Gorbachev Shifts Focus to Economic Reforms

MOSCOW —  Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev, with a confirmed mandate for far-reaching political reforms, is now pressing for major changes in the Soviet Union’s economic system, moving it sharply away from more than half a century of rigid central planning toward development based primarily on the dynamism of market forces.

Although stated carefully in terms of specific changes to the present system, Gorbachev’s proposed economic reforms would move key decisions--in a major power shift that would also have broad political impact--from Communist Party and government bureaucrats to managers, workers, farmers and consumers.

While such measures were implicit in Gorbachev’s overall reforms, the profound character and broad scope of the economic measures became clear Saturday when Pravda, the party newspaper, published the full text of Gorbachev’s speech to a meeting Friday of the party’s policy-making Central Committee.

In a bold declaration of the planned reforms, Gorbachev committed himself to a return to family farming after more than 50 years of collectivized agriculture, to the leasing of commercial and industrial enterprises to their workers, to the closure of unprofitable operations, to the thorough revision of the country’s present state-set prices and to relaxation of its strict controls on foreign trade.

Master of the Land

“Our task is to rebuild (the economic system) in such a way that the peasant really becomes the master of the land and will be able to apply his energies, knowledge and aptitudes there,” Gorbachev said of the agricultural reforms, the first step in the total overhaul he envisions.

“Let none of us be embarrassed that the means of production will be left at the disposal of the peasant. . . . There is nothing non-socialist in this.”

Other planned reforms include establishment of a full commercial banking system, introduction of new management techniques to replace the present reliance on party orders, a wholesale trading network and a priority-based program of government budgeting.

The key, however, will be the introduction of what Gorbachev called an “effective socialist market,” which in turn will be based on fundamental price reform, always the touchstone of reform in socialist economies.

‘A National Task’

“We will no longer tolerate idle talk on these issues,” he told the Central Committee. “All obstacles to their universal application should be removed. This is a national task.”

Although economic reforms were hotly debated at the special party conference a month ago, the focus then was the series of political changes Gorbachev had proposed--the withdrawal of the Communist Party from the day-to-day management of the government and the economy, the establishment of a strengthened system of local and regional councils with the national Parliament at the top, competitive elections at all levels of the party and government and constitutional and legal reforms to protect individual rights.

For Gorbachev, however, political and economic reforms have always been twinned, different aspects of perestroika, the program of restructuring the whole Soviet system that he undertook after coming to power three years ago.

And, for the average Soviet citizen, Gorbachev acknowledged, the test of the reforms lies in how one’s life is improved--whether more food is available in the market, whether the stores carry more consumer goods, how long the wait for new housing is and simply how much time is wasted, day in, day out, standing in line.

“In our work, we have become involved with many economic affairs, while sometimes overlooking issues directly bearing on people’s lives,” Gorbachev said, speaking at the daylong meeting of the Central Committee on Friday. “The resolution of the highly important issues determining the living standards of the people is long overdue, and the lag in that field has become chronic.”

Long Lines for Consumers

Gorbachev directed some of the toughest comments in his speech at the problem of long lines, which has seemed synonymous with Soviet life, and summed up the failure of the economy to deliver.

“There are lines everywhere--in trade, in the service sector, in transport, in public health institutions and in organizations and offices that have to act on various requests of working people,” Gorbachev said.

When he visited a Moscow shoe factory recently, a mother of two who works there complained to him: “Mikhail Sergeyevich, every day I have to spend two and sometimes even three hours queuing in stores. This is exhausting. I don’t get as tired on the job as I do in the lines.”

Gorbachev commented that it was “a shame that many high-placed officials calmly look at lines and do not deem it necessary to do anything to eliminate them. . . .”