Confidence Vote Won by Angry Gorbachev : Soviet Union: He threatens to resign in face of attacks by conservatives. Central Committee backs him, 322-13.

Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev, angered by Communist Party conservatives’ harsh attacks on his leadership, threatened Thursday to resign unless he received a vote of confidence from the party’s Central Committee.

Then, in a dramatic Kremlin showdown, Gorbachev got the endorsement he wanted as Central Committee members voted, 322 to 13 with 14 abstentions, to reject his resignation and not even debate his continued leadership of the party as its general secretary.

But the two days of stormy discussion on the country’s deepening political and economic crisis made clear that Gorbachev--and the lack of an alternative to him--is now all that unites the Communist Party. At the same time, his victory left unresolved the fundamental issues dividing the party.

The Central Committee, concluding its two-day meeting, did endorse, as Gorbachev had requested, the tough program of economic stabilization put forward by Prime Minister Valentin S. Pavlov. The Supreme Soviet, the country’s legislature, is expected to adopt the program today.

The committee, moving to implement the political pluralism to which it committed itself a year ago, also authorized the party leadership to open a dialogue with rival parties and movements, giving them a voice in policy formation and raising the possibility of their representation in the central government for the first time.

And it endorsed the far-reaching accord Gorbachev had concluded with the leaders of nine republics, including Russia’s Boris N. Yeltsin, on the principles for a new Union Treaty to hold the country together but on a freer, decentralized basis. That agreement envisions new elections, perhaps next year, for both the Soviet Parliament and presidency.

But the agreement on these measures, fundamental in their importance for the country, was overshadowed by the debate, apparently ferocious at times, over Gorbachev’s leadership and his responsibility for the current crisis.

After more than two hours of biting criticism by regional party leaders, Gorbachev abandoned his seat on the dais and, pushing aside the restraining hands of his deputy, Vladimir Ivashko, strode to the rostrum to declare his readiness to resign.

“The leadership of the party and the country face complicated tasks in leading the country out of this critical phase,” Gorbachev was later quoted by Valentin M. Falin, a party secretary, as telling the closed-door gathering. “In these conditions, the party’s general secretary must have the support of his comrades in the party and, first of all, of the Central Committee.

“If there are any doubts, we should discuss the question of my resignation.”

Although Gorbachev has used this ploy before to face down his critics, the depth of the country’s current crisis and the sharpness of the two days of debate gave it far greater force.

“Seventy percent of the speakers are criticizing me, and not from a personal point of view but on behalf of the people,” Vladimir Karpov, former leader of the Soviet Union of Writers, quoted Gorbachev as telling the meeting. “I offer to resign.”

Ivashko immediately recessed the meeting, officials said, and the party’s governing Politburo convened in an emergency session to thrash out the problem. Several Politburo members, including the hard-line leaders of the Russian and Latvian parties, had been among Gorbachev’s critics.

Ninety minutes later, the Central Committee resumed its meeting, and Ivashko put forward the “unanimous recommendation” by the Politburo that, when viewed from “the highest interests of the country, the people and the party,” Gorbachev’s resignation should not be considered.

“Those of us who work with him side-by-side certainly found a lot of human sincerity when he spoke about his resignation,” Falin said.

Gorbachev’s supporters at the session, which was attended by several hundred additional party, government and military leaders, had meanwhile circulated a statement denouncing the conservatives who had called for Gorbachev’s replacement, arguing that his removal at the meeting would be “tantamount to a coup.”

“Many speakers said there is widespread mistrust in Gorbachev among ordinary party members,” said Otto R. Latsis, a Central Committee member, summarizing the debate. “There were many such statements before and during the plenum that shifted responsibility (for the crisis) onto Gorbachev. . . .

“The attacks against him, in fact, exceeded the ability of a normal person to withstand. What is surprising is that he did not make his statement earlier. To me, it seemed, we needed to ask him not to offer his resignation.”

The demands for Gorbachev’s removal ended in “a crisis of nerves on all sides,” commented Alexander A. Pomorov, a regional Communist Party leader from Siberia. “This is not a demonstration of strength, but a demonstration of (the party’s) weakness.”

Gorbachev had sought to avoid the confrontation by preempting his critics with an impassioned defense of his leadership and reform policies at the start of the meeting and then winning a key vote to keep off the agenda any discussion of his dual role as president and general secretary.

But his critics--and they included regional leaders from across the country--returned to the attack during a debate on the government’s new program of economic stabilization.

Ivan K. Polozkov, the leader of the Russian Communist Party and a member of the Politburo, called on Gorbachev to declare a national state of emergency, according to the independent Soviet news agency Interfax, and he urged Gorbachev to take tough measures to restore law and order as a precondition for any economic measures.

Gorbachev had failed to understand the nature and extent of the country’s problems, Polozkov asserted, and his preference for the powers of the presidency to his role as a party leader had greatly weakened the party and, consequently, the country.

But Nursultan Nazarbayev, the president of the Soviet Central Asian republic of Kazakhstan and an increasingly influential figure nationally, described the push to remove Gorbachev as “an explosion by the (party) apparatus, which does not reflect the opinion of the people and the members of the party,” according to Interfax.

The criticism was fueled, however, by the spreading strikes around the country as workers continued to protest increased prices for food and consumer goods and to demand pay to match.

On Thursday, 10,000 striking workers paralyzed a key railroad junction in the Byelorussian city of Orsha, stopping trains along a main line from Moscow.

Workers in Byelorussia have been on strike since Tuesday, demanding the resignation of national and republic leaders and a special session of their legislature. But they will suspend the strike today until May 21, when the legislature’s regular session begins.

In Leningrad, 10,000 construction workers began a strike demanding higher pay, Gorbachev’s resignation and dissolution of Parliament, organizers said.

More than 300,000 coal miners are continuing a strike begun March 1. Among their demands are Gorbachev’s resignation, indexing wages to inflation and more autonomy for the republics.

A labor federation called on its members throughout the Russian republic to stage a one-hour strike today. But the group, a reconstituted Communist trade union, is regarded with suspicion by the miners and other labor activists.