Gorbachev OKs 2nd Party : But Yeltsin Group Gets a Warning

President Mikhail S. Gorbachev today endorsed the formation of a separate Communist Party in the Soviet Union’s biggest republic but warned of friction between national leaders and those in the Russian republic.

“I view . . . the Russian Communist Party as part of the Soviet Communist Party. And I sharply disagree with those who seek the salvation of Russia in withdrawing from the Soviet Union,” he said at the opening of a party conference expected to formally re-establish the separate party.

The champion of that movement for greater Russian independence is the newly elected president of the Russian Federation, Boris N. Yeltsin, who sat near Gorbachev on the dais.

Radicals, including Yeltsin, view formation of the party as a means of weakening central authority and hastening economic and political reforms. Conservatives, especially nationalists, see a Russian party as a vehicle of preserving political and cultural traditions.

Gorbachev was expected to receive criticism from both groups.

The speaker after Gorbachev, Ivan Osadchi, said the party leadership “has reduced (the party) to crouching instead in the trenches under massive shelling by anti-socialist forces, which have rapidly organized themselves.”

The Russian party session is viewed as a bellwether of the 28th Congress of the national Communist Party, due to start July 2.

Russia, with more than half of the Soviet population and three-quarters of its territory, is home to 58% of the country’s more than 18 million Communist Party members.

The delegates to the Russian conference will also represent the republic at the national congress.

The delegates voted 2,607 to 61, with 16 abstentions, to adopt the agenda proposed by Gorbachev to consider the formation of the Russian party and to debate the proposed platform of the national congress, and not to discuss their own platform.

The separate Russian Communist Party was absorbed into the national party 65 years ago.

Of the 15 Soviet republics, only Russia has not had its own party, in large part because Russians have controlled the national and regional parties.

Gorbachev is seeking to steer the conference on a centrist course between radicals who want to hasten steps toward a market economy and conservatives who want to slow the reforms.

He defended his cautious economic and political reforms and resisted efforts by radicals to open a debate on Russian sovereignty.

“Already we hear the opinion that perestroika has worsened the situation in the country.” he said, citing accusations that the reforms have lowered living standards and raised tensions among ethnic groups.

He claimed that his reforms have accomplished more at home and abroad in three years than similar efforts over the previous 30 years. He cited the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan as a significant step toward reducing global tension.

But he said domestic restructuring “is hampered by . . . an ossified and conservative public consciousness that was formed during decades of totalitarian ideology.”