2 Factions Clash at Soviet Congress : Party meeting: The conservatives denounce ‘reckless radicalism.’ Reformers applaud the end of the ‘evil empire.’

Conservative die-hards and reformers went to war Tuesday for the hearts and minds of the Soviet Communist Party, with Yegor K. Ligachev denouncing the Gorbachev era’s “reckless radicalism” and other leaders defending policies that stripped the “evil empire” label from their nation.

One day after President Mikhail S. Gorbachev warned that the only alternative to his pro-market, democratizing reforms is a return to the “dark times,” a congress of Communists charting the future of their troubled party and country saw the extent of the discord among their leaders bared, and wrestled with the implications of internal divisions.

Dissent in the once severely regimented party ranks reached such a crescendo that Gorbachev had to step in personally at one point to assume the chairman’s duties. Worried Politburo member Lev N. Zaikov told Communists that the array of tasks before them is now as urgent as when the Nazi armies were at the gates of Moscow.

“Now, as during that crucial time, everyone must muster no less courage. . . . The party needs it,” Zaikov told the nearly 4,700 congress delegates meeting behind the brick walls of the Kremlin.

Empty stores, ethnic unrest and the danger of disintegration of both the Soviet Union and the party itself have placed unprecedented pressures on Gorbachev to justify his five-year-old domestic program, known by the catchall phrase of perestroika (restructuring). Its ideological underpinnings, which have led to greater personal and political liberties and a growing challenge to Communist Party dominance in society, also are being challenged.

As the congress opened Monday, Gorbachev allies warned of the possibility of a “conservative backlash,” spurred in part by the country’s burgeoning domestic woes. And the enthusiastic reception given Ligachev, the leading orthodox Marxist in the party hierarchy, showed the continuing lure of traditional communism for the bulk of the congress delegates.

In a 20-minute address that mixed an accounting of his five-year Politburo tenure with a personal Communist credo, the bantam-sized Siberian shook off the “foul slanders and monstrous accusations” he said an organized media campaign has subjected him to, due to his “overt and perhaps unyielding position regarding true socialism, the place and role of the party.”

Ligachev, the top party official for agriculture, avoided direct criticism of Gorbachev himself, but he told reporters later that if the congress decides he should succeed the Soviet president as party general secretary, as some fed-up conservatives have suggested, he would feel duty-bound to serve.

Leveling scathing criticism at radicals both in and out of the party ranks, Ligachev said many who now demand change “applaud everything aimed at the destruction of socialism, at undermining the Communist Party.”

“These steps are actively portrayed as innovations and genuine perestroika. And often actions aimed at the perpetuation and renovation of socialism are portrayed as ‘actions by the conservative forces.’ ”

“I am simply a realist,” the white-haired 69-year-old declared, his head bobbing up from the text of his speech to gaze at his audience as Gorbachev sat impassively on the dais to his rear. “Reckless radicalism and improvised dashing to and fro have produced little in the five years of perestroika. “

Ligachev, who served as top party ideologue until Gorbachev stripped him of the portfolio in 1988, rejected the recent legalization of private ownership of factories as a deviation from socialism. In a clear refutation of Gorbachev ally Alexander N. Yakovlev’s remarks to the congress Monday, he said that only Communists could lead society out of its crisis.

“Some people have started talking about perestroika going ahead with or without the party,” Ligachev said. “I think perestroika without the party is hopeless.”

Ligachev’s turn to speak at the congress to account for his work on the Politburo and party Secretariat had been keenly awaited, and hundreds of delegates clearly relished the results. To a thunderous ovation, the career Communist executive, attired in a blue-gray suit, bounded energetically from the podium and swept up the aisle, pumping the hand of a well-wisher in the process.

However, Ligachev’s Communist Party nemesis, maverick populist Boris N. Yeltsin, showed what he thought of the congress and present political priorities in general by convening a session of the Russian Federation’s legislature during Tuesday’s proceedings and shepherding through the election of two radicals to head commissions on economic reform and local self-rule.

Ligachev’s Politburo colleague, Foreign Minister Eduard A. Shevardnadze, succeeded him at the speaker’s stand with a denunciation of “dogmatism and ideological stereotypes.” He gave an impassioned defense of the positive results of Gorbachev’s achievements in foreign affairs, which he said were permanently linked to changes at home.

“The profound democratization of society, humanization of the country’s legislation, the granting of rights to citizens, to the unjustly imprisoned . . . if we are to blame for all that, well, we accept such an accusation, since from such gestures, a new image of our country is being shaped which is respected by the whole world,” Shevardnadze declared, shaking his right hand for emphasis.

To conservative charges that the Kremlin had “lost” East Germany, making millions of wartime Soviet deaths a useless sacrifice, Shevardnadze, appointed foreign minister by Gorbachev in 1985, said there were better ways of ensuring the country’s security than dividing Germany, including the negotiating of limits for its army.

“Which is better for us? The 500,000-man army of West Germany or an army half that size from a unified Germany?” Shevardnadze asked, speaking a Russian richly accented with the brogue of his native Georgia.

“Squandering a quarter of our budget on military expenditures, we have ruined the country,” Shevardnadze said.

Hostility toward the West during the past 20 years has cost the country $1.17 trillion in more weapons beyond what was needed to reach parity, he said.

In his speech, Zaikov, the erstwhile party overseer for the military-industrial complex, said unilateral cuts in the Soviet armed forces and other Gorbachev reforms had stripped his country of the “evil empire label.”

Militants of the radical Democratic Platform faction said the enthusiastic welcome given Ligachev’s speech, the first conservative manifesto aired at the 28th party congress, showed that the majority of delegates seek to safeguard the status quo and are deaf to their group’s demands that the party shed both the name and ideal of communism.

“The values Ligachev speaks of as ‘socialist’ don’t signify anything if they’re the same ones we’ve been told about for 73 years,” said Boris V. Gusev, an engineer from a Kiev aircraft design bureau and a Democratic Platform delegate. “Unfortunately for us, the ovation he got shows that the correlation of forces is hardly in our favor.”

Radicals and conservatives alike say Ligachev may be nominated at the congress to oppose Gorbachev. Speaking to a crush of reporters in the marble-floored foyer of the Kremlin Palace of Congresses, Ligachev voiced support for Gorbachev, but said he would not decline were he nominated to run for the general secretaryship.

“I believe we have a leader in the party, Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev. And it is up to the congress to decide what is to be determined for Ligachev and Gorbachev,” Ligachev said. “I will obey any decision whatsoever. I was raised and formed in such a way.”

Later, in naming its special commissions, the congress overwhelmingly elected Ligachev over reformist candidates to head the panel on agriculture. In what could bode ill for Gorbachev, opposition in the congress--in which full-time party and state bureaucrats hold a majority--forced one Gorbachev protege to back out as a candidate for chairmanship of one commission, while the Soviet leader had to intervene to get party ideologue Vadim A. Medvedev named to the panel on the new party program.

Sweeping personnel changes are expected at the congress as the party, now called upon to set the goals of Soviet society rather than run its day-to-day affairs, revamps its top institutions to cope with a budding multi-party system.

During a testy afternoon session, Gorbachev revealed that four senior party officials--Politburo members Nikolai N. Slyunkov and Vitaly I. Vorotnikov, non-voting Politburo member Alexandra P. Biryukova and Secretariat member Gumer I. Usmanov--have asked to resign.

THE PARTY CONGRESS: DAY TWO

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

Conservative attack: Kremlin hard-liners launched fierce attacks on Mikhail S. Gorbachev’s five years of reforms in the economy, politics, the military and foreign policy. Politburo conservative Yegor K. Ligachev led the criticism, drawing loud applause as he said perestroika has been marred by “reckless radicalism” that has brought little good.

Resignations: Gorbachev said four senior party officials submitted their resignations: Politburo members Nikolai N. Slyunkov and Vitaly I. Vorotnikov; non-voting Politburo member Alexandra P. Biryukova, the only woman on the body, and Gumer I. Usmanov of the party Secretariat, the second most powerful body.

Anti-Communist rally: Across town, at the entrance to Gorky Park, more than 4,000 rain-soaked protesters chanted “Down with the Communist Party!” and heard radical politicians and prominent artists denounce the Soviet leadership. “Down with the bandits who captured power in 1917!” shouted Moscow City Council member Valery Fadeyev to the cheers of the crowd.

Caviar? Nyet: The low-priced buffet on the top floor of the Kremlin’s Palace of Congresses, which traditionally serves caviar, is instead dishing out ground chicken patties fried in egg batter, garnished with green Cuban oranges. “All the caviar’s gone west,” a waiter said.

Key quote: “Squandering a quarter of our budget on military expenditures, we have ruined the country. We shall have no need for defense, because a ruined country and an impoverished people have no need for an army.” --Foreign Minister Eduard A. Shevardnadze, defending Gorbachev’s foreign policy.

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