Gorbachev Urges ‘Democratic’ State : Tells Supreme Soviet That Power Must Be Shifted to Locally Elected Councils

Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev, condemning the repression and authoritarianism of past Kremlin leaders, projected a vision of “a new, democratic Soviet Union” on Tuesday as he outlined major changes in the country’s political system.

Gorbachev, introducing far-reaching constitutional changes, told a special session of the Supreme Soviet, the national Parliament, that the nation is in a “decisively crucial” period in which its current reform efforts either will succeed or fail.

To press ahead, the Soviet Union needs a new political structure that shifts power from the Communist Party and the government bureaucracy to a system of popularly elected councils, known as soviets, that must wield real authority, Gorbachev said.

‘Blowing Up Old Structure’

“We have just embarked on reform,” he said in a vigorous 70-minute speech. “In this revolutionary period, we are blowing up the old structure.”

The first step, laying the basis for all that Gorbachev hopes will follow, will be the creation of a stronger Parliament through a series of constitutional amendments that the Supreme Soviet is expected to adopt later this week.

Followed by elections next spring, this move will give Gorbachev a popular mandate for faster and broader reforms and, at the same time, will establish the political structure needed to carry out the changes.

“Our further progress is increasingly coming up against inadequate political institutions,” he said. “We feel this at every step. . . .

“The main lesson of the recent past is that it is impossible to break out of stagnation quickly without democratizing every aspect of our life and reviving the soviets as representative bodies of power and popular self-government.”

In addition to the basic constitutional changes, which establish a full-time, two-chamber legislature headed by an executive president, the proposed legislation reforms the whole electoral system to encourage contested elections with true campaigning and secret ballots.

“To breathe new life into the soviets is the main task of the reform we are currently carrying out,” Gorbachev said of a system originally established by V. I. Lenin, founder of the Soviet state, under the motto “All power to the soviets.”

Lenin’s system had been corrupted over the years, Gorbachev acknowledged, to the point where the soviets--particularly the Supreme Soviet--were political rubber stamps for party and government officials no longer answerable to the people they governed.

Authoritarian Methods

“Since the early 1930s, authoritarian methods of power were established and other violations of socialist legality became widespread,” he said, referring the the bloody rule of the dictator Josef Stalin.

But perestroika, Gorbachev’s broad program of political, economic and social restructuring, has already “literally blown up the illusory peace and harmony which reigned supreme in this country in the years of torpor, started up freewheeling debate and focused the spotlight on many urgent and even painful issues,” he added.

The proposed changes, first outlined at a special Communist Party conference in June, were needed in order to take action on these issues, he said.

“If we do not carry out political reform to back up the processes that are now under way in the economy, in the transformation of society and in the recovery in the cultural field, and if we fail to modernize the activities of the governing councils and our personnel, the drive for perestroika will inevitably begin to skid,” he warned.

Opposition Cited

But Gorbachev acknowledged that the proposals had encountered opposition not only from those whose power would be cut sharply but also from liberals who fear the moves actually will further concentrate power and from some Soviet republics that want greater autonomy.

“We are tired of living under orders from above that for decades have limited our independence and personal initiative,” Vitautas Astrauskas, the president of the Soviet Baltic republic of Lithuania, told the Supreme Soviet as debate opened on the proposals.

And Anatoly Gorbunov, the new president of Latvia, another Baltic republic, warned the lawmakers that if the complaints of the smaller republics were not heeded, the welfare of the whole country would be adversely affected.

“Economic and social problems often develop into ethnic ones,” he remarked, alluding to resurgent nationalism in the Baltic republics and the turmoil in the southern republics of Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia.

Debates Anticipated

Gorbachev, anticipating heated debates on these issues during the parliamentary session, pledged that the coming stage of the country’s political reforms will focus on relations between the central government and the constituent republics and other outlying regions, whose powers would be strengthened.

The republics should have “full confidence that the problems that worry them . . . will find a fair solution within the framework of perestroika, “ Gorbachev said.

In a conciliatory gesture, he dropped planned criticism of Estonia, which earlier this month declared its “sovereignty” and claimed the right to veto national Soviet laws on its territory. That right was recently ruled unconstitutional.

Nevertheless, he may be embarrassed by votes against the constitutional amendments from some members of the Baltic, Armenian and Georgian delegations.

Liberal Concerns

Gorbachev also sought to ease the concerns of some liberals that the amendments give the new legislature too much power and that the next executive president--expected to be Gorbachev himself--would be a modern-day czar as head of both the Communist Party and the government.

Under the changes, the new Supreme Soviet would have the right to veto his orders and other government decrees; the leadership would be required to account formally to the legislature at least once a year; ministers would be required to answer the parliamentary questions posed by members, and the Supreme Soviet would be answerable to the Congress of People’s Deputies, a larger legislative body with ultimate authority.

“Excessive concentration of power in one person would still be ruled out,” Gorbachev said, outlining a system of what he called “our own checks and balances.” He added: “The collective way of deciding on key state issues, which is typical of the Soviet system, will be preserved. . . .

“It is our historic duty at this point in revolutionary perestroika to create all the essential guarantees to exclude the possibility of any part of the state machinery getting beyond the control of the people and their representatives.”

Provisions Rewritten

Noting that the party leadership had rewritten a large number of key provisions in the draft legislation to meet criticism, Gorbachev insisted that the measures could not be delayed without slowing the whole reform process and risking loss of its vital momentum.

“To delay the adoption of the draft legislation would mean, in point of fact, to slow down the (country’s) transformation,” he declared.

Looking further ahead, Gorbachev said the country would embark on a third stage of political reform a year from now, including an overhaul of the entire system of local government and the election of new deputies to local soviets.

Anticipating the creation of the new legislature, dozens of laws are already being drafted: to require government organizations to operate under public scrutiny, to guarantee the public’s right to form non-governmental associations, to strengthen labor unions and ensure their independence, to ensure the rights of the press to investigate and to publish and to “humanize” the country’s strict criminal code.

Gorbachev said the new Supreme Soviet also will be asked to revise the present 1977 constitution and its definition of socialism and to strengthen its protection of human rights. A full reform of the judicial system also is planned for the coming year.