Soviet Parliament Rejects Reform Efforts

MOSCOW--Mikhail S. Gorbachev and the Soviet Parliament yesterday rejected reformers' efforts to revoke the Communist Party's monopoly on power and push the nation along the road to multiparty democracy taken by Moscow's allies.

But as the Congress of People's Deputies began its winter session in the Kremlin, hundreds of parliamentarians supported debate on altering the party's legal status, indicating the idea is gaining popularity as reforms shake the Soviet Baltic and Eastern Europe.

The Congress, the 2250-member Parliament that is theoretically the nation's highest political body, gave Gorbachev the agenda he wanted for its 10-day session. Gorbachev urged them to focus on the economy.

"We need drastic reforms," said the Soviet president. "So far, there are no improvements in this area."

"The key question of the agenda is righting the economy, the stages of economic reform and our approach to the next five-year plan," Gorbachev said. He said the country needed "as never before," discipline and responsibility.

The Soviet deputies met in the Kremlin Palace of Congresses before a giant statue of Soviet founder Vladimir I. Lenin. Gorbachev pressed the deputies toward a more organized approach to their session than the nationally televised free-for-all in May and June.

Only the first few hours were televised live, with the rest shown on tape yesterday evening. However, deputies voted later not to allow Soviet TV to air any debates on ethnic issues after speakers touched on the explosive conflict between Armenians and Azerbaijanis that has led to an estimated 200 deaths and hundreds of thousands of refugees in the last two years.

Despite Gorbachev's plea for urgent action on the economy, a long debate over procedural matters threw the Congress behind schedule, delaying Premier Nikolai I. Ryzhkov's economic report. That report apparently will be based on a long-term plan developed by his deputy, Leonid Abalkin, that includes making the ruble convertible, selling off unprofitable state enterprises and developing a stock market.

In the first major test only 24 hours after the session began, the Congress rejected a bid by Baltic deputies and members of the reformist Inter-Regional Deputies Group to debate Article Six of the Soviet Constitution that proclaims the Communist Party "the leading and guiding force of Soviet society and the nucleus of its political system."

The vote was 1139 to 839. Fifty-six deputies abstained.