Stiff Opposition to Perestroika Reported : Soviet Union: Gorbachev’s chief economist says further delay in implementing reforms could destroy their effectiveness.

President Mikhail S. Gorbachev’s economic reforms are encountering stiff conservative opposition, his chief economist said Wednesday, despite warnings that the Soviet Union has less than a year to pull out of the current crisis if the country is not to “topple into the abyss.”

Vice Prime Minister Leonid I. Abalkin, speaking at the conclusion of a national conference on economic policy, said that the five-year, three-stage plan the government intends to put before the national Parliament was harshly criticized by conservatives as risky and unproven and a break with socialism.

Although the government is still determined to press ahead with the program, which outlines a timetable of tough measures to transform the Soviet economy into “market socialism,” Abalkin said that conservative opposition could seriously delay implementation of the reforms, destroying their effectiveness.

“Powerful pressure is being exerted mostly from the conservative side,” Abalkin said, noting that previously, radicals had criticized the program as a series of half-measures. “This change perhaps reflects the general condition of the country. It must be taken into consideration, though it will complicate development of events.”

Time is rapidly running out for the whole reform effort, Abalkin continued, and the government must begin to show practical results within the next year if the Communist Party is to continue with perestroika.

“If we do not manage our program and stabilize our economy in the next year, rationing will become inevitable,” Abalkin said, “and that will be the end of the reforms.”

Such emergency measures, now advocated by many conservatives and even some radicals as the only way to solve the increasingly severe shortages of consumer goods, would not only reverse four years of economic liberalization but would also bring back the central bureaucracy with its nearly absolute powers.

“The economic situation at present is still deteriorating,” Abalkin said. “We must stop this movement toward the edge of a great chasm; we must stop before we topple into that abyss. If we can stop, then we can turn in the opposite direction.”

With a party congress scheduled for next October, Gorbachev must have tangible results to win support for not just the broadening and acceleration of his reform program but just for its continuation.

Gorbachev, addressing a student conference on Wednesday, called again for faster economic reforms to build up momentum before the whole program begins to lag seriously. Political change has come faster than economic reform, he noted, and this increases the pressure for change.

“We have now reached the point in the development of the current stage of perestroika when we must put forward the question of speeding it up,” Gorbachev said. “ Perestroika must advance consistently in all fields. One cannot permit a great gap in the way the planned measures are carried out.”

The changes required, Gorbachev said, are fundamental--establishment of a mixed economy that relies increasingly on market forces rather than central planning and encourages private ownership--and they must come much faster.

But Abalkin confirmed again that the government is deferring for several years the crucial issue of price reform, which inevitably will bring higher prices for many commodities that are now subsidized.

“Any radical change of prices would break what little control we still have over the economy,” he said. “If we touch prices, then everything will have to be broken down and built up anew.”

Conservative criticism began with the whole philosophy of the reforms, Abalkin said, and extended to virtually every part of the program. “From the ownership of property to management of enterprises to economic planning to the setting of prices--it was like a chain,” he said, “and they opposed us on every issue.”

The first objection, several conference participants said, was that the measures would end socialism as it has been practiced in the Soviet Union for more than 70 years and replace it with a system that resembles capitalism in many of its essential features.

Nikolai N. Slyunkov, a member of the party’s ruling Politburo who oversees economic policy, sought to answer those criticisms in a closing address by insisting that none of the changes would permit “the exploitation of man by man” and that the system would retain its “socialist nature.”

Abalkin acknowledged that fundamental legislation intended to form the basis of the new economic system had run into such serious criticism that much of it is now being rewritten and unlikely to be adopted this year.

The other objection is that the government, at a time of crisis, is dismantling an economic system that, while defective, can put food and consumer goods back on the nearly bare shelves of Soviet stores, almost through sheer political force. The new methods have not only exacerbated the crisis but remain largely unproven, the conservatives assert. They are proposing more rigorous efforts to make the old system work effectively.

Opening the conference, Abalkin cited an opinion survey carried out for the government that indicated 54% of those questioned in 12 major cities believe the country’s most urgent problem is to impose strict discipline and order. About 40%, he said, thought those measures should include more, not fewer, price controls.

“If there is a shift to the right, it will complicate implementation of the program,” he said, “but it won’t make us go back. . . . Without restructuring, the Soviet economy has no future, no future at all.”

But the Soviet Union, Abalkin said, replying to a journalist’s question, is not looking for foreign assistance in solving these problems. “In Russia, we have a proverb, ‘The drowning must save themselves,’ and so it is with us,” he said.

Russians, historically, have looked for “miracles, almost magical solutions to our problems,” Abalkin continued, rather than trusting their own ability, making sacrifices and working harder.

“Everyone is waiting for everything to turn for the better immediately, and it may be the residue of the fairy tales. Each time we face difficulties, however, flying saucers become the topic of the day and faith healers appear. People really seem to think some guy is going to climb out of a UFO and explain the best way to develop socialism.”