Walesa Opens Attack on Former Allies : Poland: ‘I want to have a war’ to stir up ideas, says the Solidarity chief. He is dissatisfied with the pace of reform.

Solidarity leader Lech Walesa said Sunday that he is ready to do battle with former allies in the non-Communist government, accusing them of being slow in carrying out economic and political reforms.

Addressing the national Citizens Committee, Solidarity’s political wing, Walesa said a fight is needed to stir up ideas so the government does not become too isolated from the people.

“I know that I have offended a lot of people,” Walesa said, adding defiantly: “I would like to offend even more.”

He said he has refrained from directly challenging the government led by Prime Minister Tadeusz Mazowiecki since it took office last fall “because I was convinced that everything would go on all right.”

“Today I return from this leave, because I want to have a war . . . a war that gives peace to the society at the bottom.”

In a departure from the past, Mazowiecki did not attend the Citizens Committee session--sending a curt two-sentence note that said he had promised instead to attend a Mass in Krakow.

Later, at a meeting at the Nowa Huta steel mill, Mazowiecki said the drive for reform, including removal of former Communist officials, must be part of a peaceful transition.

“We are aware of the existence of what one may call the hunger for justice,” he said. “We know that people are unwilling to look at those who are to blame. At the same time there exists a need for security and calm.”

Walesa has pitted himself against what he calls the “eggheads in Warsaw,” saying they are not producing concrete results for Poles, who expect radical changes from economic and political reforms.

Specifically, Walesa has criticized the government he helped create last August for its slow pace at privatizing the state-dominated economy and for retaining Communist holdovers in economic and government jobs.

Underlying the dispute are hints by Walesa, reelected last month as chairman of the 2-million-member trade union, that he wants to be president of Poland to help accelerate changes.

His former allies and advisers who now make up the top echelons of government have received the notion coolly, with suggestions Walesa is too impulsive and lacks the cultured presence a president needs.

Instead, some Parliament deputies are pushing Mazowiecki as the proper successor to President Wojciech Jaruzelski. The former Communist leader’s term lasts until 1995, but it is believed that he will step down before then.

Walesa did not mention any presidential ambitions at the meeting Sunday, but he made it clear that he would not shirk from a fight.

“My theory is short: war at the top and peace at the bottom. But if it is peace at the top, then there will be war at the bottom,” he told the assembly at Warsaw University’s main auditorium.