The Communist Party leadership has blazed the way to a brave new world of Soviet politics, where it will be forced to compete with other parties and people will directly choose the nation's leader for the first time. ``There will be a multiparty system. There will be a normal democracy,'' is how Communist Party member Svyatoslav Fyodorov, a noted eye surgeon, approvingly summed up a three-day meeting of the party's Central Committee, which voted Wednesday to end the party's legal monopoly on power. The decisions won't assume force of law until they are adopted by the Soviet legislative system, a process that could begin next week. They are the boldest steps yet in President Mikhail S. Gorbachev's campaign to get the party he heads out of the day-to-day business of running the country and provide greater freedom for political action. A Central Committee source said the platform approved Wednesday calls for a president elected by the people instead of the Congress of People's Deputies or another legislative body _ a revolutionary transformation for Soviet politics. That would allow Gorbachev to bypass the Moscow bureaucracy and take his case directly to the people. ``The party does not assume full government authority,'' Vice President Anatoly I. Lukyanov told a news conference called to explain the new platform, which was to be published later. ``Its role is to be a political leader with no particular role to be included in the constitution.'' Following the lead of its fraternal parties in Eastern Europe, the Soviet party will propose repeal of its constitutionally guaranteed monopoly on power, Lukyanov said. British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher praised the vote as a great decision but added there was ``a lot still to be done.'' President Bush made no direct reference to the vote but credited Gorbachev for ``handling some extraordinarily complicated internal problems ... with a certain restraint and finesse that I think demonstrates a real commitment to peaceful change.'' Gorbachev has been struggling for nearly five years to transform the Soviet Union into a modern democracy, to save the badly ailing economy and to keep the union from dissolving under the weight of nationalist upheaval. His new proposals are unlikely to bring about the rapid collapse of Communist power. Unlike Eastern Europe, where alternative political groups have been at least marginally active for years and sprang quickly into genuine opposition parties during last year's peaceful revolutions, the Soviet Union has no nationwide alternative to the Communists. The party also holds uncounted financial resources and controls much of the nation's press, from Pravda, the party's flagship daily, to small-circulation tabloids printed for reindeer herders in Siberia. It has long held veto power on appointments to important jobs on every level. The vast majority of Soviets now living have never known anything but Communist Party rule, established after the 1917 revolution swept the czar from power. Voters are unlikely to immediately oust the Communists from control except in a few regions such as the independence-minded Baltic republics, where there are strong local political movements. ``We Communists are not going to surrender our positions. Just like any party in the world, we shall be waging a struggle for our rights,'' Politburo member Vitaly I. Vorotnikov told a group of Brazilian legislators in remarks reported by the official Tass news agency. Fellow Politburo member Alexander N. Yakovlev, a close Gorbachev ally, told the news conference he hopes new parties will share the socialist ideal. But he said the adopted platform calls for banning only groups that condone ethnic strife or violent overthrow of the government. The actual constitutional change must be approved by the Supreme Soviet legislature, which opens its next session on Wednesday, and by the Congress, which is to meet this spring but could be called into special session. At its last meeting in December, the Congress heeded Gorbachev's plea for delay and blocked an effort by reformers to strike the Communists' leading role from the constitution. The issue achieved greater urgency after Lithuania's Communists broke with Moscow later that month and formed a new party. Gorbachev dropped his public opposition to alternative political parties just three weeks ago, so it was a surprise when he proposed Monday that the possibility should be put into law. Gorbachev packed the meeting of the 249-member Central Committee with more than 700 other officials, many of them progressives who took the floor to demand radical reform. In two votes, first by the Central Committee and then by the entire assembly, there was only one ``no'' vote _ maverick Communist Boris N. Yeltsin, who had favored an even more radical program demanding a virtual apology by the party for decades of totalitarian rule, the Central Committee source said. The committee also agreed to advance the start of the next party Congress from October to June. For the first time, delegates to the Congress, the most powerful party body, will be elected by the nation's 20 million Communists. Previously they were approved by the leadership, thus ensuring the status quo. Congress then will elect a new Central Committee and could either choose the party leader _ now Gorbachev _ or allow the rank-and-file to choose, Yakovlev said. The Central Committee is considered by reformers to be the bastion of conservatives wary of Gorbachev's reform program and the Congress would offer Gorbachev another chance to reform the committee to his liking. The committee scolded Lithuania's Communist Party for declaring independence from Moscow and backed a small group of Lithuanian Communists who remain loyal to the Kremlin. Lithuanian officials said the break was a precursor to secession by the Baltic republic and said it was necessary for them to prevent defeat in local elections Feb. 24.
