Gorbachev Warns Reform Drive Is Falling Behind

Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev said in a speech published here Sunday that his reform program is in danger of failing because of continuing attacks from the right and the left and the diminishing popular confidence in it.

“We are moving slowly so far, and we are losing time,” Gorbachev said, “and this means that we are losing.”

Gorbachev, in a strong defense of his reforms, argued that unless the current opposition is overcome, new popular enthusiasm is aroused and the lost momentum is regained, then perestroika-- political, economic and social restructuring--will fail to achieve the changes he has set as his goals.

He spoke Friday to a meeting of editors and party ideologists, a forum he has frequently used to reflect on the country’s political situation, but the speech was published in Pravda, the Communist Party newspaper, only on Sunday.

Gorbachev acknowledged that the reforms are entering their most difficult period, with the outcome very much in doubt.

“It was not easy to elaborate a concept of perestroika, but this was still easier than to embody it in specific actions,” he told the meeting.

Gorbachev made clear that the country is now at a crossroads, faced with decisions that will shape its future for years and probably generations, and that the contention among competing factions is intensifying.

The current focus is a major debate under way within the Soviet leadership on strategies for the country’s economic development, a debate that not only revolves around policies that will accelerate growth but that also will ultimately redefine the character of Soviet socialism.

Overlaying that, however, are highly volatile issues, including popular complaints that perestroika has brought little improvement in everyday life, assertions that party and government bureaucrats are clinging to power and thwarting the reforms and counterclaims that perestroika is pushing the country into political, economic and social chaos.

Just back from a tour of eastern Siberia, where he encountered daily complaints over poor and unimproved living conditions, Gorbachev insisted that the current difficulties could be overcome if the country had sufficient determination to change the decades-old system here.

“The current stage of perestroika demands different approaches and methods of work and, yes, new people must appear,” Gorbachev said, making clear his intention to press even harder for change.

“I am certain that, as perestroika deepens and unfolds, we will overcome the difficulties,” he added. “Having made our choice, we must have enough courage and responsibility to go forward and to achieve what we set out to do.”

Unrest in 2 Soviet Republics

Referring to the new unrest in the southern Soviet republics of Armenia and Azerbaijan, where troops were deployed last week to maintain order, Gorbachev said that the country’s leadership will not tolerate continued disturbances there in violation of the law.

“There must be order, and the law must triumph,” he said. “Surely some people do not think they can run riot and engage in arson while we sit back and deliver sermons to them. We will not do so.”

Residents of the predominantly Armenian enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh in Azerbaijan fought running battles last weekend that left one person dead and 48 injured. The Armenians, who constitute three-quarters of the region’s 184,000 residents, want the area annexed to Armenia, but the local Azerbaijani population, as well as the Azerbaijan government, opposes any change. The conflict is now in its eighth month.

The Armenian capital of Yerevan was paralyzed by a general strike and mass demonstrations most of the week in support of the Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh. Troops, supported by armored vehicles, were sent in five days ago to restore order.

Embattled politically and clearly trying to rally his supporters, Gorbachev sought in the speech to answer his ideological critics who assert that he has gone too far--or not far enough--in reforming the Soviet system and to quiet the ever louder complaints of average citizens who say that nothing has changed.

“Some people have panicked when they have come face to face with the difficulties and realities of this revolutionary process,” Gorbachev said. “And really, comrades, the inertia that has gathered in our society over decades is tremendous.

“To bring the country out of this state, we need colossal efforts,” he continued. “Many problems have their roots and their history. A lot still has to be done to rock the old trees, to pull them up and to plant a new forest and gather its fruits.”

Gorbachev seemed almost cheered by the criticism--by far the frankest addressed to a Soviet leader--that he encountered from ordinary citizens in Krasnoyarsk, Norilsk and other centers he visited in Siberia 10 days ago.

‘Perestroika Is Happening’

“This means that perestroika is happening!” he said, noting that people were daring to speak out after generations of fear and passivity and contending that this would bring broader participation in the country’s political and economic life.

“ Perestroika is only just beginning among our people, in our society. We all must get into harness and pull, pull with all our might. Only then will it win through.”

The increasingly open attacks from conservatives are now coupled with sniping from radicals on the left, Gorbachev said, and together they are threatening perestroika .

“Both of them are gloating and saying, ‘We told you perestroika was artificial and that it would achieve nothing,’ ” Gorbachev said without identifying members of either faction. “That is how these ‘twins’ have come together, attacking from the left and from the right. They are sowing confusion in society.

“It is both the ‘left-wingers’ and the ‘right-wingers’ who are attacking perestroika. That is how it always was (in Soviet politics), and the experience of perestroika is confirming it again.”

Attacking his conservative critics, who have contended that the reforms have worsened the country’s economic problems by attempting to do too much, Gorbachev said that they are blaming the reforms for the problems that, in fact, had made perestroika necessary.

“In some speeches and publications, you almost get the idea that perestroika has aggravated the economic situation, thrown finances out of balance, worsened supplies of food and goods and exacerbated housing and other social problems,” he said.

“What can be said about this? In the first place, why attribute to perestroika things that are linked to the preceding period?”

A Significant Development

The divisions within the party, the government and society as a whole had become so open, Gorbachev said, that the once-monolithic Soviet press was now splitting into clear political factions, itself a significant development.

“Today, I can tell you exactly which letters will be published in this journal, which in that,” he said, referring to the strong current debate over the country’s future political and economic strategy. “Group biases are appearing. This must be overcome. Publish everything. We need a pluralism of opinions.”

Gorbachev cautioned the editors against leading people to expect miracles from the reforms or to believe in “a good czar,” as many Russians refer to him, who could resolve all the country’s problems.

He also urged the press not to focus on the country’s severe problems without discussing possible solutions. “Simply stating that ‘the shelves are empty’ or ‘there are no goods’ is useless,” he said, and only the “we told you so” factions would benefit.