He Could Lose Top Post in Party, Gorbachev Admits

President Mikhail S. Gorbachev, who has come under increasingly sharp attacks from conservatives within the Soviet Communist Party over his reforms, acknowledged Wednesday that he could lose his post as the party’s general secretary at a party congress in two weeks.

As criticism of his leadership mounted and calls came for the separation of his two powerful posts as the head of the party and the state, an angry and frustrated Gorbachev told a pre-congress meeting here that the party could soon have a new leader.

“I think that some comrades are treating the general secretary and the president of the country very casually,” Gorbachev said as the attacks continued for a second day. “This is not a question of me personally. Tomorrow or in 10 or 12 days, there may be another general secretary or chairman of the party.

“Before passing judgments and, still more, making accusations, you have to know a great deal and understand it, not just speak off the cuff. If this is going to be the attitude . . . toward the people we nominate at such a turning point of history, then we will not get anywhere except to chaos.”

Gorbachev’s comments, a clear counterchallenge to the conservatives, touched off immediate speculation in political circles here that he will force a showdown at the party congress scheduled to open July 2 by seeking a vote of confidence as a mandate to offset further criticism.

But his warning did little to dampen the criticism Wednesday of him among the 2,700 delegates at the founding conference of the Russian Communist Party, and they continued their attacks on not only the way that perestroika, as his reforms are known, has been carried out but also on the way he is leading the party.

Yegor K. Ligachev, the foremost conservative within the party hierarchy, joined other speakers in suggesting that Gorbachev should step down as the party leader in order to concentrate on his work as president, according to an account of the closed-door session from the official Soviet news agency Tass.

“One cannot head the party, this leading force, without dedicating all one’s time to it,” Ligachev told the conference.

His comments, confirmed by a party spokesman, suggested that the conservatives will certainly attempt, at least behind the scenes, to force Gorbachev to give up his party post and will probably nominate their own candidate, whether he steps aside or not, in what could prove to be a major battle for the party leadership.

“Gorbachev will avoid a head-on confrontation only at the cost of major concessions on the party platform, on the composition of the new Central Committee and on key posts within the party Secretariat,” a senior party official said, speaking privately of the prospects for the congress. “Not since Nikita Khrushchev was ousted in 1964 has a party leader faced such criticism, and not just dissatisfaction but an incipient rebellion. Gorbachev’s warning that he could be replaced may not be serious, but the overall situation is very serious.”

Under the Soviet constitution, Gorbachev would keep his post as president whatever the outcome of this struggle, but the loss of the party leadership would be a serious political blow, damaging his prestige, depriving him of an important power base and forcing him into endless negotiations and compromises.

Gorbachev has suggested to critics several times in the last two years that, if they are so dissatisfied with his policies and leadership, they should demand his resignation and debate it in a full-fledged party forum. The critics have always refused, knowing that Gorbachev probably had more than enough votes to ensure the outcome he wanted.

But there has always been speculation, much of it officially encouraged, that Gorbachev would willingly give up his party post, turning it over to a trusted ally, as soon as he felt that he had sufficient power as president. This move would complete the transfer of power from the Communist Party to elected governments and allow the party to play a purely political role.

Attempting to quiet the storm of political speculation that arose Wednesday after Gorbachev’s comments, a party spokesman said the remarks had been hypothetical.

“I do not think there are any grounds to discuss the possibility of his resignation,” said Alexander Lebedev, a senior Central Committee official.

Even Gorbachev loyalists were hedging, however, as the conservative onslaught intensified.

Yuri A. Prokofiev, a key figure as the Moscow party leader, said he supports Gorbachev and doubts that he would step aside, but then added that elections to all posts, including that of general secretary, should be actively contested.

“There are too many attempts to criticize the leadership--and it does deserve criticism for the five years we have spent groping our way and making a considerable number of mistakes,” Prokofiev said. “But it should not be too categorical. . . . There is certainly enough blame for everyone, including our critics.”

Ligachev had praised Gorbachev as the originator of perestroika --and then criticized the way in which the specific reforms have been worked out and put into practice. Because of this, Ligachev said Wednesday, a split in the Communist Party, which had remained united since the time of V. I. Lenin, the Bolshevik leader, is now inevitable. Radical reformers, members of the Democratic Platform, will have to be ousted, and the responsibility rests with the party leadership, he continued.

Appearing to criticize his own shortcomings, Ligachev said the party leadership has not seen that “the main danger for perestroika (was) specifically the planned and ever more active work of anti-socialist forces aimed at weakening and eventually destroying from inside the Communist Party and the socialist union of republics.”

He also accused Gorbachev of bypassing other members of the party’s Politburo, its top executive body, and the policy-making Central Committee in a series of key decisions, including economic reform, Soviet policies in Eastern Europe and German reunification.

In the allegation, which could prove very damaging to Gorbachev within the party, Ligachev went even further to suggest that, as party leader, the president has deliberately abandoned the party’s principle of collective leadership by failing to discuss crucial decisions beforehand and ignoring requests from others that he do so.

In another development, the conference voted, 2,316 to 171, to transform itself into the founding congress of a Russian Federation Communist Party within the framework of the central Soviet party.

The move will give Russia, the largest of the Soviet Union’s 15 constituent republics, its own party, putting it on a par with other republic parties, attempting to harness growing Russian nationalism and responding to conservative efforts in Leningrad to establish an independent Russian party beyond Moscow’s effective control.

Gorbachev, after opposing the move for months, agreed to support it recently but warned that the Russian party must never challenge the parent Soviet party.