Preview of Gorbachev’s Theme : ‘Parasitic’ Party Officials Assailed in Pravda Letter

MOSCOW — The Communist Party newspaper Pravda, in an apparent preview of the theme that Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev will stress at a key party conference next month, Monday published an extraordinary critique of party rule that attacked “parasitic” bureaucrats, undemocratic elections and an unquestioning rank and file.

The front-page letter, purportedly sent by a senior official of the Ministry of the Aviation Industry, calls for sweeping reform of the party structure, including the election of 200 skilled laborers and specialists to the policy-making Central Committee. In the past, such posts have been reserved for party bureaucrats, the recent target of Gorbachev’s reform program known as perestroika , or restructuring.

Because the bureaucrats have been singled out, some analysts believe they have put up broad-scale opposition to Gorbachev’s economic innovations aimed at improving the faltering Soviet economy. As a result, even though Gorbachev has been trying for three years, there are few concrete benefits that he can point to as signs of improvement.

Soldiers of the Party

In a rare criticism of the way Soviet society functions, the letter writer, identified as V. Selivanov, says that under dictator Josef Stalin, party members lost their independence of thought.

“The view was actively inculcated,” he goes on to say, “that every party member is a soldier and that it is for the leadership of the Central Committee to determine its line, to decide what is right and what is wrong, while the rank-and-file party members were only supposed to approve unanimously and carry out the decisions.

“The view was inculcated that the general secretary is always right and that his statement is absolute, indisputable truth. Therefore, there was no need to study, (to) research anything in social affairs. It was only necessary to quote the leader correctly.”

Selivanov said that even after Stalin, Soviet leaders Nikita S. Khrushchev and Leonid I. Brezhnev were content to keep power concentrated in their own hands rather than permit open debate of the issues.

Centralization Problems

He asserted that in the past the power structure was an impediment to economic development and that with rigid centralization the number of “parasitic bodies” increased, while the number of able producers declined.

As a result of such incompetence and corruption, he said, a great number of people lost faith in justice and suffered a decline in their sense of dignity.

The letter appeared to represent a sanctioned assault on the party’s top bureaucracy in advance of the party conference, due to begin June 28. It proposed that every senior party official, at district, city and regional levels, be elected by secret ballot from among multiple candidates and for a fixed term of office. This is in stark contrast to the present system, in which each layer of party bureaucracy chooses the layer above.

“Zones closed to criticism must be ruled out everywhere,” it said.

The proposal stopped short of suggesting national elections for the party leadership, however.

Publication of the letter in Pravda followed the publishing Saturday of a letter in Sovietskaya Kultura in which a reader, obviously a supporter of Gorbachev, warned that officials may be planning to oust him.

For the past several weeks, a struggle has appeared to be taking place in the leadership over the pace of Gorbachev’s reform program. Only in the last few weeks have officials suggested publicly that the party is due for an overhaul, along with the media and the economy.