Private Property Law Spurs Kremlin Debate : Soviet Union: Critics of the measure, crucial to Gorbachev’s economic program, call it either a return to capitalism or not enough to help.

A law establishing the right to own private property in the Soviet Union, pivotal legislation in President Mikhail S. Gorbachev’s economic reforms, ran into sharp criticism from all sides when it was introduced Tuesday in the Supreme Soviet, the country’s national legislature.

Some deputies attacked it as a thinly disguised return to capitalism, labeling as a sellout of the country’s socialist ideals both the shareholder-owned companies that it would permit as well as such firms’ employment of workers.

“Have we worked for 70 years to turn everything back to the capitalists?” one angry deputy demanded. “Where are the workers’ rights? Where is our dignity? Why are we forsaking socialism?”

But other deputies, equally impassioned, said the proposed law fails to go far enough in establishing the rights of private businessmen, in granting their companies equal standing with state enterprises and in breaking down “the prejudice and bias” against them throughout the legal system.

The Soviet economy is in such critical shape after more than 70 years of socialism, they declared, that this in itself is sufficient argument to justify more sweeping measures than those proposed. The bill is little more than a half-measure, they said, and its compromises could doom the reforms.

As the debate raged, deputies made clear that they were discussing the future of Gorbachev’s reforms and, consequently, the character and future of what he calls “market socialism.” Virtually all of Gorbachev’s measures depend on breaking the state’s long monopoly on owning all means of production.

With the debate growing increasingly heated, Prime Minister Nikolai I. Ryzhkov intervened to clarify the key issue--one that will determine the political character, as well as the economic character, of the country in the future.

“Let’s answer it flat out: Do we stand for private property or not?” Ryzhkov asked as the government’s bill came under attack.

The proposed legislation, drafted by the government, declares that individuals can own means of production to pursue independent economic activities outside state or even cooperative channels, that companies owned by investors will have the same rights as state enterprises and that family farms can be leased in perpetuity and passed from father to son.

Whatever the outcome of the debate--to be carried on nationwide television over the next several weeks--it will define Soviet socialism in practical terms.

Anatoly Sobchak, one of the liberal democrats in the Supreme Soviet, said the issue of property ownership is exaggerating the whole debate.

“For 70 years, we have used the state monopoly, its ownership of all property, to guide what was happening,” he said. “Now, we should avoid an excessive swing to overdressed, overloaded couriers.”

A second crucial issue--whether the Soviet Union’s natural resources will be owned by the country as a whole or by its constituent republics and autonomous regions--also sparked heated debate.

For many deputies, local ownership of natural resources is the key to their region’s political as well as economic autonomy. The draft legislation reserves the center’s right to develop many of those resources on behalf of the whole country.

On the resolution of this question depends the future shape of the Soviet state--whether it will be a federal system with a strong center or a weaker center with far greater regional authority.

“We need to determine the starting point,” Ryzhkov said, intervening in the debate. “How do deputies view the country’s future--as a strong federation or as a confederation of separate states? It is vitally important to determine whose property the land and resources will become since, in the end, this will determine the future of the Soviet state.”

Arguing strongly for a continued federation, Ryzhkov said the Soviet Union would be breaking with tradition by proposing a breakup of the country after decades of effort to integrate it.