Hot Words at Soviet Parley : Gorbachev Blamed for ‘Anarchy’

Mikhail S. Gorbachev’s daring plan for ending the Communist Party’s monopoly on power sparked fierce debate today, including a charge that he had pushed the nation close to anarchy.

The pivotal session of the party’s Central Committee was unexpectedly extended by one day after verbal clashes between reformers who said Gorbachev’s proposal was not radical enough and hard-liners who denounced its repudiation of the past.

Gorbachev on Monday opened the Central Committee meeting by proposing that the party be forced to compete with other parties for the right to lead the country.

At today’s session, a majority of members appeared opposed to ending the party’s constitutionally guaranteed dominance, a participant said.

“The majority of the members believe that no laws and no changes in the constitution should shut off the authority of the party,” said one of the participants, party official Ivan Shinkevich.

Tass press agency reported that Moscow’s envoy to Poland, Vladimir Brovikov, declared that in fewer than five years, Gorbachev’s perestroika program of reform “has thrown the country into the vortex of crisis and led it to the line where we have come face to face with an orgy of anarchy.”

“Our tragedy is that we cannot abandon a single man’s power in the state and the party,” he said in a clear reference to Gorbachev.

But other participants and observers said it appeared that a majority of delegates to the 249-member committee will indeed approve Gorbachev’s proposal to change the constitution to eliminate the party’s leading role in society.

Shinkevich, a member of the party’s Auditing Commission interviewed when he stepped out onto Red Square during a break in the closed meeting in the Kremlin, said the session adjourned for the night instead of concluding as scheduled today because committees were still working out conflicts on Gorbachev’s platform proposal. It will resume Wednesday.

Some speakers at today’s Central Committee session criticized the platform as too tame, saying it was “based on old dogmas,” said Alexander Fomin, a coal miner invited as a guest to the meeting. Coal miners have staged strikes and have been among the most vocal critics of the government.

“There were not enough radical proposals to solve the party’s problems,” Fomin said, summarizing today’s debate during a break.

Hard-line Politburo member Yegor K. Ligachev criticized Gorbachev’s reform program, particularly in the economy, according to Shinkevich. Ligachev is a proponent of traditional collective farming.

Ligachev pointed out shortcomings of the leadership’s policies but did not propose solutions, Fomin said.

Another speaker, Yevgeny P. Velikhov, said he would rather see the Communist Party’s monopoly on power end through a split into two competing Communist parties. Velikhov, the vice president of the Academy of Sciences, said this would be better than a party that competes with the Communists, Tass said.