More Soviet Heads Likely Will Roll : Politics: The debate over structural changes in government has gone nowhere. But Gorbachev hasn’t begun to make his moves.

In his most recent statements, President Mikhail S. Gorbachev has outlined an essentially new structure of Soviet government. At the same time, figures in the top echelons of power have been moved around. Add to this the unexpected resignation of Eduard A. Shevardnadze. All these developments may signify the emergence of a new “power policy” in the Kremlin.

The issue of power is widely debated in the Soviet Union today. Whenever there is a need to describe the debate’s status, the most frequently used word--whether the describer be leftist, rightist, housewife or the president--is “paralysis.”

But consider: Although perhaps no one deliberately arranged it, there is simply no better way to distract the people’s attention from their constantly deteriorating living conditions than by making them witnesses or participants in the personnel rotation or structural changes at the top of the pyramid of power.

Paradoxically, the liquidation of the Presidential Council, the first cabinet created by Gorbachev, went almost unnoticed. Most people treated it with total indifference. One reason could be that the council was the first child of the early presidential system, set up according to rather vague principles and for no clear purposes. By all indications, Gorbachev himself did not have a distinct view of the council’s goals and tasks and gradually concluded that he had got it wrong.

Still, the council played a “historical role,” the favorite ranking of the current political parlance. It had been instrumental in stripping, overnight, the Politburo of its total power. After the prime minister, the heads of defense, state security, police and foreign policy moved from the Politburo to the Presidential Council. The Politburo, omnipotent for decades, had practically lost all relevance. The indifference that greeted the demise of the council was undeserved, to say the least.

Of course, for some of its former members, life will hardly change. Both Dmitri T. Yazov, the defense minister, and Vladimir A. Kryuchkov, the head of the KGB, will continue in their jobs. Most probably, Yevgeny M. Primakov and Vadim A. Medvedev will not be left out in the cold--the former was rumored to be eyeing Shevardnadze’s job as foreign minister, while the latter has already performed as the president’s personal envoy abroad.

Others may not be so lucky. Valentin Rasputin, Alexander N. Yakovlev and Stanislav S. Shatalin could find their future a bit cloudy. True, Shatalin remains the head of the economics department at the Academy of Sciences, and Rasputin is a renowned writer. But both positions carry much less status in the public’s perceptions. It is revealing that no rumors of new jobs for Shatalin and Rasputin are circulating. It is quite possible that one of the hidden motives behind the liquidation of the Presidential Council was a desire to remove certain figures from active politics.

But what should be expected of the new generation manning the new posts at the top? Further fragmentation of power, caused by the continuing co-existence of old and new institutions, may prove to be an ineffective medicine against this pernicious disease--the paralysis of power.

Competition among institutions may easily be aggravated by rivalry among personalities vying for Gorbachev’s ear and for influence. Beside the president will appear a vice president; beside the vice president will stand a prime minister. If the projected National Security Council gets a boss, or a coordinator, he, too, will demand a say in the decision-making process.

The American experience shows that the national-security adviser is not always prepared to yield to the vice president or the secretary of state in the struggle for the presidential ear. Besides, can we accept, as a rational solution, this mixture of the American model of government (a vice president, but no prime minister) with the British (prime minister but no president) and the French (president and prime minister)?

Vadim Bakatin, the former interior minister, is considered a leading contender for the top job at the National Security Council. But the nature of the charges leveled against him by conservatives may preclude such an appointment. He is being accused of wrecking the national police force, the militia, and of conniving with separatists within its ranks. Bakatin was also the first to depoliticize his force, abolishing the political departments throughout the chain of command.

Two weeks before his dismissal, Bakatin sent a tough-worded letter to Anatoly L. Lukyanov, chairman of the Supreme Soviet, the national legislature. Among other things, it said: “It’s useless to look for the origins of the present power paralysis in the ineffective work of the militia. This inefficiency is a mere consequence. As for the true reasons, they are numerous, but a fundamental one is the fact that in 73 years of the Soviet power, we have failed to create an executive mechanism stopping arbitrariness of power. In this country, the ultimate authority just spits at the law. When this happens, the militia, which cannot oppose the power, is left powerless.”

The greatest controversies, of course, rage around the government of Prime Minister Nikolai I. Ryzhkov: Will he retain his post when it is transformed under Gorbachev’s proposed constitutional changes, and who will become vice president?

The leading vice-presidential candidates are Shevardnadze and, despite all his unpopularity, Ryzhkov. Another name has begun to pop up--Grigory A. Yavlinsky, co-author of the famous 500 Days program of economic reforms. Although the economist, who recently stepped down as the Russian deputy prime minister, has a bright political future, any such rise to power still appears premature.

A much more plausible vice-presidential figure is Nursultan Nazarbayev, the Kazakh president who is reported to have discussed the offer to run for the job with his aides. Nazarbayev traveled to Paris with Gorbachev last month. Such trips, experience teaches, usually presage new appointments.

Apart from Ryzhkov, another name being mentioned for prime minister is Arkady Volsky. A former official of the party Central Committee, he headed the committee sent to govern Nagorno Karabakh and now leads the Soviet Science and Industry Assn. Both Ryzhkov and Volsky enjoy support from the captains of industry, and this may prove the decisive factor in their favor in the race with other contenders.

The changes in the second echelons of power are no less interesting. The appointment of Gen. Boris Gromov, the former commander of the 40th Army in Afghanistan, as deputy interior minister may signal a shift toward militarization of governing methods and the access to power of the new generation of generals with actual fighting experience. In the light of the widening calls for a strong-arm government, this does not appear very encouraging. On the other hand, some analysts believe Gromov has been moved into a no-win position precisely with the aim of separating him from the army.

Whether this is so no one can say for sure. When Gorbachev begins his moves, especially in personnel changes, no guess as to his ultimate goal is sound.