Ligachev Urges Caution on Reforms : Soviet Union: Moscow’s leading conservative couches his plea in bland language. But it highlights sharp political divisions.

Yegor K. Ligachev, the leading conservative within the Soviet Communist Party’s ruling Politburo, called Saturday for greater caution, more discretion and a slower pace in implementing the country’s political and economic reforms.

Ligachev’s comments immediately put him at odds with President Mikhail S. Gorbachev, who reiterated his intention earlier last week to press for broader and faster reforms.

“I do not think that there are any people who (are) satisfied with the pace and extent of perestroika now,” Ligachev said in an interview with Radio Moscow. “But at the same time, I would call for more caution and discretion. . . .

“The wisdom of leadership is revealed not only in decision-making but also in weighing the consequences of the decisions made. We are now mostly making decisions that will guide us for decades to come, and this calls for much responsibility.”

Although couched in non-argumentative, non-confrontational, almost bland language, Ligachev’s comments highlighted the sharp political divisions in the country at a crucial time when, according to most observers here, the fate of the whole reform push will be decided.

Gorbachev, attempting to rekindle the fervent support that his reforms enjoyed in their first years and to regain the momentum they have lost, called earlier in the week for the acceleration of perestroika, or restructuring.

“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,” he told a student conference in a major policy address. “ Perestroika must advance consistently in all fields.”

Ligachev, however, denied he had any serious differences with Gorbachev or other Politburo members, the majority of whom now are more liberal than he and take significantly different positions on major issues.

“There are no differences between us,” Ligachev said on his relationship with Gorbachev. “Claims to the contrary are no more than inventions motivated by mistakes or a desire to drive a wedge between members of the leadership.

“I joined the Politburo together with Mikhail Gorbachev. We held the same views then, and we hold the same views now. Naturally, however, we may have different points of view on some particular matter, but in the end we come to a shared point of view and one decision that we implement.”

Ligachev intends to set out his position in a major speech to the Congress of People’s Deputies, the Soviet national assembly, after it opens next month, and supporters are describing it in advance as an alternative platform to Gorbachev’s.

“With these new policies, get-rich-quick policies for a few, we are determined to build a bourgeoisie to lead us into the future,” Anatoly Salutsky, a prominent writer on the conservative side of the political spectrum, said in an interview. “Frankly, clearly, we have a better way, and we look to Yegor Ligachev to reaffirm the verities of Marxism-Leninism and to articulate our philosophy, our policies, our course.”

According to Ligachev’s supporters, far more numerous now than in the past two years, Gorbachev has come to realize that he is the best protection that perestroika has against attacks from the far right--but that the price is moderation of the leadership’s overall policy.

“Ligachev is not a personal threat to Gorbachev the way that, say, (Prime Minister Nikolai I.) Ryzhkov might be, because he knows he will never be No. 1,” a source close to Ligachev said. “He and Gorbachev are close enough to be hugging one another, and they do; Ryzhkov and Gorbachev aren’t, and they don’t.”

Ligachev, re-emerging as the spokesman for what his supporters prefer to call the “traditional” rather than the conservative viewpoint, has carefully but increasingly in recent months made clear his differences with Gorbachev on the nature and course of the reforms.

Gorbachev sees himself and other reformers holding to a middle position among conservatives on the far right, radicals to his left and “extremists” who advocate the abandonment of socialism in favor of capitalism. And, while sharply criticizing the left, he usually moves against the right to consolidate his own power.

Ligachev, in contrast, sees an “open power struggle” under way--a struggle that has clear “class roots” that separate those who have profited enormously from perestroika and those who have seen little improvement in their daily lives.

On one side, in Ligachev’s view, are the party faithful, characterized by “their faith in socialism, the people and the principles of internationalism,” as he put it in a speech to the Communist Party Central Committee earlier, and on the other are those who “play democratic games” but support capitalism and nationalist causes.

As the Soviet Union moves deeper into its reforms--an undertaking supported by both leaders--the future role and form of the Communist Party has emerged as a fundamental issue, and one that divides them. While Gorbachev has continued to uphold the party’s constitutionally guaranteed “leading role,” he has waffled in question-and-answer sessions; Ligachev, in contrast, has urged the party to reinforce its role, tighten discipline and take firm stands.

Ligachev had been effectively sidelined for much of this year by allegations that he had taken bribes to prevent the prosecution of party officials in Uzbekistan, in Soviet Central Asia, on charges of corruption. While the charges were flimsy and were ultimately rejected as groundless by prosecutors, his political position was undermined.

Although his probity had always been unquestioned and he had been known for the stern ethical posture he assumed and imposed on his subordinates, Ligachev told the Radio Moscow interviewer that he was ready to accept criticism of his political stand and of his actions, but that the accusations of corruption were “downright lies and slander.”

He had received thousands of letters of support, Ligachev added, and this had enabled him “to endure with courage all that some people of questionable integrity and political careerists have to say.”

“History is the best judge, and in the end the people will judge everyone according to his true merit,” Ligachev said. “I am an optimist.”

After he was cleared by prosecutors and the Central Committee in September, he has carefully repositioned himself politically through firm, conservatively phrased but moderate speeches and interviews.

Now assigned to supervise agriculture, Ligachev acknowledged in the Radio Moscow interview that it would be years before the Soviet Union would be able to feed itself.