What Next? Purge <i> Perestroika</i> ? : Why 16 NATO foreign ministers are alarmed

Does the rapid collapse of authority in the Soviet Union mean that authoritarianism may soon make a chilling comeback?

Recent weeks have seen President Mikhail S. Gorbachev threatening to take extreme measures to combat growing social disorder and disrespect for national institutions. Gorbachev has himself condemned the “dark forces” of unrest, and sent surrogates conspicuous for the power they represent to add vehemence to his message. Both KGB head Vladimir Kryuchkov and Defense Minister Dmitri Yazov have gone on television to rail against political radicals, alleged saboteurs of the nation’s food supplies, draft dodgers and others who menace civic tranquility. The signal being sent is clear.

The Communist Party is no longer able to command wide respect or coerce popular obedience, but Gorbachev is saying that his regime can still call on strong and even ruthless allies to enforce its will. “Law and order” has become the new buzz phrase. The problems it implies are real and run deep.

The revolutionary change of course that Gorbachev has sponsored--like all revolutions--has given rise to unintended consequences. Chief among these is that the traditional autocratic controls that for centuries held the diverse peoples of the state in thrall to central authority have been eroded.

The element of fear has ceased to be controlling in Soviet life. On the positive side, this has led to freer expression and new political organizations. But it has also encouraged an epidemic of economic crimes and crimes of violence, of military desertions and draft evasion, not seen since the collapse of the Romanov dynasty.

Most troubling to Gorbachev, to party apparatchiks , to the KGB and the military has been the resurfacing of ethnic and nationalist separatism. These now threaten the very existence of the Soviet empire. It is this threat that is most on Gorbachev’s mind this week as he presses his case to the Congress of Peoples Deputies to be given greater executive powers.

Gorbachev’s dilemma is that he wants the republics to forget about full independence, but he feels he can’t pay the price they demand to be part of his proposed looser confederation.

What the republics seek is an end to Moscow’s control over their economic and political lives. But for Moscow to accept that condition could open the door to even greater ethnic and regional strife, as old animosities long suppressed by the heavy hand of central control re-erupt with a vengeance. This prospect openly alarms the still powerful right wing in Soviet political life, including the KGB and military leaders.

This week the 16 foreign ministers of NATO expressed alarm of their own. Any interruption of progress toward economic and political reforms in the Soviet Union, they warned, could trigger a cutoff in vital Western aid. The warning is not out of line. It adds to the pressures on Gorbachev to find some means short of a revival of traditional brute-force authoritarianism to restore order in the Soviet Union.