Thatcher Praises Gorbachev Reform Effort

British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher pledged strong support Saturday for the Soviet Union’s sweeping political and economic reforms, declaring her confidence in President Mikhail S. Gorbachev’s “ability and determination to lead his country to liberty and prosperity.”

“I believe that perestroika is now set on its course and will go through to success,” she told a press conference after a day of talks here with Gorbachev. The Soviet reforms have already gone too far to be stopped, she said.

The beneficiaries of perestroika , as Gorbachev’s reform program is known, include not only the Soviet people but the world, Thatcher continued, because of the way that it has reduced international tensions and promises to improve relations further.

“I certainly and firmly support perestroika ,” she said. “It was a bold, courageous, visionary idea, one that will bring greater liberty to the people of the Soviet Union, and that is important for this country and all mankind. . . . As people go toward liberty and prosperity, chances for peace are improved.”

Thatcher’s forthright and unequivocal declaration, repeated later on Soviet television, contrasted sharply with the doubts expressed in recent weeks by officials of the Bush Administration about Gorbachev’s ability to manage the reforms and his chances for success.

As they assess the multiple crises Gorbachev faces--a collapsing economy, ethnic unrest, conservative opposition within the party and government bureaucracy--some American officials are going further to suggest that U.S. policy-makers move with the utmost caution because of the prospect of the reforms’ failure.

Broad Support Urged

The British leader, however, was emphatic on the need for broad international support for Gorbachev. The West’s task now, she said after four hours of talks with him in the Kremlin, is not to undercut Gorbachev with suggestions that he cannot succeed but to back him and other reformers in Eastern Europe as they break with their old political systems.

Thatcher has developed a strong personal rapport with Gorbachev in their five meetings since 1984, and the main purpose of her visit, a one-day stop en route home from a trip to Japan, seemed almost to have been to encourage Gorbachev to continue the reforms despite the problems he now faces.

“I wanted to express my very strong support for the historic changes which are taking place in the Soviet Union under his leadership.”

She had some cautionary words, however, for the Soviet people, who are grumbling more and more about the failure of perestroika so far to improve their living standards materially.

“You won’t wake up one day to find that perestroika has suddenly happened,” she said, delivering a patented sermons on the virtue of hard work. “There is no such thing as effortless prosperity.

“The old system you had for 70 years produced neither personal liberty nor personal prosperity, and it could not,” she told a Soviet television interviewer.

Thatcher also expressed considerable optimism on the prospects for new East-West arms control agreements. She said that she had been in contact with President Bush before the talks here and that considerable progress appeared probable on a new U.S.-Soviet agreement reducing strategic arms. She said that after her discussion with Gorbachev, she felt that agreements are within reach on reducing conventional armed forces in Europe and on banning chemical weapons.