Soviet Directives Omit Strong Presidency Plan

The Communist Party today published directives from last week’s conference giving Mikhail S. Gorbachev the reforms of the party and strengthening of the legislature he wanted. But Gorbachev’s call for a strong presidency was conspicuously absent.

In his speech last week opening the national party conference he had called, Gorbachev said, “The president of the U.S.S.R. Supreme Soviet should be granted sufficiently broad state authority powers.”

“Specifically, the president could exercise overall guidance in the drafting of legislation and of major socioeconomic programs, decide on the key issues of foreign policy, defense and national security, chair the Defense Council” and name the prime minister, he said.

That would have made the presidency, now a largely ceremonial post, the locus of Soviet power. Most authority now rests with the party general secretary--Gorbachev--and the party’s ruling Politburo.

The resolutions adopted by the 5,000 delegates, as published today by Soviet newspapers, were silent on the question of presidential authority.

Gorbachev did not specifically say the party general secretary should seek the presidency, but a senior party spokesman had said last week that the conference recommended that party leaders at all levels stand for election, setting the stage for Gorbachev to seek election to the new presidency next year.