What's Gorbachev to Do?

Will the last reformer left in the Soviet Communist Party be the man officially running it? Many of Mikhail Gorbachev's onetime allies have already turned in their party cards, and formation last week of the Democratic Reform Movement may turn the stream into a flood. Democratic-minded Communists who join don't have to quit the party, but many probably will. Others will be given no choice; the party might well have expelled Reform Movement founder Eduard Shevardnadze had he not resigned. The exodus has strengthened the hard- liners who openly aim to kick out General Secretary Gorbachev himself. They do not have the numbers to do that yet, but the time could come when Gorbachev finds himself presiding over a party composed almost entirely of vengeful militants.

Might the supposed boss then emulate his close friend Shevardnadze and jump before he is pushed? Rumors that Gorbachev would quit as party leader have been afloat for two years, since he created the position of Soviet President for himself and stripped the party of its constitutional monopoly of power. Those moves would enable him to continue heading the government from outside the party. Speculation naturally increased last week with the founding of the Reform Movement; there was even some byzantine talk, in both Moscow and Washington, that Gorbachev might have put Shevardnadze and friends up to forming the new group, specifically to prepare a place for him to land if the Communists throw him out. Gorbachev made it clear that he had known about plans to organize the movement and cautiously welcomed it, though he added that he will not join it -- yet. The danger for him is that if he waits too long and the new movement develops powerful leaders of its own, he might find himself totally isolated -- unwanted by the Communist Party and unneeded by the reformers as well.