Workers Again Confront Gorbachev : Soviet Leader Defends Reforms, Asks Siberians for Faith

Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev, confronted for the second day in the Siberian city of Krasnoyarsk by angry workers demanding better living conditions, Tuesday strongly defended his reforms and asked for a vote of confidence in his leadership.

“Every leader would like to open a box and offer the people the contents,” Gorbachev told workers outside a chemical plant. “But we have nothing to open.”

Faced with the frankest criticism he has heard in his 3 1/2 years as general secretary of the Communist Party, Gorbachev appealed to people to have faith in his program of political, economic and social reforms, known as perestroika , and to do more for themselves.

“The main thing now is for you to believe in our policy and in the leadership that is being formed,” he declared, saying that perestroika , opposed by conservatives and doubted by many ordinary Soviets, had become a “question of faith.”

Asks Crowd for Faith

“Everything will work out, comrades,” he told another crowd. “One should not get discouraged and lose faith in the cause that we are promoting together and that we will achieve only through common efforts.”

Gorbachev blamed bureaucratic attitudes, governmental blunders, bad planning and outright corruption for the country’s severe food shortages, its rising prices, the dangerous working conditions and the spreading pollution.

But he called upon people not to look to the top to correct these problems and instead to make changes themselves.

“People keep coming to me and saying, ‘Mikhail Sergeyevich, do something,’ ” he said in one meeting shown on the nationally televised nightly news program “Vremya.”

“But it is time to abandon czars and dictators,” he added. “Naturally, we need authoritative people and leaders--but at all levels, starting from the bottom.”

Candid About Opposition

Gorbachev was unusually candid about the opposition he is facing--from the government and party bureaucracy, from industrial executives whose powers will be reduced, from farm managers as families begin to farm on their own, even from local administrators whose stores and restaurants, facing competition for the first time, are losing money.

“It is essential, comrades, to proceed with determination, and all those who try to pull us back by hook or by crook should be thrown aside,” Gorbachev said.

“ Perestroika is not a stroll along the pavement, where everything is clear and one needs only to go ahead. Perestroika is an unexplored road.”

In the Krasnoyarsk region, a vast territory encompassing a tenth of the Soviet Union, many of the problems were caused by mismanagement of public funds, Gorbachev said, dropping all pretense that Soviet socialism was “scientific” and error-free and that the Communist Party was all-knowing in its rule.

Invested in Industry

Large amounts of money, the equivalent of $55 billion over the past 12 years, had been invested in the region, he said, but most had gone into industrial development without regard for social needs--ranging from stores to schools to hospitals--or environmental protection.

“People are not prepared to come to terms with this, and we have created the conditions for people to express their minds,” Gorbachev said. “We need industry, of course, but if we develop it as we have done, all will be in vain.”

Gorbachev’s visit to Krasnoyarsk is receiving much different treatment on state television and in the official media than on previous tours since much of the criticism is being reported, along with his responses, in an attempt to diffuse mounting social tensions.

One man in the crowd told Gorbachev that the discussion was too sharp to be reported here. “Mikhail Sergeyevich, will everything be shown on television,” he asked, “or will half be cut out?”

“All of it will be shown,” Gorbachev replied, and apparently most of it was.