Soviet Party Gives Up Top Role : Historic Act Alters Entire Political, Economic System : Communist upheaval: Gorbachev is victorious after three days of tumultuous debate. Move is intended to meet the growing popular demand for democracy.

The Soviet Communist Party, which for more than 70 years ruled the Soviet Union virtually unchallengeable, decided Wednesday to give up its monopoly on power, clearing the way for a multi-party political system here.

The party’s policy-making Central Committee voted, almost without dissent, to seek a constitutional amendment ending its “leading role” in the government, the economy and all public bodies and encouraging the development of a pluralist democracy.

The historic move, sought by President Mikhail S. Gorbachev as part of his reforms, is intended to meet mounting popular demands here for greater democracy at all levels of society and through this, help pull the country out of an ever-deepening political, economic and social crisis.

Alexander N. Yakovlev, a member of the party’s ruling Politburo, described the decision as “another major step away from the authoritarian-bureaucratic model of socialism toward a society of democratic choice.”

With this change, the whole Soviet political and economic system will be altered; no longer will party decisions be, de facto, the law of the land and no longer will party members, by virtue of the constitution, be accorded the automatic authority to run everything from local governments to major industries to parent-teacher associations.

Since the days of V. I. Lenin, the Bolshevik revolutionary and founder of the Soviet state, the party has focused on winning, keeping and using power. Thus, the decision to yield what had been a monopoly on power since the 1920s reflects the tremendous changes under way within the party and Soviet society as whole under Gorbachev.

“This plenum marks a historic turning point, and this needs to be appreciated in full,” Yakovlev told a news conference at the conclusion of the Central Committee’s three-day meeting. “The process of transferring power to the soviets (elected government councils) is under way.”

He said the move should also go far to rebuild the party’s prestige, which opinion polls show to be sharply on the decline, and to win back support in parliamentary and legislative elections.

The action was a major political triumph for Gorbachev, who has struggled for nearly five years to transform the Soviet system, eliminating the many remaining elements of Stalinism and building democratic institutions in their place. Yakovlev said it would strengthen the implementation of other reforms.

But Gorbachev’s proposal, put forward on Monday, brought three days of tumultuous, often bitter debate over the whole reform program, and many of the Central Committee’s conservative members fiercely attacked him for abandoning the basic tenets of socialism and bringing the country to what one called “the brink of anarchy.”

The fear is that the present crisis, the result of years of political and economic stagnation complicated by mistakes in the carrying out of the first reforms, will grow even worse as inexperienced people are elected to weak legislative bodies at all levels of the government.

But Yakovlev, speaking on behalf of the party leadership, said that the Communists want to share power, not abandon it.

“The party still wishes to play a leading role,” he said, “but in competition with other political movements.”

The Central Committee will ask the Supreme Soviet, the country’s Parliament, to propose the constitutional change to the Congress of People’s Deputies, which as the national legislature has the authority to amend the constitution.

“We do not think that any single party should claim to have a monopoly on power,” Yakovlev said. “The party is ready to share its power and to act within the constitution.”

The decision was praised by Secretary of State James A. Baker III, who is visiting Moscow for arms control talks with his counterpart, Eduard A. Shevardnadze.

“This is clearly a time of great change in the Soviet Union,” Baker said. “They are making an effort to reform, both economically and politically. And they are emphasizing the introduction of pluralism into their political system, something the United States strongly supports.”

Shevardnadze, who met for three hours with Baker, left the Central Committee meeting early and spent twice as much time as planned with the American official.

Anatoly I. Lukyanov, the first vice president, said the constitutional amendment will probably be enacted this spring and be accompanied by new legislation authorizing the establishment of other political parties, a number of which have been in formation for the past two years.

Lukyanov said there could well be a sharp debate with the legislative bodies over the proposal.

“Large numbers of people are in favor of maintaining Article 6,” he said, referring to the present constitutional provision for the Communist Party’s monopoly on power, “while others want it removed.”

Outlining the party’s new role, he continued, “The party does not assume full governmental authority. Its role is to be a political leader without clinging to any role set down in the constitution.”

Yakovlev, however, said that the critical test of the party’s resolve will come in implementing this decision at lower levels of the government, industry and other institutions where party committees continue to hold the power despite earlier efforts to move them out of day-to-day adminstration.

“The real work is only beginning,” he said of the plans to push the decision to its logical conclusion at grass-roots level throughout the country. “This will be a very crucial test of perestroika. “

If the party fails here, other officials added, then the reform will be frustrated from the outset; more of its credibility will be lost and it will have failed to bring fresh talent into decision-making.

The party’s decision to give up its guaranteed “leading role” may be “presupposed by the logic of perestroika, “ Yakovlev said, “but you cannot plan in advance what people’s psychological reaction will be. It will not be an easy time ahead.”

Despite the massiveness of the change and the stormy debate, only one of the Central Committee’s 250 members voted nay, however, and that was the radical populist Boris N. Yeltsin, who considered the whole party platform too much of a compromise.

The platform, which will lay the basis for a party congress in June or early July, sets forth other far-reaching reform measures, party officials said, and will be published shortly for discussion.

The party congress will bring further democratization, party officials said, for the 5,000 delegates expected to attend will be elected from local party units and not handpicked, as in the past, by the central leadership.

Gorbachev has called for the “renewal” of the Central Committee and Politburo at the congress, a move that will almost certainly lead to the replacement of most conservatives with his supporters and probably radicals to his left.

In the platform, the party leadership proposes the establishment of a presidential system for the Soviet Union, largely to give Gorbachev the authority that he and his supporters feel he needs to push through further reforms and put them into practice.

The president would be elected directly by the voters rather than by the Congress of People’s Deputies, as Gorbachev was under the present constitution.

The Central Committee, again after much debate, approved the proposal to establish a presidential system, Yakovlev and Lukyanov said, but felt that there has to be much more discussion of how it would work.

Yakovlev made clear that political pluralism is meant to be the basis for the other reforms included in the platform and that it had been under consideration for some time.

“You do not really need much acumen to realize that if we are entering onto the path of democratization of the country,” he said, “it is bound to affect all socio-political movements.

“If we were to say in 1985, ‘Come on folks, go ahead and set up 154 parties,’ I can imagine the mess that it would have brought.”

But the quick political maturation in the past five years, he continued, now makes it possible for the Communist Party to step back and assume the role normal for a political party: formulating policies, nominating candidates, arguing its views in the mass media.

Yakovlev also insisted that the Communist Party is not in retreat.

“This does not mean the political situation is out of control,” he said. “This does not mean we cannot lead the people.”

But Dr. Svyatoslav Fyorodorv, a guest at the meeting and a prominent member of the Soviet reform movement, said after the vote: “There will be a multi-party system. We will have a normal democracy.”

LITHUANIANS CENSURED: Soviet Communists see damage in breakaway party move. A4

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