Gorbachev Won’t Make It Without More of Our Help : Perestroika: Soviet leader’s near-miraculous success owes more to Yuri Andropov than most realize, but he needs George Bush as well.

The Baltic states demand independence, the Red Army tries to prevent Azerbaijanis and Armenians from killing each other, Eastern Europe goes its separate way, the Soviet economy is in shambles--will Mikhail S. Gorbachev survive?

These are serious problems, but none is insurmountable for the man who has emerged as the world’s most resourceful politician-statesman. Yet Gorbachev will probably fall if he loses the majority support of the Communist Party in his drive toward democracy. To succeed, he needs to show progress in the economy. To do that, the Soviet president needs the urgent assistance of the United States and its European partners in the form of mutually beneficial disarmament agreements.

It’s almost miraculous that Gorbachev has been able to take perestroika and democratization as far as he has. This could not have happened without the support of the KGB. Western intelligence has thus failed to give sufficient attention to the role of Yuri V. Andropov.

According to Fedor Burlatsky, a former speech writer for Nikita S. Khrushchev and now a commentator, the idea of perestroika was first presented by Andropov in December, 1964, two months after Khrushchev was forced into retirement. Andropov, who was then a secretary in the Central Committee, recommended to First Secretary Leonid I. Brezhnev and Premier Aleksei N. Kosygin that Stalinism’s totalitarian structure be replaced. He was rebuffed.

He did not give up. Although a dedicated Communist, Andropov was convinced that the Stalinist system was slowly destroying the foundation of the Soviet Union. He helped younger men and women who shared his views advance their careers. When Andropov became head of the KGB, he was better able to encourage reforms both within the Communist Party and the KGB leadership. When Brezhnev died in 1982 and Andropov was named general secretary, there was jubilation among reformers in the party, the KGB and the military.

The star in the young crowd around Andropov was Gorbachev. Many key men and women who have emerged as leaders of Gorbachev’s programs were proteges of Andropov as well. The current KGB chairman, Vladimir A. Kryuchkov, first served the future general secretary when Andropov was Soviet ambassador to Hungary after the 1956 revolution. The Andropov factor, then, helps explain why Gorbachev has moved so far, so fast in destroying much of the machinery of the Stalinist police state.

But the resulting battle within the system is intense. The demand for political pluralism rises throughout the Soviet Union. Milovan Djilas, former Yugoslav deputy to Marshall Josip Broz Tito and the author of “The New Class,” has discussed Gorbachev’s dilemma: “While (apparatchiks) may well be forced, lured or cajoled into supporting reforms for a more productive economy,” said Djilas, “they cannot be lured or cajoled into underwriting the dissolution of the party and the destruction of their own jobs and security.”

Gorbachev and his advisers know this is correct. He knows as well that the Communist Party is the sole source of power in the Soviet Union and, as such, must bless the country’s transition to democracy. Perestroika involves large ideas but it is not a fixed plan. Gorbachev is too much the improviser for that. His critics on the left chastise him for moving too slowly, but Gorbachev remains in power because he keeps his eye on the reality of the Communist Party. Like all superior politicians, he always strives for balance, but within the framework of his considerable moral integrity and courage.

Gorbachev has already moved a surprising distance toward democracy. The formation of the Congress of People’s Deputies and its operating arm, the Supreme Soviet, have started in motion the institution of parliamentary democracy. Its rules still give the party a dominant position, but most of the deputies were elected by secret ballot.

The upcoming elections for the local soviets will take democracy to the grass roots. Glasnost has permitted the revolution of communications technology to spread throughout Soviet society. Popular activism is rampant. Hopefully, Gorbachev can avoid the looming hemorrhage of chaos, anarchy and civil war by forming a confederation of autonomous nations with a common economic market.

Fortunately, President Bush has concluded that the Gorbachev’s survival is demonstrably in the national-security interests of the United States. The President realizes that it is important to consolidate the foreign-policy gains made during Gorbachev’s five years in power--a conservative successor might reverse many of the advances. But the Bush Administration is moving at an almost unbelievably slow pace, with little sense of leadership.

The President wants perestroika to succeed but claims there is not much he can do about it. Bush is a victim of “old thinkers” who still dominate the White House staff, the Pentagon, the conservative think tanks, the military academies and many universities. These Sovietologists have been wrong almost every step of the way since Gorbachev came to power because they couldn’t believe--or didn’t comprehend--the dynamics of Soviet “new thinking.” They were certain that a Soviet communist leader could not advocate policies that should be supported by the United States. They consider Gorbachev and his reforms a temporary aberration.

George F. Kennan, the dean of American Sovietologists and one of its few “new thinkers,” said “it is doubtful that Gorbachev could have remained in office as long as he has were it not for his high international prestige.” The Administration should take Kennan’s cue.

U.S. actions can further strengthen Gorbachev’s prestige. For example, the Soviet president needs to be able to point to American agreement for rapid disarmament. The proposed Pentagon budget for fiscal ’91 accomplishes the opposite. It would cut military spending by only 2% and essentially continue President Ronald Reagan’s buildup of new strategic and conventional weapons. Although North Atlantic Treaty Organization proposals for conventional-arms reductions have already been overtaken by events in Eastern Europe, there is no sense of urgency in the Administration to correct them.

In other areas as well, American actions reflect “old thinking” inconsistent with the Administration’s professed desire to see perestroika succeed. The United States grants most-favored-nation tariff status to the totalitarian regime in Beijing, not to the Soviet Union. It permits export licenses for sophisticated technology to China, not to the Soviet Union.

By contrast, if the U.S. Administration makes clearer that the United States no longer regards the Soviet Union as the enemy, Gorbachev would be greatly helped. He would benefit politically if we discontinue the military pressure implied by such weapons programs as the Strategic Defense Initiative. He would benefit most from broad-scale disarmament that would permit him to transfer scientific brain power to consumer production. In short, American help can help answer the question: “Will Gorbachev survive?”