-Karabakh, where the mainly Armenian population has waged a prolonged campaign for the region’s transfer from Azerbaijan to Armenia.