In Paris, Hails ‘Dawn of Something New’ : Walesa Makes 1st Foreign Trip in 7 Years

Solidarity leader Lech Walesa today made his first foreign trip since Poland’s martial-law crackdown seven years ago and told reporters that it is time to leave the Stalinist system behind.

“After seven years, here I am at the dawn of something new,” a smiling Walesa said after his arrival at Charles de Gaulle Airport.

Walesa, who was permitted to accept the invitation of President Francois Mitterrand to join observances of the 40th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, said he is looking forward to meeting Soviet physicist Andrei D. Sakharov, another Nobel Peace Prize laureate invited by Mitterrand to Saturday’s ceremonies.

“We both still feel, he and I, the breath of Stalin at our backs,” Walesa said, speaking through an interpreter. “The Stalin era is over. Now I am waiting for the return to pluralism and the restoration of rights.”

Before leaving Warsaw, Walesa told reporters, “There are several elements which cause hope that everything’s going to be better.”

But he said problems remained, such as the government’s monopoly on trade unions and its handling of social, political and economic problems.

“That is still the breath of Stalin. It was not communism, it was him. And we have to end it . . . by way of evolution and not revolution.”

“I’d like to reach an agreement at last on pluralism and to finish the Stalinist system for good,” he said.

Walesa was also to confer with French trade unionists, the mayor of Paris and Cardinal Jean-Marie Lustiger, leader of the French Roman Catholic Church, before returning Monday.

In a departure from past practice, the state-controlled Polish media treated Walesa as a public figure instead of as a private citizen.

His departure for Paris was listed by the official PAP news agency as one of its top stories of the day.