Beijing Says Gorbachev Is Undermining Socialism : China: A document tells officials how to respond to the decline of communism in Eastern Europe.

Chinese leaders have attacked Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev for undermining socialism in Eastern Europe in an internal document that also tells Chinese officials what to think and say about the popular uprising in Romania.

Chinese officials said Wednesday they have been ordered to study a Chinese Communist Party document on how to respond to the decline of communism in East Europe.

The officials, working in various professions, said they were hastily called in to meetings at work Tuesday to be instructed on the document assailing Gorbachev for triggering the “subversion of socialism” in the East Bloc.

Foreign diplomats and Chinese residents said party leaders are haunted by parallels between the revolt that overthrew Romania’s Communist government last week and Beijing’s student-led protests that the Chinese army crushed in June.

China has openly voiced concern over the end of the old Communist order in Europe, and in private, high-level talk has criticized Gorbachev for being the catalyst.

The document from the central Communist Party leadership in Beijing, circulated to officials above mid-level, was its most explicit reaction so far.

“It is obvious the leaders are extremely worried about what has happened in Eastern Europe and especially in Romania,” one middle-ranking official said in private.

The official, who said he had studied the document, said it was divided into three parts. The first described China’s “correct” version of successive anti-Communist movements in Eastern Europe.

“It says the changes in Eastern Europe were a subversion of socialism and it says Gorbachev is responsible for them,” he added.

The document also maintains that the Romanian system of communism was imposed by Moscow and is therefore different from China’s home-grown socialism, which sprang from its own revolution, another official said.

The rest of the paper gives instructions on how officials should reaffirm their support for China’s party line and how they should react when asked by foreigners about their views on Romania.

“We are not allowed to take a stand either for or against (executed Romanian leader Nicolae) Ceausescu or the people of Romania,” said one official.

“To foreigners, we are supposed to say something neutral, but to Chinese, of course, we should say the demise of communism was a blunder.”

He said he thought the version for foreign consumption was watered down to reassure foreigners, especially investors, that China is not taking a radical Communist stand.

Chinese university campuses, which spearheaded the pro-democracy movement this year, have drawn inspiration from Ceausescu’s execution and pasted up new posters satirizing China’s leaders, students said.