Stick to Reform Path, Gorbachev Urges Party : Soviet Union: He defends his perestroika policy. ‘Dark times’ are ahead if conservatives prevail, he says.

President Mikhail S. Gorbachev, opening a crucial congress of the Soviet Union’s ruling Communist Party, defended his program of political and economic reforms Monday and appealed for support to prevent a conservative takeover of the party leadership that would end perestroika.

“Either Soviet society goes forward along the path of the profound changes that have begun,” Gorbachev warned, “or forces opposed to perestroika will gain the upper hand, and then--to be honest--dark times are ahead for the country and the people.”

In a speech that defended as much as it advanced his reforms, Gorbachev attempted to fend off an expected conservative assault on his reform program and to consolidate his support at the outset of the 10-day congress.

“There are voices now--in fact, more than that, an opposition has formed--that says in all our failures, perestroika is to blame,” Gorbachev said.

This is “simply nonsense,” he continued, blaming in turn “the extremely grim legacy we inherited” from previous Soviet leaders.

Most of the nearly 4,700 delegates sat in stony silence, however, as Gorbachev delivered his three-hour report, all but confirming that they are his critics, making up the opposition against whom he was warning the nation in such caustic terms.

Gorbachev, who has come under increasing conservative criticism for the political philosophy underlying perestroika as well as for its practical failures, also warned his critics on the left that the five-year reform effort could be upset “if someone manages to split the democratic forces committed to its principles.”

“We must act even more resolutely because any delay is sure to aggravate the situation in the country,” the Soviet leader declared. “One of the serious reasons for the difficulties we are encountering in many fields is the resistance to change put up by the bureaucratic stratum in the managerial structures and by the social forces associated with it.”

This political showdown between Gorbachev and his conservative critics had been building for weeks before the congress, and at the end of the first day, Vadim A. Medvedev, the chief party ideologist and a close Gorbachev adviser, portrayed the meeting as perhaps crucial for the forces of perestroika.

“We are living through a critical phase of perestroika, “ Medvedev told reporters. “We are faced with the main issue of where the country will go, whether the country will progress or recoil backward. . . .

“The danger of a conservative backlash or crackdown is looming larger. This is the major problem we are facing here; it is the monumental threat that the party congress faces.”

Yet, Yegor K. Ligachev, the foremost conservative in the present leadership, and Ivan K. Polozkov, the new first secretary of the Russian Communist Party and an avowed conservative, both reiterated their support of Gorbachev as the party’s top commander.

And Alexander N. Yakovlev, the leading liberal in the Politburo, drew thunderous applause--far more than any other speaker Monday--apparently with the pure passion of his defense of perestroika.

“Dogmas can be saved for the time being, but history cannot be stopped,” Yakovlev told the delegates. “Only a renovated, rejuvenated and shifted-to-the-left party can lead the country ahead along the way of serious changes. This movement is irreversible. It will proceed with the party, or without it.”

Members of the Democratic Platform, a faction in the party that has proposed broader and faster reforms, said they feel that Gorbachev had tried to accommodate their views in his report and they might reconsider their threat to break with the party and establish their own after the congress.

“Gorbachev is trying to define a position for himself between conservatives and radicals,” Tamara Alaiba, a Democratic Platform delegate from the industrial center of Sverdlovsk in the Ural Mountains, said. “But there was not an idea that could unite the hall, this party. . . . You must have a great central idea or proposal to do that.”

But Polozkov, whose election last month as the first secretary of the Russian Communist Party makes him one of the country’s most powerful conservative politicians, was even more dismissive of Gorbachev’s report and the ideas in it, though still pledging his support to Gorbachev for the party leadership.

“To calm the people would have been the greatest accomplishment,” Polozkov said after the lengthy speech. “We have talked a lot about things, but done little. If people felt that something real was being done, they might respond.

“But there is no food, no gas, no clothing, no nothing, and we sit around arguing about power.”

In what may prove an important compromise with the conservatives, Gorbachev appeared ready Monday to give up his proposal for the restructuring of the party leadership to elect a chairman and one or two deputies and a presidium made up largely of republican leaders.

Party traditionalists, who probably constitute a majority of the congress, have argued in favor of maintaining the party’s general secretary, perhaps with a deputy, and the Politburo, a longstanding institution.

The change to a presidium headed by a chairman would be more than symbolic since it would enforce the decentralization of the political leadership and end the concentration of power that the Politburo has always represented.

This issue and others are expected to be debated later this week when delegates discuss Gorbachev’s report, the proposed party platform and the party’s reorganization. Originally scheduled to run a week, the congress was extended to 10 days within an hour of its opening, and some political commentators suggested it could go to 12.

Gorbachev, reminding delegates of how far the country has come in five years, catalogued the changes in politics, in the economy, in the way that people live, all to rebut conservatives’ charges that perestroika is destroying the country.

“The Stalinist model of socialism is being replaced by a civil society of free men and women,” Gorbachev said. “The political system is being radically transformed, genuine democracy is being established with free elections, a multi-party system and human rights, and real government by the people is being revived. . . .

“The changes were pressing because the country was gathering speed in lapsing into a second-rate state,” he continued. “By the early 1980s, it had become clear that our apparent well-being rested on a savage, wasteful use of natural and human resources.”

Arguing strongly for political pluralism and a market economy, Gorbachev asked for a mandate to broaden and accelerate his reforms despite the conservative opposition and the widespread apprehension about the impact of the changes.

Past mistakes and hesitancy “dictate the imperative need to accelerate and radicalize the economic reform,” he said. “We can no longer tolerate the managerial system that rejects scientific and technological progress and new technologies, that is committed to cost-ineffectiveness and that generates squandering and waste. . . .

“The very logic of perestroika and the dramatic social and economic situation in the country brings us face to face with the need for fundamental changes in the economic system.”

He sketched plans for further reforms aimed at transforming what is now largely a state-owned, centrally planned economy to one that will be driven by the market forces of supply and demand and where entrepreneurship and private ownership will be encouraged.

“We regard the market not as a goal in itself, but as a means of making the economy more effective and improving the standard of living,” Gorbachev said, replying to frequent conservative criticism of the plan. “By moving toward a market, we are not swerving from the road to socialism, but are advancing toward a fuller realization of society’s potential.”

The Soviet Union will move soon, he said, to permit private ownership in almost all areas of the economy, to establish equity and commodity markets, to make its currency convertible with Western currencies, to pull the government out of industrial management and to reshape central planning to focus on the overall strategy for the country’s development.

Gorbachev criticized the government of Prime Minister Nikolai I. Ryzhkov and his own Politburo for failing to take a comprehensive approach to economic reform earlier and buckling under to the managers of the country’s giant industries. The leadership had also ignored for too long the growing shortages of foodstuffs and consumer goods of all types, he said, and this had compounded the crises here.

But he promised that the next reforms would not start with price increases, as widely feared, and said that the government would first take steps to ensure that workers do not suffer.

“The transition to a market economy cannot start with price hikes--that is absurd,” he declared.

THE ELITE SPEAKS--Career Communists rebut critics and voice dismay. A10

WHAT GORBACHEV SAID

Excerpts from President Mikhail S. Gorbachev’s speech to the 28th Communist Party Congress. On perestroika and party failures:

The Soviet citizen of today no longer accepts what he meekly tolerated in the past. He reacts with understandable alarm and anger to the negative phenomena that, like foam on the surface, accompany the turbulent and basically healthy process of perestroika. . . .

We have inherited a heavy legacy. The deplorable state of our lands and economy and the disastrous state of the energy sector . . . are not the result of recent years. . . .

The Politburo does not deny its responsibility for these errors.

We must analyze the situation, and we must see what revolutionary transformations will be made, because the U.S.S.R. is rapidly becoming a second-rate power. On human rights:

Human rights will retain priority over the interests of national sovereignty and autonomy. This must be entrenched in the constitutional fabric of the union and each of the republics. Nor must we depart even an inch from this principle, which guides us on the international plane as well. On chronic shortages:

I would subscribe here to everything that is said on this subject and express solidarity with the most scathing criticism. But just fanning emotions won’t increase the amount of goods. . . .

In any case--and this should be admitted--the consequences could have been less painful if the government had approached the economic reform comprehensively, and had managed to stand up to the pressure of various industries and the old managerial structures that sought to keep their position and maintain command of administration. On ethnic strife:

At present, as we embark on a succession of deep-going changes in our multinational state, we need tranquillity, peace and cooperation in the interests of all nations. I hope that this appeal of our congress will be heard in all parts of the country. On Eastern Europe:

Big changes are under way in Eastern Europe. When somebody says that this is the “collapse of socialism,” we counter it with the question: What socialism? That which had been, in point of fact, a variation of Stalin’s authoritarian bureaucratic system--which we have ourselves discarded?”

THE PARTY CONGRESS: DAY ONE

Highlights of Monday’s session of the 28th Communist Party Congress:

Starting the session: Mikhail S. Gorbachev, the Soviet president and party leader, opened the congress in the Kremlin’s Palace of Congresses to elect a party leader and a Central Committee and approve new party rules and platform. It is scheduled to last until July 12. Gorbachev’s defense: Gorbachev attacked bureaucrats for hindering his reforms. He admitted the party leadership made mistakes during his tenure but also blamed the “heavy legacy” of previous leaders dating back to Stalin for food and housing shortages, ecological and industrial disasters and ethnic conflicts. Resignation call: Nine minutes after the session started, coal miner Vladimir Bludov criticized the leadership for not improving living standards and proposed that the Central Committee and Politburo resign. Delegates voted to postpone discussion of the issue. Best-received speech: Politburo member and close Gorbachev adviser Alexander N. Yakovlev delivered a stirring defense of the Soviet leader and his policies, saying they should have come decades sooner. He won over deputies with his uncompromising views and clear pride at having helped create perestroika. Party unity: Outside the session, reformer Sergei Stankevich said the radical Democratic Platform faction has scrapped its plans to leave the party at the congress. Party structure: Gorbachev said delegates told him they are against his proposal to revamp top party organs and break up the job of party chief--which he holds--into a chairman, deputy chairman and first secretary.