Soviet Union Key Players in a New Game

By Bruce W. Nelan

Mikhail Gorbachev's revolution is about to sweep away what is left of monolithic communism. When 4,750 delegates convene next week for the Communist Party's 28th Congress, they are expected to approve a measure that will bloat the once omnipotent twelve-member Politburo into an unwieldy national committee by adding to the top party officials representatives of all 15 republics, workers and intellectuals. The delegates are also likely to approve a proposal to reduce the head of the party to a mere chairman of the committee. Gorbachev may not even want to keep the job. He told the Russian Federation's party congress last week, "There could be another General Secretary or chairman of the party."

In power terms, Gorbachev has already moved on. With the formal abolition of the party's leading role last March, the Communists lost their monopoly on political action. The Politburo, which once decided all vital issues, now % meets only about once a month instead of weekly and deals exclusively with party business, not matters of state. Gorbachev is the Executive President of the U.S.S.R., and decisions lie with him, his government and the parliament. To replace the counsel formerly provided by the Politburo, he has created a Presidential Council with 16 members.

This political perestroika is far more than organizational tinkering. It is opening up a range of ideas and influences no one could have imagined under the old ways. Even a year ago, an analysis of the policy debate in Moscow would have focused almost exclusively on party leaders, the well-known Gorbachev allies like Politburo member Eduard Shevardnadze and equally prominent opponents like Politburo member Yegor Ligachev and former Moscow party chief Boris Yeltsin. Today new approaches and fledgling political parties are emerging across the spectrum, from Gorbachev's left to his far right, reshaping Soviet politics. Some of the most influential advocates of the new approaches:

LOYALISTS

ALEXANDER YAKOVLEV

A former think-tank director, diplomat and history professor who is often called Gorbachev's alter ego

As a member of both the Politburo and the new Presidential Council, Yakovlev, 66, provides a bridge as power is shifted from one to the other. In 1983 he was named head of the influential Institute of World Economics and International Relations (IMEMO). From 1970-73 he was acting chief of the party propaganda department, where he won favor with liberal intellectuals. In 1985 Gorbachev put him back in charge of that department. He has been the President's closest adviser for years, responsible for much of the philosophic theory underpinning glasnost and perestroika. Gorbachev, claims Yakovlev, is not power hungry and sometimes finds his job a burden. He says that Gorbachev resisted his repeated urgings to take the position of Executive President until he concluded that it was what the country needed. Because -- or in spite -- of his year as an exchange student at Columbia University in 1959, Yakovlev dislikes and distrusts the U.S. and considers it dominated by right-wing thinking. Sovietologist Dimitri Simes says he is "unusually intellectually curious, a person with imagination, with vision."

YEVGENI PRIMAKOV

One of the architects of the new Soviet foreign policy, who favors nonintervention and no export of revolution

An Arabist and former journalist, Primakov, 60, is a member of the new Presidential Council and one of Gorbachev's top foreign policy advisers. Like Yakovlev, he once headed IMEMO. As a member of the Supreme Soviet, he has impressed no one with his debating, but his record as a privy councilor is brilliant. He has outlined the rationale for a nonthreatening foreign policy, de-emphasis of military power, negotiated settlement of regional conflicts, and cuts in the defense budget. In recent months Gorbachev has enlisted his aid in dealing with separatists in the Caucasus.

NIKOLAI PETRAKOV

Gorbachev's personal adviser on economics, who says central planning does not work and never has

An academic economist and member of parliament, Petrakov, 53, was named special assistant to Gorbachev last January. He has been critical of the centrally planned economy for 20 years, and argues for immediate transition to a market-oriented system integrated into the world economy. He thinks the economic reforms presented in May by Prime Minister Nikolai Ryzhkov are too timid, but he says a Polish-style shock treatment would not succeed. The Poles voted for it, but the Soviet people, he believes, would not. He suggests creating a stock market and turning state property into publicly held stock companies. Citizens should be allowed to buy their own apartments, he says, "and to invest in production by buying shares and setting up small-scale businesses."

STANISLAV SHATALIN

The maverick economist in the inner circle, who claims he is not a communist but a social democrat

Warning against performing "neurosurgery with an ax," the economist says that building a market economy will require "big credits from the West." But, he adds, a relatively rapid transition to a "regulated market" is still possible. A member of the Presidential Council and an academician, Shatalin, 55, has argued since the 1960s against Moscow's tight centralization of economic planning. He supports the introduction of private property, private enterprise and direct foreign investment, as long as strong social protection measures are deployed to soften the impact. He has derided the Ryzhkov economic-reform plan and says he and others are preparing "much more radical measures."

GEORGI SHAKHNAZAROV

A lawyer, political scientist and part-time science-fiction writer who pushes basic reforms in domestic and foreign affairs

Shakhnazarov, 65, is a member of Gorbachev's personal staff and with Primakov has authored much of the "new thinking" on foreign policy, mutual security and arms control. He has been an advocate of wide-ranging reforms and decentralization for most of his life. While an official at the Central Committee in 1972, he praised Western social democracy and proposed splitting party and government functions in the Soviet Union. Earlier this year he announced that power would be taken from the Politburo and placed "in the hands of a legitimate state authority . . . as in any democratic country." He predicted the evolution of a multiparty system.

VADIM BAKATIN

The diligent and able Interior Minister, who could turn into a law-and-order candidate in future elections

A member of the Presidential Council as well as a minister, Bakatin, 53, is the country's chief policeman. Though he was trained as a civil engineer, he is in charge of combatting crime, corruption and ethnic violence, all of which he handles well enough to earn praise from conservatives and liberals alike. He is businesslike but personable, articulate, impressive on television. Conservative Supreme Soviet Deputies offered to nominate him for President in the election last March. He declined, but next time he might not, especially if Gorbachev is not a candidate then.

RIVALS

GAVRIL POPOV

Yet another radical economist who hopes to turn Moscow into a laboratory for market-based reforms

A short, impish professor of Greek extraction, Popov, 53, was elected mayor of Moscow last April. He and his reformist colleagues plan to open a computerized apartment-rental service and launch an industrial-commodities exchange to barter needed items among enterprises. They have also called for soup kitchens to help cushion the transition to a market economy. Popov and his city council have not managed basic reforms, but they represent a challenge to Gorbachev simply by being in a position to experiment. Popov is one of the founders of the progressive Interregional Group in parliament, and he has criticized Ryzhkov's reform plan as a "fiction" that would leave "the same whip and fist" in charge. He advocates eliminating most of the huge Moscow-based industrial ministries, along with large slices of the bureaucracy.

ANATOLI SOBCHAK

One of parliament's leading Deputies and a scholar of law who questions the Communist Party's legal standing

Sobchak, 53, was elected Mayor of Leningrad in May after reformers there mounted a draft. An expert on economic legislation, he is an influential member of the Supreme Soviet, where he has clashed bitterly with Prime Minister Ryzhkov. Yegor Ligachev is also one of his targets. Sobchak said of him last week that "yesterday his word was law; today it is nonsense." Sobchak belongs to the Interregional Group and is considered a radical, but a measured one. He argues that KGB leaders should be barred from political leadership and, perhaps tongue in cheek, that the party might have to be refused registration because it advocates a dictatorship (of the proletariat), which is illegal. But he has spoken up for Gorbachev, saying "Let's not hinder the efforts of this President who pursues a policy of democratic renewal."

LOOSE CANNONS

VALENTIN RASPUTIN

A literary figure of real standing who brings a whiff of hard-core Russian nationalism into the Presidential Council

The name of the Siberian Rasputin, 53, has been famous for more than a decade because of his sensitive depiction of the ravages of industrialization at the expense of the countryside, its villages and churches. Writers and poets have a special standing in the Soviet Union, and Raisa Gorbachev is reportedly one of his fans. He rails against the decline of "human values," and as an outspoken supporter of the nascent Green environmental movement, he is active in the campaign to save the purity of Lake Baikal. In light of his anti-Western, nationalist and anti-Semitic views, his appointment to the Presidential Council surprised many. Though Rasputin is not a member of the Communist Party, Gorbachev may view him as a communications link to an important segment of the population.

VENIAMIN YARIN

A blue-collar right-winger who says the working class opposes radical reform but demands a higher standard of living

Another surprise addition to the Presidential Council, Yarin, 50, is co- chairman of the United Workers' Front, formed last year in 29 cities to oppose free-market reforms and defend fellow Russians against attacks by ethnic movements in far-flung Soviet republics. A construction worker with a high school education, he is a member of the Supreme Soviet and is on record as blaming the bureaucracy for the misery of workers' lives, food shortages, infant mortality and pollution. Conservatives have been attracted by his strong personality and persuasive public speaking. The Front claims that Gorbachev is dividing the society into rich and poor and that the workers are getting poorer. But the Front has not been successful in elections so far, and to redress the balance, it demands a fixed percentage of parliamentary seats for workers.

BORIS GROMOV

A popular military hero who might be the man on horseback if reforms fail and the system collapses

The commander of the Kiev military district, Lieut. General Gromov, 46, is one of the most famous and admired officers in the country. A major general at 39, a Hero of the Soviet Union, he served three tours in Afghanistan and was overall Soviet commander there from 1984 until the pullout last year. Typically, he was the last soldier to cross the bridge back into the U.S.S.R., in February 1989. There is no tradition of Bonapartism in Russian history, and Gromov denies rumors that he is contemplating a coup, but he says the army "cannot be kept outside politics." His political views are unknown, but he is a conservative on military matters who nevertheless acknowledges that change is inevitable. If the government flounders and chaos threatens, Sovietologist Simes says Gromov "would be the man to watch."

With reporting by James Carney/Moscow and Brigid O''Hara-Forster/New York