Shakeup for <i> Perestroika</i>

President Bush used his talk to the nation the other night to pronounce himself a firm supporter of Mikhail Gorbachev’s reformist efforts. The Soviet leader will surely welcome that endorsement, because more than ever perestroika needs all the friends it can get. Soviet officials candidly admit that plans to reshape the economy are in deep trouble. Living standards have actually declined in the four years since the reform movement began; the government’s own count finds that 1,000 of the 1,200 most commonly wanted consumer goods are in short supply. Gorbachev thinks the next 12 months will see perestroika’s fate decided. Some of his advisers say six months may be more like it.

Soviet workers have won hefty wage increases in the last three years, thanks to an economic decentralization program that gives factory managers more say in allocating resources. But consumer goods output rose only slightly in that time, producing an inflationary surge that has led to panic buying and hoarding. A recent government-commissioned poll found that more than 93% of Soviets consider the economy to be in an “unfavorable” or a “critical” state. That is about as emphatic a vote of no-confidence in its policies as any government is likely to see. Few, in fact, would survive such an overwhelming vote.

And so Gorbachev has now been forced to retreat on a central front in his campaign against crippling economic inefficiencies. In an attempt to stabilize prices and supplies--and so to calm growing public anger--controls are being reimposed over production quotas and retail prices for foodstuffs and the most popular consumer goods, as well as over wages in certain producing enterprises. It is a desperate step, given Gorbachev’s own awareness that economic reforms will succeed only if the irrational system of artificially fixed prices is eliminated. But as one economic adviser to the government put it, “Everything is at stake. . . . If we can’t stock those stores and drive prices down, then we can forget about not only economic reform but also democracy.”

“One step forward,” said Lenin, “and two steps back. . . . It happens in the lives of individuals, and it happens in the history of nations.” But one step forward and two back, on a consistent basis, is a prescription for steadily losing ground. Gorbachev came to power recognizing that the Soviet economy was falling ever farther behind other developed countries, and the gap would go on widening unless radical changes were made. He has the right vision; what he still must show is that he knows how to grab control of the behemoth he governs and turn it in the direction he wants. And as he himself now concedes, the time for getting things done is running out.