Gorbachev Seeks Sweeping Powers to Save His Reforms

Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev on Friday sought sweeping emergency powers to save his reforms as the nation’s lawmakers, leery of provoking large-scale unemployment and unrest, balked at approving a plan for rapid transition to a market economy.

“We’ve reached the stage where we can’t step aside,” a visibly exasperated Gorbachev declared after it became obvious that the divided Supreme Soviet, or legislature, which lacked a quorum at the critical moment, could not make a decision. “Grant me such powers, and we will act.”

In an unexpected move to take over some of the powers of the Supreme Soviet, now only in its second year as the country’s functioning legislature, Gorbachev asked for the right to issue decrees on a broad range of economic and social issues that ordinarily are matters for the lawmakers to decide, including property rights, economic management, salaries, prices, the state budget and the fight against crime.

Now prey to ethnic upheavals and growing economic disorders, the Soviet Union is beset with a “crisis of executive power” and more resolute action is needed to deal with the national “emergency,” Gorbachev argued, striking the wooden lectern in the Kremlin hall with his hand for emphasis.

“The processes have become so overwhelming that they could run out of control, and already are doing so in certain sectors,” he warned lawmakers. “This could cause great damage and even destroy perestroika, “ he said, referring to his campaign for economic and social restructuring.

“In some places, we may have to introduce and implement presidential rule and end the activity of all institutions, including elected ones,” Gorbachev said, evoking the possibility that he might impose direct rule to stem ethnic turmoil in the Transcaucasus or independence movements in the Baltic republics.

Earlier this year, Gorbachev was elected to a new, more powerful executive presidency that was tailor-made for him. Some lawmakers on Friday opposed his request for still greater powers--in essence to be allowed to amend or override existing laws if needed, subject to ultimate Supreme Soviet approval--as too dangerous.

One legislator objected that Gorbachev’s request “practically reduces the power of the Supreme Soviet to zero.” But the president dismissed the arguments of legalistic “nightingales of jurisprudence,” as he called them.

A majority of speakers, citing the crisis in their nation, endorsed his request.

“The country is breaking up; the country is in chaos,” one woman deputy said from the floor. “Today, I would collect all the powers in the world and give them to Mikhail Sergeyevich (Gorbachev) if I could.”

Despite such a keen sense of urgency, the lack of a quorum on a chaotic day in the 542-member Supreme Soviet delayed consideration of Gorbachev’s special powers request until Monday, when the legislature reconvenes.

After 10 days of study and debate, the lawmakers also failed to opt definitely for a radical reform plan based on recommendations from economist Stanislav S. Shatalin, a Gorbachev protege, or the more gradual package drawn up by the country’s prime minister, Nikolai I. Ryzhkov.

In what is arguably his greatest gamble since he became Soviet leader in 1985, Gorbachev by and large has endorsed the Shatalin plan, which would doom traditional state socialism by a large-scale privatization of government assets and deregulation of prices for up to 80% of consumer goods and services by the end of 1991.

However, as the Supreme Soviet devoted what was supposed to be its last day to considering Shatalin’s “500-day” economic rescue plan, speaker after speaker took the podium to voice hostility or doubts over its effects, or damned it with faint praise by saying that it should be gutted to include features of Ryzhkov’s program.

Apocalyptic forecasts were made of what the switch to a supply-and-demand economy would produce after decades of the “administrative-command system.”

Gaibnazar P. Pallaev of Tadzhikistan warned that Shatalin’s program would throw 45% of the working population out of their jobs in his Central Asian republic. V. A. Valov predicted that the plan would cut the nation’s industrial output, already sinking, by a staggering 40% to 50% next year.

The Supreme Soviet session had been widely expected to determine Ryzhkov’s political fate by approving either his plan, which retains government control over much of the economy, or Shatalin’s. The previous day, the legislature of the Russian republic, presided over by radical populist Boris N. Yeltsin, turned up the pressure on Ryzhkov by demanding that he resign.

If Shatalin’s plan is approved, Ryzhkov has indicated that he will step down. In what seemed like an 11th-hour bid to keep his job, the 60-year-old prime minister asked the legislators to compromise by merging his plan and Shatalin’s to come up with a single document before Oct. 1.

Gorbachev, however, made it clear that although the document finally adopted could include “some provisions from the government’s program,” it should be based on the faster-track approach proposed by Shatalin.

One lawmaker, demanding Ryzhkov’s resignation, questioned his ability to implement someone else’s plan. But Gorbachev said he was not prepared to seek the departure of Ryzhkov, a loyal ally from the onset of the perestroika campaign.

“If we start reshuffling at this historic time, when we have important things to do, this will be a gift to the pretenders (to power),” Gorbachev said.

Parliamentary paralysis, however, left Ryzhkov in the saddle, at least until the Supreme Soviet reconvenes on Monday. A bill that would have confirmed the Shatalin approach as the “basis” for a reworked final draft could not be voted on after the Parliament’s normally unflappable speaker, Anatoly I. Lukyanov, noted testily that the necessary two-thirds of the deputies had not returned from lunch, and that there was thus no quorum.

Lukyanov hinted that a plot was afoot to delay a decision on the economic plan, but independent Marxist historian Roy A. Medvedev objected that such reasoning was far-fetched. In the 1 1/2 years that the Supreme Soviet has functioned, Medvedev reminded Lukyanov, there has never been a quorum on a Friday afternoon, when many deputies leave Moscow to spend the weekend in their constituencies.