Communists Propose Party ‘Self-Dissolution’ : Romania: A reform faction takes the initiative. A new era of relations with the Soviets is foreseen.

A faction of the Romanian Communist Party on Sunday proposed holding a congress to consider the “self-dissolution” of the party and the turning over of its assets to the state.

The announcement in the Romania Libera newspaper was described as “an initiative of a group within the party” that recognized that the Communists were “compromised” by the leadership of executed dictator Nicolae Ceausescu. The group was not further identified. However, it clearly represents the ascendant wing of the party taking over from Ceausescu’s handpicked apparatchiks.

The government repeated an announcement that Soviet Foreign Minister Edward A. Shevardnadze will visit Bucharest soon, possibly as early as this week.

“We are very happy about this visit,” government spokesman Corneliu Bogdan said. “We will develop together a plan of cooperation.”

Bogdan indicated that the National Salvation Front and the provisional Romanian government, in place since Dec. 22 when Ceausescu and his wife fled the capital, are ready to usher in a new era of Soviet-Romanian relations. Those relations were severely strained under Ceausescu, who wanted nothing to do with Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev’s policies of reform.

“Ceausescu opposed perestroika ,” Bogdan said, “and he is gone.”

Bogdan was questioned closely about the heavy presence of Communists in the provisional government and in the National Salvation Front. Many Romanians want to see Communists removed from power after 24 years of Ceausescu’s iron-fisted rule.

Bogdan countered that Ion Iliescu, Silviu Brucan and Petre Roman--leading members of the new, and clearly temporary, leadership--were among the nation’s leading dissidents during the later years of the Ceausescu regime, despite their membership in the party.

“It would be a mistake in these early days of turmoil to launch a program of accusation,” Bogdan said.

The provisional government is made up mostly of dissident Communists, technicians and army generals, most of whom are, or have been, members of the party and to some extent owe their expertise and experience in various fields to their party membership.

“If we had to rely only on non-Communists, the economy would stop,” Bogdan said.

Sunday’s initiative toward reconstituting the party--perhaps abandoning its name and its standard Marxist ideology--fits the pattern that was set through the rest of the East Bloc in 1989, as Communists faced for the first time competitive elections against non-Communist opponents. The test cases so far, in Poland and in Hungary, suggest that Communists can expect little success in free elections.

The National Salvation Front has said that free elections will be held in April. It has stuck to that date, even though some Romanian commentators are arguing that four months is too short a time to allow opposition parties to organize and to prepare a national campaign.

From the first, the new leaders have promised that new political parties could be freely formed, and on Sunday, the government spelled out the minimal requirements. New party organizations may be formed, it said, by presenting petitions with 251 signatures to a court in Bucharest. Only “fascist” parties, it said, would be banned.

French diplomats announced that a French-led fact-finding team from the European Community visited Bucharest over the weekend to discuss Romanian aid requests. The Romanians, the diplomats said, asked for meat, butter, fruit, vitamins and fodder for farm animals.

The National Salvation Front’s ruling council, according to the French, said that no major economic restructuring will be undertaken until after the April elections.

The government also announced Sunday that Nicu Ceausescu, the deposed leader’s eldest son, has been treated in a hospital for a stab wound in the stomach. He was arrested Dec. 22, the day his father and mother were also arrested after fleeing Bucharest.