Soviets Must Reform or Fail, Gorbachev Warns : Leader Issues Stirring Appeal to Party Delegates to Approve Changes, Share Power More Widely

Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev, determined that his reform program will not be weakened by conservatives, intervened forcefully in the debate at a special Communist Party conference Thursday to press for the radical reorganization of the Soviet Union’s political system.

Without sweeping reforms, Gorbachev told the conference, the Soviet Union’s socialist system will be seriously endangered, and without sharing power more widely, he implied, the Communist Party could lose power altogether.

As party conservatives, working in the committees drafting the conference documents, sought to reduce the impact of the changes with vague language, Gorbachev took his case to the conference itself in a stirring, 40-minute appeal for the delegates’ support.

‘Some Are Afraid’

“The people are called upon to play a decisive, revolutionary role--not the party, its staff or any other element of the Soviet political system,” Gorbachev declared. “But some are afraid of the process of democratization under way in the country and the stirrings of social thought here, and they have fallen into a panic.”

The center of the political reforms, he told conference delegates, is the revival of the system of local and regional councils, known as soviets, and the establishment of a strong national legislature, along with the separation of the party from administration of the government and management of the economy.

“Socialism, Leninism--that is the creative activity of the masses,” Gorbachev said in an emotional speech later broadcast on national television. “But that activity will die unless we reform the political system.”

Half-measures, largely focusing on economic rather than political change, have killed past reform efforts, he said, recalling previous attempts at reform from the 1950s into the 1970s.

Even perestroika, the restructuring and reform effort he launched after coming to power three years ago, can make only limited progress, he said, unless it is quickly broadened.

“The main thing, in addition to further economic reforms, is the complete reform of the political system,” Gorbachev said. “It is the logic of economic reform that has led us to be conscious of the need for political reform.”

Taking the floor for the second time at the conference, he said there was a “certain lack of understanding” of the proposals he had made Tuesday at the conference opening, and he urged the delegates to focus on the proposed political reforms.

While he was assured of winning the delegates’ endorsement of virtually the entire program he outlined, Gorbachev apparently was encountering opposition in the committees where party sources said conservatives were attempting to weaken the resolutions.

This back-room maneuvering and the desire of 261 more delegates to speak--only 44 have spoken in the first three days--probably mean that the conference will go into the weekend, rather than closing today as planned.

Timing Unclear

“At this point, we cannot say when the drafting of the resolutions will end, when they will be discussed and voted upon and when the conference will conclude,” Yuri A. Sklyarov, head of the party’s propaganda department, said Thursday evening.

“Everyone is taking his work very seriously. Everyone wants a full discussion of all the issues. And everyone wants to make sure he knows the full implications of what he will be voting for. So, we cannot say at this point when the conference will end.”

Apprehensive over the scope, speed and the ultimate aims of the program, party conservatives have reportedly pushed within the drafting committees for more cautious commitments by the party, fearing that it is giving up too much of the political power it now holds as a virtual monopoly.

According to party sources, conservatives are particularly upset about Gorbachev’s plan to shift the party away from its full involvement in day-to-day management of the government, the economy and a wide range of other Soviet institutions. Instead, he would concentrate its activities on political organization and policy development.

Mounting Crisis Seen

The party simply has to free itself of the burden of trying to run the nation alone, Gorbachev argued, conveying the urgency of what he sees as a mounting crisis for the party and the country.

“It is essential to rid the party of that,” he asserted, “and to revive it truly on Leninist principles as a political vanguard that is called upon to ensure the working out of major issues concerning the life of our country and prospects for progress.”

Questions also had been raised about various elements of the plan to revitalize and strengthen the system of local and regional councils that will culminate in a powerful national legislature. Some delegates thought there was too little party involvement in the envisioned councils, while others believed there was far too much.

‘Represent the People’

What he had proposed, Gorbachev said, was “revival of the soviets to represent the people and to give them appropriate rights so that their authority would be the source of all other powers.”

The future of the party itself was of considerable concern to the conference delegates, Gorbachev acknowledged, and they wanted to be reassured that the reforms did not constitute a retreat from power.

“We are not abandoning the role of the ruling party in the country,” he said, stressing the party’s intention to put forward candidates and to win a majority of seats on those councils. “On the contrary, we want to reaffirm that role.”

But two or three party members would be nominated as candidates for seats on those councils to ensure political competition, Gorbachev said, characterizing the process as a way of putting the party under public scrutiny. Non-party candidates would be equally entitled to run.

Secret Ballot Stressed

The reform proposal calls for the party to nominate its local leader as chairman of the council, but Gorbachev stressed again that he would then have to win the post in a secret ballot by all council members. “Those rejected will have to be reconsidered by the party as leaders,” he declared.

Party officials already had begun to skirmish over this and other issues at the conference with rank-and-file members drawn from factories, farms and educational institutions nationwide.

Where the party officials endorsed Gorbachev’s proposals for decentralization, they appeared to assert at the same time the need to increase the authority of local party organizations. The rank-and-file party members, however, argued for less regulation, less control and greater freedom.

And where the rank and file called for broadening the policy of glasnost, or political openness, party officials continued their attack on the press, which now exposes their mistakes.

Delegates Urge Openness

The rank-and-file delegates called repeatedly during the discussion Thursday for much greater openness within the party, challenging the leadership on the way it operates as well as on its policies and performance.

“People are saying we don’t even know which concrete question each member of the Politburo is personally responsible for,” a mill operator from an industrial complex in the Ural Mountains said. “We have to make at least this common knowledge so the people would know whom to thank for good work and whom to blame for failures.”

One delegate from an agricultural enterprise asked why the party had made it a practice not to criticize its top leadership, suggesting this had prevented serious discussions of party policies in the past and could do so again. The party leadership had become “a caste of untouchables,” he remarked.

And a teacher from an aviation engineering institute in Moscow put several direct questions to the leadership, asking how the dying Yuri V. Andropov was chosen for the party’s general secretary after the death of Leonid I. Brezhnev, what the truth was about possible corruption charges against two former Politburo members and, again, who was responsible for what in the Politburo and the Central Committee.