Gorbachev Assures East Bloc on Reform : But Stresses Use of Soviet Policy as Guide at Warsaw Pact Summit

Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev told East Bloc leaders Friday they are free to pursue their own views of communism, but suggested his own program of economic and social reform as a guide.

“We are entering a time which requires new policies and new solutions,” Gorbachev said in a dinner toast after the first day of the Warsaw Pact summit.

“Each country and each party has its own specifics and can continue its own individual road to socialist democracy and progress,” he added.

His host at the banquet was Romanian President Nicolae Ceausescu, the most vocal critic of Gorbachev’s reforms.

Splits in Alliance

The alliance’s seven members are divided over Gorbachev’s new policies, with the Soviet Union, Hungary and Poland on the liberal side and Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, East Germany and Romania sticking to the orthodox course.

Their purposes at this summit are to discuss Western arms-reduction proposals and the Warsaw Pact’s role in a new world where Gorbachev speaks of a “common European home” with no threat or fear of war.

In his dinner toast, Gorbachev said, “We took new steps today toward European security, rapprochement and East-West dialogue.” But he added: “There is still a war psychosis which we must overcome. We think it is necessary to stress the need for a shift from military to political moves” in Europe.

Ceausescu renewed what he described as the Soviet Bloc’s “appeal to NATO to give up its policy of nuclear deterrence.”

Neither he nor Gorbachev specifically mentioned what was decided Friday, but sources said the alliance has concluded discussion on documents which will call for more dialogue with the West on disarmament and lay out a vision of a world free of nuclear and chemical weapons.

NATO Plans Discussed

Soviet Foreign Ministry spokesman Gennady I. Gerasimov told an earlier news briefing that Gorbachev and his counterparts discussed NATO proposals for reducing conventional forces and how the Soviet Bloc “should change, adapt . . . become contemporary.”

“Everybody would agree there are vast changes, in our country, in the world,” Gerasimov said. “They are talking about the role of the Warsaw Pact in these changing conditions.”

Ion Diaconu of the Romanian Foreign Ministry refused comment on a report by the Soviet news agency Novosti that the leaders were discussing creation of a Warsaw Pact “political commission” to arbitrate disputes between members.

Diaconu denied reports that Romania had requested a discussion at the summit of its dispute with Hungary over Romania’s alleged mistreatment of its 1.7 million ethnic Hungarians.

Gerasimov said problems within the bloc were not on the agenda, but “each delegation can say a few words about its own problems.”

Gorbachev said in West Germany last month that the Bucharest summit would respond to President Bush’s proposal May 29 for a joint reduction in U.S. and Soviet troops stationed in Europe to 275,000 for each side by 1993, accompanied by cuts in combat aircraft and other conventional weapons.

The Soviet leader said the Bush proposal had increased chances for quick agreement at Vienna negotiations on conventional forces. Bush’s plan is expected to be discussed in September.

He also is pushing for talks with NATO on reducing tactical, or short-range, nuclear weapons in Europe, but the United States wants the issue tied to cuts in conventional forces.

On Thursday, during a visit to Strasbourg, France, Gorbachev again tried to push the Western alliance into talks on the short-range weapons, offering the possibility of more unilateral cuts in the Kremlin’s nuclear arsenal if NATO agreed.

May Offer Recalled

His last offer to scrap nuclear weapons--about 500 warheads--came in May during a visit to Moscow by Secretary of State James A. Baker III, while NATO was arguing about a joint position on short-range missiles.

There was unconfirmed speculation in Bucharest that documents released after the summit ends tonight might include numbers for the Strasbourg offer.

Romanian television broadcast scenes of delegations arriving on Thursday. Rezsoe Nyers, the Hungarian party chairman, appeared to be the only delegation head Ceausescu did not greet with a comradely kiss on the cheek.

After Gorbachev arrived, reporters asked him what he expected of the summit.

“I’ll tell you when we’ve finished,” he said.