Soviet Constitution -- Article 6 Assures Communist Party's Lock On Power

MOSCOW - When the Communist Party's Central Committee meets tomorrow with its general secretary, Mikhail Gorbachev, members reportedly will talk about removing a clause from the Soviet Constitution that guarantees the party's lock on political power.

Article 6 of the Soviet Constitution names the Communist Party as ``the leading and guiding force in Soviet society and the nucleus of its political system.''

For the more than seven decades since the Bolsheviks seized power in 1917, the Communist Party has exerted control over every aspect of Soviet life. What began as V.I. Lenin's authoritarianism in the turbulent years after the revolution became totalitarianism in the nearly 30 years of Josef Stalin's rule, and that Stalinist system has essentially been preserved until now.

Party committees form a parallel structure to government at every level, giving orders to elected and appointed officials. Party organizations also exist at every factory, retail store, police station, army unit, scientific institute and school, directing the activity of even the most minor institutions.

Over the past two years, unmuzzled by Gorbachev's policy of glasnost, political philosophers such as Igor Klyamkin and Alexander Tsipko have exposed the Communist Party's monopoly on power as the root of evil in the Soviet system. Public opinion long ago shifted to favor a multiparty system.

But as general secretary and as the Soviet Union's president, Gorbachev has continued to defend Article 6 and the one-party system, even as the ``leading role'' clause was dropped from the constitutions of all the Warsaw Pact countries except the Soviet Union, and from constitutions of the Soviet republics of Latvia and Lithuania as well.

Gorbachev fought hard to keep the question off the agenda of the second Congress of People's Deputies in December.

His speeches, however, suggest that he has gradually accepted the inevitability of dropping Article 6 - but prefers that the party give it up voluntarily rather than having the parliament take it away.

The question for Gorbachev - and one that Soviet conservatives are likely to pose sharply - is whether an end to the party's monopoly on power would mean an end to the party itself. In most of Eastern Europe, Communists either have already lost power or are fast on their way out.

Communist reformers such as Karoly Grosz in Hungary and Egon Krenz in East Germany were swept away by the same popular demand for change that swept them into office. As one party boss after another in the Russian and Ukrainian provinces was replaced under popular pressure during the past few weeks, some activists predicted that the same popular pressure could swiftly unseat their successors as well.

On Leningrad television yesterday, a correspondent questioned workers at the Vyborg Instrument Factory about their relationship to the party. He found deep contempt, and the millions of TV viewers who saw it may be encouraged to express similar feelings.

``I don't consider myself a member of the same party as that of the apparat (members of the party organization), which I have no faith in,'' declared one worker, who said without enthusiasm that he had decided to stay in the party for now.

A co-worker interrupted: ``So I left the party, and what? Did I start to work worse, to drink, to run around? I work just like I worked before.''

A third man piped up: ``Take the capitalists. Up to the very last days we were told they lived worse than we did. In fact, they live better.''

A fourth factory worker said: ``Seventy years they deceived us. Now we understand that, and it's about time.''

Such views are pervasive, as seen in plans for a rally and march scheduled today in Moscow to back radical change.

A microcosm of what is happening to the national party could be seen in a report yesterday from the West Siberian city of Barnaul.

``In an effort to boost their authority, Barnaul Communists met today to revamp their party structure and give up their privileges,'' Tass reported.

The report said the city's Communist leadership was considering abolishing all district party committees and cutting the party bureaucracy. It said the plenum urged party officials to give up all privileges voluntarily, and turn government dachas into children's health centers and the ``House of Political Education'' into a regional activity center for schoolchildren.

Finally, the Barnaul Communists sent a message with a hint to this week's Central Committee plenum: They asked the Central Committee to set aside some party dues for charitable work.