Gorbachev Opens Door to Talks With Walesa : Says Moscow Is Ready for Contact With Polish Solidarity Union, Warns West Not to Meddle

Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev, expressing concern about the political crisis in Poland, said here Wednesday that the Soviet Union is ready to open a dialogue with the Solidarity movement and its leader, Lech Walesa.

Gorbachev said that, although the Soviet Communist Party has close ties with the ruling Polish United Workers Party, he could see “no reason why, in the framework of this evolving process, we could not also have contact with this organization (Solidarity) that was recognized by the Polish people themselves.”

He added that Soviet officials are prepared to invite Walesa as the leader of Solidarity to Moscow to discuss the recent developments in Poland.

But the Soviet leader, while pledging that Moscow would not intervene in the political reforms of Poland and other East European countries, warned the United States and its Western allies not to interfere either.

Rejecting as “propaganda” the call by President Bush this week for the total withdrawal of Soviet troops from Poland, Gorbachev said that Moscow would view very seriously any attempts to “destabilize” Poland as it works its way out of a prolonged political crisis.

The Polish Parliament’s lower house, the Sejm, on Wednesday postponed for at least a week--until after President Bush’s visit to Warsaw next week--the election of a new president. That post was originally expected to go to Gen. Wojciech Jaruzelski, the Polish party leader, but he announced last week that he would not accept the nomination.

Solidarity won enough seats in the Sejm to block the election of any candidate, and Jaruzelski said that as the leader most obviously identified with the imposition of martial law in 1981, he lacked support. Nonetheless, his decision deepened the Polish political crisis.

Praises Jaruzelski

Gorbachev, addressing a news conference with French President Francois Mitterrand, praised Jaruzelski as “a great politician and a man of high moral responsibility” and noted that many had wanted him to run for president.

Jaruzelski, who has been asked to reconsider his decision not to run, is expected to discuss the situation with Gorbachev this weekend in Bucharest, Romania, at the annual summit meeting of the Warsaw Pact.

“I am sure he has weighed everything,” Gorbachev said of Jaruzelski. “I place my complete trust in him.”

While Gorbachev spoke encouragingly of the “socialist democratization” taking place in Eastern Europe, he warned against Western attempts to exploit these developments and destroy the socialist system there.

“I have great friendship and respect for the Hungarian people and for the Polish people,” he said. “Every people has the right to choose, but the construction of the common European home must never mean the elimination of this or that nation, this or that system.”

Talk at the Sorbonne

Gorbachev’s new emphasis on the limits of democratic reforms in Eastern Europe arose repeatedly during his two-day visit to Paris. Speaking Wednesday to French intellectuals at the University of Paris, or the Sorbonne as it is informally known, he warned the West not to expect the socialist countries “to return to the capitalist fold” or to cultivate “the illusion that only bourgeois society represents eternal values.”

“That is not the path to follow to reach a consensus for the common European home,” he continued. “Freedom of choice, both political and social, is a universal imperative.”

Gorbachev, who has long spoken of the possibilities of uniting Europeans from both East and West in a “common home,” is expected to elaborate on his concept in a speech today to the Council of Europe in Strasbourg.

But Gorbachev’s comments here showed that his thinking already is close to that of Mitterrand, who advocates a “social contract” as the basis for drawing the 12-member European Community closer together. The Soviet leader said repeatedly that Moscow and its socialist allies find it easy to cooperate with the Continent’s social democrats.

‘Input Is Invaluable’

“We Communists and the social democrats are two branches of the same workers’ movement,” he said, “and I am very happy for the good contacts with the social democrats. Their input is valuable for us.”

He rejected, however, recent Western contentions that communism as a system is in crisis. The reforms now under way do not constitute “a crisis of Marxism or a crisis of communism but a renewal that is going on. Some people would have already thrown us in the garbage can of history, but if you believe that, you are fooling yourself.

“The Soviet Union is a good example of this,” Gorbachev continued, referring to his program of political, economic and social reforms known as perestroika. “It is an illusion, and far from the truth, to say that we are rejecting our values. We would like to work through democratization, through glasnost , to return to the importance of the individual and end his alienation. This will give socialism a second breath.”

As Gorbachev and Mitterrand concluded their formal talks here Wednesday, they called for an immediate cease-fire in Lebanon as a new start toward ending the 14-year civil war there. The two presidents pledged their countries’ support for the efforts of the three-nation mediation committee--Algeria, Morocco and Saudi Arabia--that was appointed by the Arab League in May.

“We both think that the Arab world is consolidating its efforts to find a solution to the Middle East crisis, and we are both ready to contribute to finding that solution,” Gorbachev said.

Although Syria, a longtime Soviet ally, was not mentioned by name in the statement, French officials clearly hope that Moscow will now increase its pressure on Damascus to end its intervention in the Lebanese conflict and withdraw its troops from the country. France administered Lebanon from World War I until its independence in 1943.

A senior Soviet diplomat, Alexander A. Bessmertnykh, a first deputy foreign minister, was sent by the Kremlin on a special mission to both Iraq and Syria over the weekend to press both countries to end their intervention in Lebanon.

For France, the joint declaration is an important diplomatic victory. Since April, Paris has been trying, in the words of Mitterrand, to “awaken the world’s conscience” on the long Lebanese war.

TRIBUTE TO GROMYKO: The longtime Soviet foreign minister is buried. Page 10