Ligachev, Top Soviet Critic, Backs Reforms

MOSCOW â€”  A senior member of the Soviet Communist Party’s ruling Politburo widely regarded as the spokesman for conservative opposition to the radical political and economic reforms of Mikhail S. Gorbachev, the party leader, said Saturday that he and all other members of the leadership are united behind Gorbachev and firmly support his policies.

Yegor K. Ligachev, the party’s chief ideologist and second in rank in the Politburo after Gorbachev, made his public pledge of loyalty in a clear effort to win broader support for the reforms, particularly among old-time party members, and to discourage the factionalism now seriously threatening party unity.

“All the members of the leadership with Mikhail Gorbachev at their head are deeply committed to the cause of perestroika, “ Ligachev told a political rally in the industrial town of Togliatti, referring to the planned political and economic reforms.

‘All Their Energies’

“They take an active part in outlining and implementing this policy and are devoting together with the people all their energies and experiences to that.�

Ligachev appeared to be paying a political debt to Gorbachev, who had declared last week, when asked about calls for Ligachev’s replacement, that “no such problem exists either in the party Central Committee or in the Politburo, and that’s it.�

The speech, reported on national radio and television and in the Sunday newspapers here, was Ligachev’s first public comment on the widespread speculation that he was leading a conservative faction fighting Gorbachev’s reform program within the party leadership.

“Adversaries in the West and some people in our country are making allegations about differences within the Soviet leadership, among members of the Politburo,� Ligachev said, describing such allegations as “a notorious trick� aimed at trying “to drive a wedge among the leadership.�

Boris N. Yeltsin, a Gorbachev protege who was dismissed as Moscow party chief and a candidate member of the Politburo, had demanded Ligachev’s replacement as the party’s chief theoretician, calling him a major obstacle to broader and faster reforms.

Ligachev should be removed, Yeltsin told the British Broadcasting Corp. and other interviewers, “because the processes of change in the party are too slow, because the party is still lagging behind, because the process of democracy is not developing . . . and comrade Ligachev is the main person responsible.�

Ligachev’s declaration of support for Gorbachev and his reforms was far from unqualified.

In his speech at Togliatti, an industrial center named after an Italian Communist leader, Ligachev attempted to spell out his concerns about the scope and pace of reform while still backing Gorbachev.

“The guarantee of the irreversibility of perestroika is the Communist Party and its own healthy democratic development,� he said, reaffirming the party’s political supremacy despite calls for political pluralism here.

No ‘Dissolution of Party’

“This development will not, certainly, go along the lines of the dissolution of the party,� he continued, addressing proposals that the Communist Party give up not only its day-to-day administration of the country, but also its leading role in policy formation. “Proposals of this kind are unacceptable,� he said.

“But the party sees the pressing need for deepening and broadening its ties with the working people,� he added, “of drawing all sectors of society into the process of economic and political reform, and the party conference (scheduled later this month) will devote special attention to that question.�

Bearing out suggestions that he indeed holds a more conservative viewpoint, Ligachev contended that the opposition to perestroika stemmed from fear that the reforms had already departed too radically from accepted criteria of socialism or simply from a personal resistance to change.

What he was denying were allegations in the press of “growing resistance�--that a bureaucratic class within the party and government was fighting change, because power, privileges and the very positions of members of that class were at stake.

“Foreign voices want the Soviet Union to have a political opposition,� he said, “and they are dishing up to us the idea of a multi-party system. But if we considered the ‘advice’ that our country’s economy be placed on the footing of Western market economies, little would remain of socialism.�

Western Prescriptions

Such Western prescriptions are “aimed at weakening political stability in the country, upsetting social justice and stimulating a far-reaching social stratification of the country,� Ligachev said.

In Moscow, meanwhile, liberal supporters of Gorbachev found that they had not won as many seats as they thought in the special party conference planned for the end of June to chart the reform program.

While a number of leading reformers were included in the Moscow delegation to the conference after Gorbachev’s personal intervention Friday, several others failed to win approval in a secret ballot.

Among those chosen were historian Yuri Afanasyev, novelist Grigori Baklanov, economist Leonid Abalkin, cinema director Elem Klimov and newspaper editor Yegor Yakovlev.

But sociologist Tatyana Zaslavskaya, playwright Mikhail Shatrov, political scientist Garvil Popov, economist Nikolai Shmelyov and film director Alexander Gelman all failed to get enough votes.

An official report on the proceedings issued late Friday by the government news agency Tass said that the latter five had also been selected, but later accounts made clear that they had not won sufficient votes to be included among the 319 Moscow delegates.

Party sources, however, said that several would be included in provincial delegations that will be chosen this week.

The party conference is scheduled to open June 28 and run for about five days.

Proposals drafted by Gorbachev, approved by the Politburo and endorsed last month by the party’s Central Committee call for a radical restructuring of the country’s political system and economy, but the form and speed of the changes will depend to a large degree on the support Gorbachev receives at the conference.