Six Quitting the Politburo : Exits Laid to Lessening of Party’s Role

A third of the Soviet Communist Party Politburo, including Foreign Minister Eduard A. Shevardnadze, will not seek reelection, President Mikhail S. Gorbachev said today at the current party Congress, demonstrating the diminishing importance of the once-supreme ruling body.

Shevardnadze announced he would be one of the six members not seeking reelection, saying he no longer believes Politburo membership is necessary for a minister also serving on the Presidential Council and other government bodies.

Another of Gorbachev’s closest advisers, Alexander N. Yakovlev, also said he would not try to retain his Politburo post.

Gorbachev announced that another two full members of the Politburo--Nikolai N. Slyunkov and Vitaly I. Vorotnikov--will not seek reelection to the 12-member body, which includes seven non-voting members.

Non-voting Politburo members Lev N. Zaikov and Alexandra P. Biryukova also announced they will step down.

And a member of the second-most powerful body in the Communist Party, Gumer I. Usmanov, said he will no longer sit on the party secretariat.

Gorbachev said that Slyunkov, 61, was very ill and in the hospital. He has not attended the party session, which opened Monday in the Kremlin Palace of Congresses.

Gorbachev said that Usmanov, 58, also is resigning for health reasons.

He did not give reasons for the resignations submitted by Vorotnikov, 64, and Biryukova, 61, although Vorotnikov recently lost a job that carried nearly automatic inclusion on the Politburo, that of president of the Russian Federation, the largest Soviet republic.

When Gorbachev announced Biryukova’s name, there was a pause, and a considerable hum of surprise among the delegates. Biryukova, the only woman on the Politburo, was in charge of consumer goods.

The shortage of consumer goods has been one of the main complaints about Gorbachev’s policies.

The resignations have not been accepted yet, said Gorbachev.

Word of Biryukova’s resignation came the day after Gorbachev told the congress he would like to see more women elected to senior party positions.

Gorbachev made the announcement reluctantly, after he was pressed several times by delegates, who asked from the floor whether rumors of impending Politburo resignations were correct.

The resignations came on a day that conservatives mounted a counteroffensive against some of Gorbachev’s reforms.

Hard-line Politburo member Yegor K. Ligachev won thunderous applause from the 4,567 delegates at the 28th Party Congress when he angrily denounced what he described as a media campaign against conservative party members and their allies in the military.

“In our day, there are forces going against socialism and the Communist Party . . . and they have great influence in the mass media,” Ligachev said.

Gorbachev, who is general secretary of the party, sat stone-faced as Ligachev and other conservatives criticized reforms that they said are weakening the authority of the party.