Gorbachev Rival Calls for Vote on Capitalism

The leading conservative on the Soviet Politburo, Yegor K. Ligachev, today criticized advocates of a free market and called for a referendum on whether the nation should be capitalist or socialist.

Ligachev spoke out in an interview published by the Communist Party newspaper Pravda. In two weeks, the party is to open a crucial congress to debate the course of restructuring.

“Let’s ask the people what direction restructuring should take--to socialism or capitalism. Let’s hold a national referendum,” Ligachev said.

He outlined a traditional Marxist-Leninist position that contrasted sharply with calls for reform being heard in the Soviet media and legislative bodies, and he urged that the nation stick with a planned market economy.

“Those who advocate a free market are pushing us back to private appropriation of the results of the labor of other people to their exploitation,” he said.

“We have already realized the destructiveness of such ‘freedom’ at the macrolevel, when large units and republics try to secede from an integrated community, thereby harming other republics and peoples,” he said, alluding to the steps toward independence by the Baltic republics of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia.

Meanwhile, the reformist weekly Ogonyok published results of an opinion poll that indicated diminished support for the Communist Party among Soviet citizens.

The poll was conducted by the All-Union Center for the Study of Public Opinion. It said that of Soviets surveyed last month, 49% believed the Communist Party was “losing the initiative.”