Soviet Union Face-Off on Reform

The second session of the Congress of People's Deputies had barely begun last week when a bald, stoop-shouldered man hesitantly made his way to the front of the Kremlin Palace of Congresses. Mikhail Gorbachev motioned for Deputy Andrei Sakharov to step up to the podium, then settled back in his seat, not quite sure what to expect.

In a quavering voice, Sakharov urged the more than 2,000 parliamentarians to change the agenda of the meeting and discuss deleting articles from the constitution that stand in the way of urgently needed economic reforms. Disapproving murmurs rumbled through the hall. Was Sakharov trying to derail the proceedings? Why was he wasting time with such matters? An impatient Gorbachev finally cut Sakharov off in mid-sentence: "I have the impression that you don't know how to realize your suggestions -- and we don't either."

But Sakharov was not quite finished. He handed Gorbachev a handful of cables supporting the abolition of Article 6, which grants the Communist Party a monopoly on power.

"You come see me," snapped Gorbachev. "I'll give you three files with thousands of such cables . . ."

"I have 60,000 of them," countered Sakharov.

"Let's not put pressure on each other by manipulating public opinion," said Gorbachev, waving his hand. "There's no need." Dismissed, Sakharov slowly walked off the stage.

There have probably been moments, like the one last week, when Gorbachev had second thoughts about the telephone call he made to the city of Gorky in 1986, informing Sakharov and his wife Elena Bonner that they could return to Moscow after seven years of political exile. Like the prophets of biblical times who appeared before kings at the most inconvenient times with uncomfortable truths, the distinguished nuclear physicist and Nobel Peace Prize winner was always insisting that Soviet citizens deserved better, much better, than what the Soviet system had to offer. But last week's brisk exchange was destined to be the final encounter between two men who have come to symbolize in different ways the mind and soul of perestroika. Two days after the testy exchange, Sakharov, 68, died of a heart attack while sitting alone in the study of his Moscow apartment.

As a subdued Gorbachev looked on, Politburo member Vitali Vorotnikov opened the next day's session of the Congress by asking the Deputies to stand in a moment of silent tribute. Considering the abuse that was once heaped on the former dissident, Vorotnikov's words of praise groaned with irony. "Everything that Sakharov did," he said, "was dictated by his keen conscience and profound humanistic convictions." Whatever bitterness Sakharov's friends may have felt about the way he was treated in the past, the authorities, at least, tried to make amends. An official obituary published on Saturday in the party daily, Pravda, condemned the noted physicist's banishment to Gorky as a "grave injustice."