US errs in fanning change in bloc, Hungarian says

A senior Hungarian Communist said American pressure for internal change in the Soviet bloc was in fact helping dogmatic defenders of the status quo.

Janos Berecz, editor of the Hungarian party newspaper Nepszabadsag, said in the Soviet daily Pravda that Western propaganda was trying to draw a distinction between countries like Hungary, which allegedly achieved good economic results by adopting capitalist methods, and other bloc countries that were supposedly ''dogmatic'' and ''fossilized.''

He said the US tactic was to suggest that all changes in socialist countries were originated by the United States and would serve its policies - a tactic that ''feeds'' the anxiety of people who shy away from change. Mr. Berecz's article coincides with a backstage debate over reform of the Comecon economic grouping.