Gorbachev Gets OK on Powers, Assails Yeltsin

Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev lashed out at Russian Federation leader Boris N. Yeltsin and other critics Friday after winning legislative blessing on his request for more powers to stabilize the economy and safeguard order.

“On the one hand, I have been criticized for the paralysis of power. Now that I’m trying to break free from it, we’re being told that the president is establishing his own dictatorship,” Gorbachev told a news conference in response to a question about his relations with Yeltsin.

Gorbachev and Yeltsin, the Soviet leader’s most powerful rival and the country’s most popular politician, have been trading verbal blows over Gorbachev’s latest plan to bring the Soviet economy into line and halt the breakdown of the state by restructuring the executive branch.

It was endorsed in general terms Friday by the Supreme Soviet, the national legislature, which gave Gorbachev two weeks to draw up a detailed blueprint.

The plan was proposed by Gorbachev to resolve the “paralysis of power” brought about by several republics functioning independently and by the hostility of the state bureaucracy, headed by Prime Minister Nikolai I. Ryzhkov, to Gorbachev’s ambitious reform agenda.

Under Gorbachev’s plan, the machinery of government--the ministries and state commissions--would be put under his direct control.

The Supreme Soviet resolution also enhances the president’s already vast executive powers by authorizing unspecified “extraordinary powers” in the event of threat to human life or property. An earlier version of Gorbachev’s plan was approved in principle Nov. 17.

The legislature also gave Gorbachev 14 days to work up a program to increase the availability of food in the shortage-plagued Soviet Union by compelling republics and local governments to honor agreements to supply food to other parts of the country.

Yeltsin has condemned Gorbachev’s plan as a move to shore up power for himself and stop drives for greater independence in Russia and the other 14 constituent republics. Yeltsin had proposed another solution to the crisis of power--a coalition cabinet whose members would be proposed by the republics.

“This is a political struggle of opposing forces, which have different aims,” a clearly frustrated Gorbachev told reporters after being asked to comment on Yeltsin’s criticism. “If someone opposes us, he opposes perestroika. “ Gorbachev said that his vision of the redivision of Soviet power agrees at least 80% with Yeltsin’s proposals, but he stressed that he would not back down from a confrontation.

“I accept the challenge by my opponents,” he said.

Some radical deputies supported the concept of more power for Gorbachev, saying the country needs to take drastic measures to halt the breakdown of the economy.

“I think our food crisis is provoked by the destabilization of executive power,” said Sergei B. Stankevich, deputy mayor of Moscow. “Yesterday I received notifications from nine regions of Russia that they are about to stop milk supplies to Moscow.

“We only have dry milk supplies for about three days in Moscow. You can see how serious it is.”

Leningrad Mayor Anatoly A. Sobchak, whose city has voted to enact its first widespread food-rationing program since the end of World War II, even criticized the resolution as too weak.

“I do not support it because I think it’s a toothless resolution,” Sobchak said. “I think we now need tougher measures, up to and including disbanding local organs of power that break laws by failing to fulfill contracts. This is creating a situation where large cities such as Leningrad . . . find themselves threatened by hunger.”

But liberal deputies cautioned that new powers for the president could be abused unless the republics are given a large role in determining who will hold the offices Gorbachev wants to create. There will be a Federation Council made up of leaders of the republics, which would have power to make important decisions, as well as a vice presidency and a Cabinet.

“If this new system of executive power is not legitimized by the republics, it cannot end the war of words between the center and the republics,” Stankevich said. “If there is just a strengthening of executive power without new relations with the republics, I’m afraid we could enter a new stage of dictatorship.”

A draft of a new Union Treaty, which would fix relations between the republics and the Moscow-based central government, was handed out to members of the national and republican legislatures Friday and will be published in Soviet newspapers today, Gorbachev announced.

Although several republics--including Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Armenia and Georgia--have served notice that they will not sign the new treaty, Gorbachev again stressed the importance of keeping the union together.

“We cannot divide the country. When attempts were made, the result was bloodshed and there were grave consequences,” he said.

He made it clear that individual republics will be able to secede only according to the rules spelled out in a law adopted this year and added that, if pushed, he will not hesitate to use his powers--which include the ability to impose direct presidential rule--to enforce order.

“I should say that as president, in the final analysis, I also have my limits,” he said.

Gorbachev’s patience was exhausted by a front-page article published Friday in Komsomolskaya Pravda, the country’s largest daily newspaper, that harshly criticized his request for more power.

“The president already has vast legitimate power, which none of his predecessors had,” the newspaper said.

Gorbachev’s voice filled with anger as he attacked the article before the Supreme Soviet.

“This is ordered by a certain power that does not want the situation in the country to be normalized,” he said.

Gorbachev told the news conference that his opponents have no grounds to criticize his resolution, because they have not suggested any worthy alternative.

“Are there any plans that claim to be a serious challenge to our constructive program?” Gorbachev asked. “No.

“They tend to oppose anything the president says today or tomorrow,” he added, “even if the president says one thing today and another tomorrow.”