The Road to Berlin (105 page)

During the short recess white-coated waiters, headed by the President’s buder, brought on the trays of sandwiches, cake and hot Russian tea in glasses, too hot to hold and hence the object of inexpert and indecorous juggling. When the session resumed, Stalin set out his position in a speech as impassioned as it was implacable. Both the United States and Great Britain had insisted that Poland represented no material interest for them, but for the Soviet Union vital security was at stake—honour was only one element, though for the Soviet Union honour too was involved. Security and honour demanded a free and independent Poland, closing the traditional invasion route from the west and also reversing the ‘Tsarist policy of the abolition of Poland’. Twice in thirty years the Germans had passed through Poland to invade Russia; this was because Poland was weak; Russia wanted in turn a powerful Poland so that this invasion route could be secured since Russia itself could not close it from the outside. Polish independence and Soviet security were inextricably bonded: honour certainly, but it must be security above all else, and here was a life-and-death matter for the Soviet state.

Relentlessly pressing his case—much of it related to the intrinsic weakness of the Anglo-American position—Stalin turned to the Curzon line, protesting that this demarcation was ‘invented not by Russians but by foreigners … Russia was not invited and did not participate … Lenin opposed it’. This was a
minimum
Soviet demand and configured to some foreign formula, for that matter. Honour, that quality much paraded by his Anglo-American allies, was clearly at stake here: must he settle for less than what Curzon and Clemenceau had conceded? Rising most astonishingly to his feet, Stalin warned that in this event he must face the wrath of the Ukrainians and return together with Molotov to Moscow branded as a ‘less trustworthy defender’ of Russia than Curzon and Clemenceau. Better that the war should continue even longer, that Russia should pay with yet more blood and Poland find compensation in the west at the expense of Germany.

Having adroitly managed this tactical shift of emphasis (and location), he presented the Soviet view that it was the western Neisse and the Oder which should form Poland’s western frontier. In this he called upon the Prime Minister and the President to support him—incidentally, had not Mikolajczyk himself during his visit to Moscow in October declared himself delighted with a frontier pushed to the Oder–Neisse line? Switching his theme once again, Stalin turned to the problem of the government of Poland and, without committing himself to a reply about a ‘Presidential Council’, concentrated his attack on the Prime Minister. ‘The Prime Minister has said that he wants to create a Polish government here [in Yalta]’. Stalin could only hold that this was ‘a slip of the tongue’, for without the participation of the Poles themselves there could be no ‘Polish government’. Men called him dictator, yet he retained enough ‘democratic feeling’ not to thrust some government on the Poles without their participation. If the
Prime Minister could adopt a high moral tone, then so could Stalin.

Coming directly to the issue of the two governments, Stalin ruled out any idea of a coalition, with the London government calling the Lublin government bandits and criminals, with a consequent exchange of vituperation, thus ruling out any kind of agreement. The Lublin government—which should now be called the Warsaw government, for that was where it was to be found—would not traffic with the London government: they would, according to Stalin, accept General Zeligowski and Grabski as a concession but in no wise make any place for Mikolajczyk. Why not, Stalin interjected suddenly, invite the ‘Warsaw Poles’ to Yalta, even better to Moscow, to a conference? If this was meant to soothe, he quickly sharpened the edge of his remarks by saying that ‘frankly, the Warsaw government has as great a democratic basis in Poland as De Gaulle has in France’. Moreover, and this harked back to one of the Prime Minister’s own arguments, the Warsaw government alone could help to secure the Red Army’s lines of communications: agents of the London government had killed more than two hundred Soviet soldiers, raided dumps and broken Soviet regulations on radio traffic. Speaking as a military man, Stalin must perforce support that government which afforded the Red Army secure rear areas; his allies should surely support him in this.

It had been a masterly performance, leaving no loophole and no hope of genuine negotiation. He disclaimed any Soviet responsibility for the stalemate, appealed to ‘democratic’ processes and, in the final resort, pleaded operational requirements for Allied acceptance of a Soviet solution. The President had taken no direct part in these discussions and, looking grey and drawn, suggested an adjournment. The Prime Minister, however, insisted on placing before the meeting the difference in information about the situation in Poland received by the British and Soviet governments: only one-third of the Poles supported the Lublin government, but the British government—even if mistaken in some particulars—could only fear for the outcome of any clash between the Polish Underground Army and the Lublin government, bringing ‘bitterness, bloodshed, arrests and deportations’. It was this which prompted the British desire for a joint arrangement, though attacks on the Red Army could not be tolerated. Yet on the facts presently available the Lublin government could not pretend to represent the Polish nation. Obviously wearied, the President referred to Poland as a cause of trouble for more than five hundred years, at which the Prime Minister answered pertly that there was more need than ever to end such a state of affairs.

That same evening President Roosevelt, with the help of Harry Hopkins and State Department officials, drafted a letter to Stalin, showing it first to the Prime Minister and Eden. The presidential letter set out three main points: the unity and unanimity of the Big Three must be maintained, hence the lament for the lack among the three Allied powers of ‘a meeting of minds about the political set-up in Poland’; the United States could not recognize the Lublin government in its present form (a formulation inserted at Eden’s prompting); lastly, the
desirability, following Stalin’s own suggestion, of bringing Bierut and Osobka-Morawski from the Lublin government to Yalta, plus two or three representatives of other elements from the Polish people, names drawn from a list including Archbishop Sapieha, Wincenty Witos, Z. Zulawski, Professor Buyak and Professor Kutrzeba. Joint agreement might result in a provisional government, one including—again at Eden’s suggestion—Mikolajczyk, Romer and Grabski. Given such an eventuality, the United States and Great Britain would be prepared to examine with Stalin an act of disassociation from the London government and hence recognition of the provisional government. Finally, the United States would in no way lend support to a provisional government in Poland which ‘would be inimical to your interests’; an interim government would be pledged to hold free elections, but that also conformed with Stalin’s expressed preference for a free and democratic Poland.

On the following afternoon, 7 February, the talk turned once again to Poland, though not before the Prime Minister had managed to whisper somewhat conspiratorially to the President that ‘Uncle Joe will take Dumbarton Oaks’. The import of that remark was soon to become plain. The President turned at once to the Polish question, repeating his concern and the overriding importance of finding a solution—‘I am not so concerned with frontiers. I am likewise not so concerned with the question of the continuity of the Government.… I discard the ideal of continuity. I think we want something new and drastic—like a breath of fresh air.’ For a moment it looked as if Stalin had been hoisted by his own petard: it was he who had pleaded Allied unanimity throughout and was now being asked to concede in the interests of that self-same unity, not to mention the democratic principle which he also professed to address. Wholly in command of the situation, Stalin played the scene with consummate skill and admirable timing. He pleaded at once that he had received the President’s letter only an hour and a half before the meeting began; he had at once given instructions for Bierut and Osobka-Morawski to be traced and put on the telephone to him. Unfortunately, the two men were presently in Cracow and Lodz and not to be reached; as for the opposition, Witos and Sapieha, he simply did not know their addresses. Time could well run out before they could be found and brought to Yalta. However, without yielding his obliging tone, Stalin suggested that Molotov should now present a draft document which might well meet the President’s own proposals—though this meant waiting for the translation to be finished, time which could be usefully occupied with more talk of Dumbarton Oaks. The Soviet delegation then announced in a trice that the Soviet Union would accept the American voting formula and would relinquish its earlier insistence on representation for the sixteen Soviet constituent republics, seeking now for the admission of only two or three. Delighted at the initial announcement of acceptance, the President winced at the mention of even two Soviet republics—‘This is not so good’, he scribbled hurriedly in a note to Stettinius. He mixed congratulation with a certain reproof to Molotov, only to be held in check by Harry Hopkins who urged him
to refer the matter at once to the Foreign Ministers. The President, anxious to speed the business of the United Nations, proposed March as a possible date for its first meeting, only to be interrupted this time by the Prime Minister who thought March too early.

Stalin had managed his
coup de théâtre
to perfection. The British already knew of the Soviet intention to accept the American voting formula. Molotov had deftly sidestepped a suggestion from Stettinius that they discuss this very question, with Molotov making vague reference to some projected observations he would make soon. This Soviet concession, designed to preserve hallowed unanimity, immediately preceded Molotov’s draft statement on the Polish question. The Soviet Union had tried for ‘maximum unity’ in accepting the American voting proposal (ostensibly guided in this decision by Stettinius’s explanation and British clarification), but by the same token ‘maximum unity’ could be preserved by an Anglo-American acceptance of the Soviet draft on Poland, configured as it was to accommodate the President’s proposals. Molotov’s draft simply codified Stalin’s propositions of the previous day, incorporating only some minor concessions—a 5–8km shift of the Curzon line in favour of Poland, the addition of ‘some democratic leaders from Polish
émigré
circles’ to the provisional government, and a call to the polls ‘as soon as possible’ for the establishment of permanent organs of government. For all practical purposes, the Lublin government (or the Warsaw government) remained intact: ‘technical difficulties’ precluded bringing Polish leaders to Yalta and such ‘difficulties’ virtually ruled out any implementation of the President’s plan. For practically nothing, Stalin had acquired the Curzon line, a definition of Poland’s western frontier and an indeterminate commitment to an enlarged government, even if a sting lay in the use of that term
émigré
. In spite of the President’s talk of the Poles ‘saving face’, it was essentially Stalin who seemed bent on saving face for the western Allies.

Both the Prime Minister and the President objected to the use of
‘émigré’;
obligingly, Stalin removed it, and also added a reference to Polish democratic leaders inside as well as outside Poland. When Churchill launched into a discussion of the frontier question the President braced himself for another Churchillian discourse—‘Now we are in for half an hour of it’—but the Prime Minister was anxious that Poland should not be awarded so much territory in the west that ‘the Polish goose dies of German indigestion’ or that millions of Germans be displaced in a forced population transfer. Stalin took little time to dispose of the latter objections: the lands under discussion were already emptying of Germans as the Red Army advanced, driving gigantic refugee columns before it. Amidst some brutal badinage about how many Germans remained to be killed, the Prime Minister slid in his reference to democratic Poles ‘from inside Poland’ and Stalin quickly agreed, having disposed of the question of population transfer. At this juncture all agreed to adjourn, each satisfied in his own way and ready to renew the discussion on the following day.

On 8 February the Allied leaders met for their fourth plenary session and again took up the Polish question, with the President advancing a revised draft of Molotov’s proposals. The American draft approved extension of the Polish western frontier to the Oder but not as far as the
western
Neisse, and proposed a ‘Polish Government of National Unity’, with a Presidential Committee of three (‘possibly M. Bierut, M. Grabski and Archbishop Sapieha’) committed to forming a government of ‘representative leaders from the present Provisional Government in Warsaw, from other democratic leaders inside Poland, and from Polish democratic leaders abroad’. This provisional government would hold elections to a Constituent Assembly to enact a new Polish constitution under which a permanent government would be elected. After a preliminary probe about the eventual American and British attitude to the London government of the Poles, Stalin let Molotov launch the first phase of the Soviet counter-attack, which was facilitated by that tactical clumsiness which placed both American and British counter-proposals on the table. Molotov pursued one aim and one alone: to prove that a ‘Polish government’—the Lublin (or Warsaw) government—existed here and now, a government which enjoyed prestige and popularity and was presently emplaced in Warsaw itself. If a start were made on enlarging
this
provisional government, then the chances of success were good; the resulting government might well prove to be only a temporary institution, but there could be a start at organizing free elections in Poland. As for the President’s proposal for a presidential committee, this collided with the existence of a National Council in Poland, which could also simply be enlarged.

Molotov’s admission of the incongruity of two bodies—the Lublin government and the presidential committee—gave the Prime Minister his cue and he lunged directly at Molotov and Soviet obfuscation: ‘This is the crucial point of the Conference. The whole world is waiting for a settlement and if we separate still recognizing different Polish governments, the whole world will see that fundamental differences between us still exist. The consequences will be most lamentable.…’ British information on Poland differed from Soviet information. The Lublin government did not represent the Polish people; a world outcry would result from setting aside the London government in favour of the men of Lublin. Nor could the British government countenance an act of betrayal in the transfer of British recognition from the London government. Certainly, the London government had acted foolishly at times, but to abandon it would signify to Parliament that Britain had altogether forsaken the cause of Poland. Great Britain had already yielded on the question of the frontiers; she could not surrender completely by transferring recognition until there was surety that the new government represented the Polish nation. ‘Our doubts would be removed by elections with full secret ballot and free candidacies to be held in Poland. But it is the transfer before then which is causing so much anxiety to us. That is all I have to say.’ Unabashed, Molotov pointed to the possible outcome of the discussions in Moscow and
pleaded in pursuit of democratic principles that to ‘consider the Polish question without the presence of Poles’ was difficult.