Russian Communist Party Rejects Reformer, Elects a Gorbachev Critic : Soviet Union: The conservative victory for the key post is a setback for the nation’s leader and for Yeltsin, head of its largest republic.

A hard-line critic of President Mikhail S. Gorbachev’s reform policies was elected Friday as the leader of the newly re-established Russian Communist Party, defeating a moderate reformer for the key post as conservatives gathered strength in advance of a crucial party congress here.

Ivan K. Polozkov, the regional party leader from Krasnodar in southern Russia and a feisty defender of orthodox Marxism, won 52% of the votes in a second round of balloting for the post of party first secretary, according to delegates to the founding conference of the Russian Communist Party.

Polozkov, a 55-year-old economist and veteran party official, defeated Oleg Lobov, 53, a former assistant to Boris N. Yeltsin, the populist president of Russia, in an election that had quickly become a test of strength between the party’s resurgent conservatives and its moderate reformers.

Although the official results will not be released by party officials until this morning, the victory was celebrated by conservatives Friday night as a major setback not only for Gorbachev, who is now under unprecedented conservative pressure, but also for Yeltsin, who had defeated Polozkov for the Russian presidency last month.

Polozkov’s nomination had already stirred deep passions among the party’s radical reformers who saw his emergence as the top vote-getter among the seven candidates in the first round of balloting as evidence of a sharp swing to the right in the Russian party.

“It would be a pity if anyone but Polozkov headed this party,” said Sergei B. Stankevich, Moscow’s new deputy mayor, “because then the people would have some reason left for their illusions and hesitancy about this party. If Ivan Polozkov becomes first secretary, there will be no doubt about where he stands.”

Vyacheslav Bragin, the party first secretary in Kalinin, outside Moscow, told the conference that the election of Polozkov would be “the sunset of our party.”

But Polozkov had probably captured the majority of the 2,700 conference delegates with a ringing attack on the party’s leadership Wednesday and then a captivating question-and-answer session after his nomination Thursday. He also had the open support of military delegates to the conference.

The conservatives, who have been on the attack from the opening of the conference Tuesday, believe that they will have the momentum now for a credible assault on Gorbachev’s position as the party’s general secretary when its leadership is reorganized during the congress of the national party that opens in 10 days.

The conservative strategy, political insiders say, will not be to oust Gorbachev but to “restore a balance” within the party leadership, as a conservative conference participant put it. The conservatives hope, the sources add, to prompt him to relinquish his party post while retaining the presidency.

Yegor K. Ligachev, the conservative standard-bearer in the party’s Politburo, launched the campaign this week with a sharp attack on Gorbachev’s manner of leadership, notably recent decisions that he has made allegedly without consulting other Politburo members. Ligachev then called for the election of a leader able to devote all his energy to party affairs.

Polozkov, a Ligachev ally and his one-time assistant in the party’s organization department, told the conference delegates that there is no crisis in the party or in the country--only in the party’s top leadership.

In one of the hardest-hitting speeches in the conservative onslaught against Gorbachev at the conference this week, Polozkov had accused the leadership--by clear implication, Gorbachev himself--of confusion in its thinking and weakness in carrying out its policies.

“Inconsistency in matters of principle, lavish promises, tardiness in making serious decisions and an inability to correct errors promptly all show that the leadership lacks a clear-cut program for the renewal of socialism,” Polozkov told the conference in that speech.

This, and not any failure of Marxism, is why people are losing faith in socialism and why they doubt that the party can find a solution to the country’s multiple problems, he argued.

Polozkov later objected to characterization of his speech as critical of perestroika, as Gorbachev’s reform program is known.

“I am against a division into left- and right-wing forces,” he told Radio Moscow’s Interfax news agency, “and my speech should be attributed to my temperament and my unwillingness to put up with shortcomings in society and the party.

“I call for a speedy renewal of the party with a view to setting up a new Central Committee and local party committees that would work in the interests of most Communists. If we fail to criticize the Central Committee for its mistakes, that can be the end of the party.”

He said the party should borrow the most promising ideas from each of the movements within its ranks.

Polozkov, however, has campaigned against what he describes as the excesses of the country’s fledgling entrepreneurs and denounced the informal political groups that have sprung up outside and even within the party.

Despite his conservative stance, he had backing last month from Gorbachev when he ran against Yeltsin for the presidency of the Russian Federation, the largest of the 15 Soviet republics, whose Communist Party he now heads.

Support for Polozkov was serious and solid from the outset, indicating that the conservatives had his candidacy well organized. In the first round, Polozkov won 1,017 votes to Lobov’s 848 with more than 50% of the 2,633 votes cast needed for election.