Represent Errors of Past, Delegate Asserts : Gromyko, Others Urged to Resign

In extraordinary remarks, a delegate to the special Communist Party conference publicly urged President Andrei A. Gromyko, the Soviet Union’s longtime foreign minister, to resign, saying that he and other officials bear responsibility for past policy mistakes.

Gromyko, stunned and ashen-faced, sat on the presidium at the Kremlin conference as a regional party official declared that he, Mikhail S. Solomentsev, another senior member of the ruling 13-man Politburo, and two Central Committee members should quit as representative of “old political thinking.”

No Longer Fit for Office

Vladimir I. Melnikov, the party first secretary from the northern Komi region of the country, asserted that many old officials are no longer fit to hold their party and government posts because they cannot work under the reform program of Mikhail S. Gorbachev, the party’s general secretary.

“Those who in earlier times actively carried out the policy of stagnation cannot now, in the period of perestroika (restructuring) , remain in the central party and Soviet (state) organs,” Melnikov told the conference. “One must be responsible for everything and be personally responsible.”

Gorbachev, sitting next to Gromyko on the presidium behind Melnikov, interrupted to ask in a light tone:

“Perhaps you have some concrete proposals? We are sitting up here and don’t know whether you are talking about me or him or someone else.”

Melnikov, who has risen fast to become head of the Komi regional government and then of the party organization there, did not hesitate with his reply:

“I would aim this at Comrades Solomentsev in the first place and to Comrades Gromyko, Afanasyev, Arbatov. . . .”

Gromyko, 78, served as foreign minister under the late Leonid I. Brezhnev, whose 18-year rule is now condemned as the “period of stagnation.” Solomentsev, 74, was premier of the Russian Federation, one of the country’s constituent republics, during that time and remains a member of the Politburo.

The other officials apparently were Viktor G. Afanasyev, appointed editor of the party newspaper Pravda by Brezhnev in 1976, and Georgy A. Arbatov, a Brezhnev foreign policy adviser and director of the Institute for Study of the United States and Canada.

Note of Support

After half an hour, a note in support of Gromyko was sent to the presidium and read to the delegates. Gromyko is “a man respected by the people and the party,” said the note from a delegate identified only as Mamayev. “His life has been dedicated to us. We, the people and the Communists, have only put another burden on him. The principle ‘whoever labors is loaded with the work’ has operated this time as well.

“We have worked him too hard, and Comrade Gromyko today has fallen behind life, but he has done his job, and his noble deeds are remembered by the people. So it was not appropriate to charge at the man all of a sudden. He has popular respect and love.”

The 5,000 in attendance applauded loudly, and when Gorbachev joined in, Gromyko--grim until then--finally smiled.