COLUMN RIGHT : A Dreadful Alternative to Gorbachev : The ‘Russians Party’ could be the next government. It’s a thought to fear.

Mikhail Gorbachev, bless his soul, wants to introduce to his country a “regulated market economy.” That would go well with the political system he has introduced, best described as democratic authoritarianism.

Gorbachevism is government by oxymoron. It is not Marxism, but it cannot be its true successor. Because of its inherent contradictions and lack of material success, it must be transitional. What follows?

A major candidate--perhaps the major candidate--for next master of Moscow is the growing Russian nationalist movement. Seven leading intellectuals of this movement--writers, publishers, editors--are on an American visit. My exposure at a seminar in Washington lasted three hours. It was a sublethal dose. Russia may not be so lucky.

These seven are highly educated, sophisticated and articulate. They edit or write for major literary journals in Russia. They talk movingly of the social, economic, ecological and spiritual disintegration brought by 70 years of communism. They love their country and want to rescue it. How they want to rescue it is what makes them dangerous.

Though some are former dissidents, they are not your “Nightline”-friendly, Westernized liberals. These are not people who see parliamentary elections, membership in the International Monetary Fund and and the cultural exchange of rock stars as the fulfillment of Russia’s destiny. They have a different future in mind, and it is far more authoritarian, anti-Western and xenophobic than the benign Russia we see today.

The movement they represent--it has been called the “Russian Party” or the Russian New Right--is anti-communist. Its anti-communism is exceeded only by its anti-liberalism. Take free speech. Some of its leaders have called on the (Communist!) government to “take measures” against popular liberal journals such as Ogonyok and Oktyabr.

They are suspicious of multiparty democracy, fearing it will be a threat to national unity. As for xenophobia, it is the most striking aspect of their Russian nationalist ideology. Unable to bring themselves to believe that Russians are responsible for their present backwardness and hopelessness, they declare themselves the victims of a vast “Russophobic” conspiracy (liberal, Jewish, internationalist) to degrade and enslave the great Russian people. They demand measures to confront the enemy.

Why are these people important? In America, artists and poets also have eccentric views and they are safely humored with prizes and state subsidies, but are otherwise ignored. These Russian intellectuals, however, speak for a powerful national constituency--so powerful, in fact, that Gorbachev saw the need to appoint two of their number, Veniamin A. Yarin and the writer Valentin Rasputin, to his new “presidential council” (inner cabinet).

Their traveling comrades are offering Americans a close-up look at what waits in the wings if Gorbachev fails. No one knows whether the “Russian Party” will succeed Gorbachev. But the very chance that it might has immediate implications for the United States.

First, this is no time for the United States to disarm. If the “Russian party” does come to power within, say, the next decade, we will be faced with a new Russian threat, different from the old one but perhaps as dangerous. The combination of national resentment, religious messianism and profound distaste for the West, plus the great military and nuclear power bequeathed by communism, will make post-Soviet Russia a formidable adversary.

Second, Gorbachev’s survival is important to us and to the world. He may be a transitional figure, but the longer the transition the better for everyone. We should do what we can to help him. That is why we must disappoint the Lithuanians (and their just cause) lest their example of unilateral secession fatally undermine Gorbachev.

Third, it is time for a more sober view of Soviet reform. CIA director William Webster created a stir when he said that the changes in Russia are irreversible. The last time we heard that was a week or two before Tian An Men Square. Nothing is irreversible. But even if Webster is right that Russia cannot go back to Stalinism, there is much else that Russia can return to that can menace not only its own people but the rest of world too.

A resentful, revanchist great power, stripped of empire after a long losing war, in social and economic chaos--half a century ago in Weimar Germany, this was a prescription for disaster. History need not repeat. But it can.