Gorbachev Receives Go-Ahead on Major Overhaul of Party

The Communist Party today handed President Mikhail S. Gorbachev a chance next year to overhaul the party, which he said is being left behind by the nation’s rapid social changes.

The party’s 251-member Central Committee, its policy-making body, opened a meeting primarily devoted to ethnic unrest throughout the Soviet Union. But its first task was to reschedule the next congress of about 5,000 party delegates for October, 1990, Tass press agency said.

“The decision to convene the congress at an earlier date is dictated by the need to thoroughly update the party itself, with regard for its new role as the political vanguard of society during the state of restructuring,” Gorbachev told the Central Committee.

He said the need to renew the party applies to the Central Committee itself.

A congress theoretically is the party’s most powerful body, setting broad policy as well as determining the membership of the Central Committee and the ruling Politburo. It historically has reviewed the leadership’s economic plans for the ensuing five years.

Congresses are usually held every five years, and by party regulations the next congress would not have had to take place before early 1991. The last was held in February, 1986.

Early in Tenure

That was less than a year after Gorbachev took power, when the Soviet leader had not yet accumulated as much power as he has now.

Gorbachev expressed concern that the party is lagging behind the political reforms he has set in motion--including the shift of more political power to elected government bodies.

“The reconstruction forces are going at such a rhythm that we often cannot catch up with them,” Gorbachev said. He said many party organizations are slow to grasp the need for change, and “in this, we lose a great deal.”

“We cannot leave things as they are, especially since fundamental economic and social processes are unfolding and an ideological and political struggle is under way over key problems of social development,” Gorbachev said.

Some party stalwarts have said they fear the only legal political party in the country is losing its grip on power, as the legislature strengthens under Gorbachev’s reforms and frustrated citizens start taking local power into their own hands.

In addition to dissatisfaction with the poor state of the economy, ethnic disputes across the country threaten to imperil Gorbachev’s reform drive.