Not Hungry for Power, Gorbachev Tells Critics

President Mikhail S. Gorbachev forcefully denied Friday that he is power hungry and said reports that he is vulnerable to a Kremlin coup are nothing more than rumors as he fended off critics, including human rights activist Andrei D. Sakharov, during a dramatic final session of the new Congress of People’s Deputies.

The congress, marked by ground-breaking debates during its two weeks of meetings, was stormy even down to the last minutes as Sakharov refused to leave the rostrum when his alloted time to speak was up.

Gorbachev himself was unable to wrest control from the 1975 Nobel Peace Prize laureate, who ignored the president’s repeated entreaties that he sit down. Sakharov said the fact that Gorbachev possessed “practically unlimited powers” is “extremely dangerous.”

Also on the congress’ final day, Premier Nikolai I. Ryzhkov revealed for the first time that the Soviet Union has a foreign debt of nearly $52 billion.

Because of this, Ryzhkov said, it was not possible for Moscow to borrow more money from foreign countries or to import more goods--a policy some economists have said must be followed immediately in order to put consumer necessities on long-empty store shelves.

The premier said he was revealing the country’s foreign debt because he believed “the question of new credits must be approached very cautiously.” He said grain and food purchases amounted to more than $7.75 billion, or twice what was spent abroad on any other single category, but the Soviet Union was unable to cut back on the food purchases.

Servicing the current debt, he said, is costing the Soviet Union $18 billion a year.

Gorbachev, who has allowed far-reaching and candid debate from the congress, hailed the national assembly Friday as “a major event in the history of the Soviet state.”

He said the fiery arguments heared in the Kremlin’s Palace of Congresses marked a turning point in perestroika, the Russian word for his effort to restructure Soviet society.

The 2,250-member congress started work May 25, and deputies immediately began criticizing government policies and questioning the qualifications of top leaders.

Most of the speeches were broadcast live on television and radio, and the debates showed that many formerly taboo subjects were no longer off-limits.

In his own final speech to the congress, Gorbachev responded to queries from several deputies who said that when he traveled to China last month and on some of his other trips, he reportedly took all his Kremlin supporters with him, leaving behind political opponents who were capable of carrying out a coup.

“There is no danger of that,” Gorbachev told congress, adding that all the top leaders in the Soviet Union supported perestroika.

“These reports of coups are only rumors,” he said. “According to such rumors, in four years, I have already died seven times and my family was killed three times. Let’s end such rumors.”

Gorbachev also sharply rejected criticism from those who accused him of accumulating too much power.

“As a Communist, I categorically reject hints that I am trying to concentrate power in my own hands,” Gorbachev told the congress in clear and firm tones. “This is alien to me, to my views, to my outlook and my character.”

“I, as general secretary (of the Communist Party) and president (of the nation), have no other policy than the restructuring of society, and promoting democratization and openness,” he said. “In this I see the point of my life and my work.”

Nevertheless, Sakharov, who spoke after Gorbachev, made a stinging attack on the president and on the congress itself, which he accused of failing to prevent the office of president from accumulating too much power.

Sakharov said he respects Gorbachev and supports his policies but nevertheless believes that the amount of power that the President possesses is “extremely dangerous, even if he is the initiator of perestroika. “

Even before Sakharov spoke, some of the deputies objected to him taking the podium for the eighth time since the congress opened May 25. Gorbachev then called for a vote on whether to allow Sakharov to speak.

The deputies voted to allow Sakharov five minutes, but he went beyond his time limit, ignoring Gorbachev’s buzzer signaling for him to sit down and his repeated calls of, “Comrade Sakharov, that’s all. That’s enough,”

After Sakharov sat down, deputy Andrei Troitsky rose and asked why the hall had to listen for an eighth time to the former dissident when a number of deputies who wanted to speak were never given a chance. Troitsky drew a standing ovation.