Gorbachev Tells Regret on Autonomy Mix-Ups

Mikhail S. Gorbachev acknowledged to local Communist leaders that the Kremlin had cast them adrift as it rapidly switched signals in a bid to quiet republics’ demands for autonomy, a local official said today.

Gorbachev met with more than 300 officials late Wednesday, after the Soviet president had given himself and his leadership a two-year deadline to improve citizens’ lives in the Soviet Union.

Filip Stroganov, a party leader from the Baltic republic of Latvia, said Gorbachev converted him from an opponent to a supporter during the meeting, which lasted late into the night.

“I like people with character,” Stroganov said. “Yesterday I saw his character.”

The Latvian delegation met with reporters today as delegates to the 28th Communist Party Congress broke up into sections to debate economic, military, farm, regional and other issues.

Reporters were allowed to attend the first three days of the congress, but were not permitted in today’s section meetings.

The official Tass news agency, in a brief statement, reported there were “sharp polemics on social, economic and agricultural party policy” in the sectional debates but did not provide any details.

Stroganov said regional leaders complained that Gorbachev and the central leadership changed their minds too often on a new structure to bind the Soviet Union’s republics.

Latvia’s neighbor, Lithuania, already has declared independence. The parliament of Latvia and the third Baltic republic, Estonia, have signaled their intention to follow.

“We don’t have a clear position on this question,” Stroganov said. “In the course of a year, opinions in the center were changed three times. First we were talking about a renewed federation, then we were talking about a confederation, and today, just a little while before the congress, we started talking about a union of states.”

“The lack of a precise position on this issue put us in an awkward situation,” Stroganov said.

Gorbachev “agreed with this yesterday,” he added. The regional leaders had been pressing for a meeting for more than two years, and Gorbachev also acknowledged it was a mistake to put it off for so long, he said.