Lives Not Improving, Gorbachev Out of Favor With People, Pravda Says

The Communist Party newspaper Pravda said Wednesday that Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev has fallen out of favor with the people because his reforms have not improved their lives fast enough.

A defense of Gorbachev, now protected by a law against defaming or slandering the head of state, was printed in Pravda beside extracts of a letter from a longtime Communist who expressed disillusionment with the Kremlin chief.

“Heavy is the lot of a leader who made the first step toward truth and now . . . has taken on himself the burden not only of responsibility but also of what we must frankly call popular ingratitude,” the commentary by columnist Alexander Ilyin said.

In the letter, which the newspaper said was typical of many it is receiving, a woman from Krivoi Rog in the Ukraine said Gorbachev’s continuing defense of communism and the party suggested that he is insincere and “playing at democracy.”

The woman, Olga Ishchenko, who said she has resigned from the party after two decades as an activist, declared that she finds that Gorbachev’s continuing assertions of his Communist faith contradict his proclaimed commitment to change.

On Tuesday, an electoral official in a Moscow district where Gorbachev is running for election as a delegate to the coming Communist Party congress revealed that he had won only 61% of the vote against 36% for a radical opponent.