The Road to Berlin (54 page)

The Polish declaration of 14 January produced in turn the Soviet declaration of 17 January, a document that suggests that its predecessor of 11 January was more a manoeuvre than a real ‘initiative’:
TASS
on 17 January proclaimed that the Polish declaration of 14 January ‘cannot be considered as other than the rejection of the Curzon Line’, that the proposal to open ‘official negotiations’ between the Polish and Soviet governments is ‘intended to mislead public opinion’, and that ‘in the opinion of Soviet circles’ it was clear that ‘the present Polish Government does not wish to establish good neighbourly relations with the Soviet Union’. This was a curious, alarmingly inflexible document, citing first ‘the Soviet government’ and then ‘Soviet circles’, and implying that if ‘the
present
Polish government’ did not want good relations then there could be a government (and one now existed in embryo—the
Krajowa Rada Narodowa
, recently founded under Communist sponsorship) that would. For good measure ‘Soviet circles’ threw in a reference to ‘the active participation in the hostile anti-Soviet campaign of slander [connected with the] “Katyn murders”’. But whether it was ‘the Soviet government’ or ‘Soviet circles’, it was clearly Stalin’s intention to have no truck with the Polish government as it stood. It had to be discredited, outflanked, isolated or forced to some final extravagant and ruinous act. Meanwhile the American government had instructed Ambassador Harriman to offer ‘the good
offices’ of the United States in promoting a resumption of Soviet–Polish relations, an initiative firmly turned down by Molotov on 23 January. Though naturally given to wooden repetitiveness, Molotov twice insisted that ‘conditions are not yet ripe’ for mediation or for negotiation in any form, until there had been ‘a radical improvement of the composition of the Polish government’ involving the exclusion of ‘the pro-fascist imperialist elements’ and the inclusion of ‘democratic elements’. Over Poland, Stalin appeared to believe with a sense of Shakespearian finality that ripeness is all.

On 20 January in London, the Prime Minister and Eden conferred with Mikolajczyk and Romer at this latest turn in the Soviet–Polish crisis. The Prime Minister chose not to mince his words on this occasion and began: ‘I want the Polish government to accept the Curzon Line without Lvov as a basis for negotiations with the Russians.…’, going on to ask for Polish acceptance not only in principle but ‘with enthusiasm’. Poland would be cast for ‘the responsibility of rendering great service to the future of Europe [as] the guardians of Europe against Germany on the east, and that would ensure a friendly Russia’. Poland would get compensation up to the Oder and East Prussia, but as for the eastern frontier it was unthinkable that Britain should go to war with the Soviet Union over such an issue and America ‘would never do so’; Britain had not entered the war for ‘the eastern frontiers of Poland’ and it was groundless to think that ‘we could embark on a conflict with Russia on that issue’. What the Prime Minister said now in private he was prepared to repeat in public. Mikolajczyk insisted that the Polish government was prepared to negotiate—the last Polish government declaration made this clear—a point the Prime Minister readily agreed, interrupting to say that the latest Soviet rejoinder (the text of 17 January) was ‘brutal and not convincing’. Mikolajczyk tried to inject ‘revision of the Riga treaty’ (dating back to 1921, and the ‘only valid instrument governing Polish frontiers’) as the basis for negotiation and advocated that a solution be found in the exchange of populations rather than of territories (though keeping the population changes to a minimum). The Prime Minister reminded Mikolajczyk that in fact there was not much room for negotiation, that ‘the starting point must be the Curzon line’—without any settlement, the Russian army would roll on, and the Pole in Lvov who might ultimately be transferred to Oppeln would merely suffer the automatic fate of having his future decided by the Soviet government. Without a settlement, Poland would be ‘exposed to Russian wrath’; the war could not be won without Russia, Allied bombers alone could not do it and it was necessary to see the Russian point of view. The Prime Minister was ready to try to influence Stalin, to declare Polish readiness to talk on the basis of the Curzon line (subject to Polish compensation in the west) and to insist that it was ‘inadmissible’ to undermine the authority of the Polish government. On the question of Soviet co-operation with the Polish underground movement, Churchill saw the pressing need for an agreement but a prior Soviet–Polish settlement was necessary and ‘the Curzon line leads to that’. In his message to Stalin the Prime Minister wished to explain
the British point of view and to set out what the Polish government was prepared to accept, the principle of non-interference in the internal affairs of another government and ‘a speedy understanding’ concerning the Polish underground. The matter was urgent and the Prime Minister needed from the Poles ‘as full a contribution as possible’ to use in his telegram to Stalin: the moment for the Poles was ‘tragic and decisive’. At Milolajczyk’s question as to what Polish fighting men—many from the eastern territories, anticipating a return one day to their homes—would now think of ‘Western pledges, slogans and declarations of principles’, Churchill remained silent.

Before making its reply, the Polish government set out four questions on the British guarantee on Polish independence and territorial status (addressed by Count Raczynski to Eden on 23 January). Mikolajczyk put the position to the Delegate of the Polish Government in Poland in a signal dated 25–26 January and the process of sounding out the American government was put in train. On 25 January the War Cabinet had already decided to forward a message from Mr Churchill to Stalin, to be delivered by the British Ambassador on 1 February. That message informed Stalin of the Prime Minister’s advice to the Polish government ‘to accept the Curzon line as a basis for discussion. I spoke of the compensations which Poland would receive in the North and in the West… but I did not mention the point about Königsberg’, and went on to point out that ‘the Polish Ministers were very far from rejecting the prospects thus unfolded but asked for time to consider the matter…’. The message was ‘a statement in broad outline of the position of His Majesty’s Government in Great Britain’ and sought from Stalin information on what steps he would be prepared to take to help ‘resolve this serious problem’.

Stalin duly conveyed his impressions to the British Ambassador on 2 February, stating that he wanted a definite acceptance of the Curzon line from ‘the Polish government in exile’ and that there must be some ‘reconstruction’ of this government before relations with it could be resumed; he criticized the Polish government’s methods of directing the underground movement, members of which would be attacked and disarmed if they obstructed the Russians—otherwise the Red Army would help. And with Soviet armies once west of the Curzon line, the Poles need not fear for their position, the Polish government could return and set up a broad-based government free of Russian interference. Stalin’s letter of 4 February (received in London the next day) added little but emphasized that the ‘Curzon line’ was a Soviet concession to the Poles; what was now required involved a Polish declaration for a revision of the Riga treaty and the acceptance of the Curzon line as the new Soviet–Polish boundary; the ‘northern’ territorial concession to the Poles stood, save for the ‘minimum claim’ of the Soviet Union against German holdings, the ice-free port of Königsberg; and finally, ‘I think you realize that we cannot re-establish relations with the present Polish government’—the composition of this government must be ‘thoroughly improved’, and without it ‘no good can be expected’.

At the beginning of February the Polish government obtained some response to the questions it had put to the British and American governments about guarantees for the Polish frontiers: the British note could not specify ‘any final answer’ and the American memorandum offered support to ‘Prime Minister Churchill’s efforts to bring about the re-establishment of relations between the Polish and Soviet governments’ but firmly eschewed guarantees. On 6 February the Polish ministers again met Churchill and Eden, who advised the Polish government to accept the Curzon line, together with the Soviet demands for Lvov and Königsberg. Eden read out the British Ambassador’s telegrams of 3 February describing the course and content of his talk with Stalin and the replies Stalin had given to the Prime Minister’s questions. Churchill also referred to Stalin’s observation that the Polish underground was ordered not to co-operate with the Russians. This last point Mikolajczyk took up straight away and in his turn he referred to the orders given to the underground—in particular the instruction of 27 October 1943, which advised that if Polish–Soviet relations were re-established the underground was to come out with open support for Soviet troops, but that otherwise they should remain inactive though at no time had orders been given to oppose Soviet troops. Now, even though the re-establishment of relations looked unlikely, the underground commanders (who had been consulted) were quite prepared to come out ‘and meet the requirements of the Soviet commanders’. The local Polish military commander, with the civilian underground authority, was to meet with and declare to the Soviet troops their willingness to ‘co-ordinate their actions in the fight against the common foe’. This pleased the Prime Minister, but Mikolajczyk added that there was one reservation—the underground forces were not prepared to be press-ganged into the ‘Polish formations created in Russia … under Berling’s command’.

Thereafter the meeting drifted towards gloomier talk. Mikolajczyk disclosed the contents of messages from Warsaw, asserting Poland’s territorial integrity and also confirming the establishment of a rival to the Polish underground by the Polish Workers Party (the
PPR)
. The Soviet plan, Mikolajczyk continued, was to establish even before the Curzon line had been crossed a ‘Committee of National Liberation’ formed out of pro-Soviet elements in the Soviet Union, in the USA and if possible in Britain, followed by the creation, once over the Curzon line, of a ‘Polish government’ through the
Krajowa Rada Narodowa
already set up under Soviet auspices. This was taken by the Prime Minister to be merely the reinforcement of his own argument—if there were no agreement, then these things must inevitably and automatically come to pass. The Curzon line was ‘the best that the Poles could expect and all that [the Prime Minister] would ask the British people to demand on their behalf’. Mikolajczyk, however, questioned Russian good faith—it seemed that they were trying to make the Polish government refuse their terms in advance, for it was a relatively simple matter ‘to bring the Polish government into negotiations’. To this the Prime Minister could return only one answer: without the ‘great victories’ already won by the Russians, Poland
would have had no future at all; he himself would do his ‘utmost for Poland’ but failing agreement with the Polish government he must then ‘make [his] own position clear to the Russians and … come to an understanding with them’. There were only three choices: an agreement among all the parties, an Anglo–Russian agreement, or a decision ‘to do nothing’ and simply let the Russians roll over Poland, setting up their own government in Warsaw.

Against this background the Prime Minister drafted a message to Stalin dated 12 February, incorporating the instructions given to Polish underground commanders to disclose identities and ‘meet the requirements’ of Soviet commanders ‘even in the absence of a resumption of Polish–Soviet relations’, declaring the readiness of the Polish government to pronounce the treaty of Riga ‘unalterable’ and to negotiate a new frontier ‘the basis of negotiations being the Curzon line as far as the old Austrian frontier and passing thence west of Lvov’ (leaving Peremysl to Poland). In addition, the Polish government ‘are ready to remove the commander-in-chief [Sosnkowski] from his post and to drop from the Cabinet the two members of it to whom you object, viz. General Kukiel and M. Kot’. Since the Polish government’s abandonment of all territory to the east of the Curzon line ‘is bound up with the transfer to Poland of what is now German territory’, the Curzon line would be a ‘temporary’ demarcation, though until the time of ‘final demarcation’ the civil administration in liberated territory to the east of the Curzon line would be a Soviet responsibility and that to the west would fall to the Poles.

It was an ingenious scheme but one at once rendered unworkable by the refusal of the Polish government to ‘go so far as this’. Just how far to go was debated in a tense meeting between the Prime Minister and the two Polish ministers on 16 February, when Mikolajczyk in place of the alternative draft message sought by the Prime Minister, produced a short paper and an explanation of the principles behind it. The Poles could not accept the Curzon line, nor could they take ‘final decisions regarding future frontiers’; rather they suggested a demarcation line running east of Vilno and Lvov which should become effective immediately. The cession of Königsberg to the USSR would also mean an additional threat to Poland. Nor could the Polish government ‘reconstitute’ itself at the behest of a foreign power, however embittered the attacks.
(Pravda
on 12 February had just delivered another attack.) Little of this seemed to impress Churchill: did the Polish government now wish him to inform Stalin that ‘no progress could be made’? For in that event nothing would be easier—the Russians were on the verge of a rapid advance; they could hold a plebiscite from which their opponents were excluded; ‘Poland might be even affiliated to the Soviet Union’. There must be ‘some
modus vivendi’;
this was, Churchill explained, ‘a very powerful ally’ to whom he was addressing himself on behalf of the Poles, an ally ‘which had broken the German Army as no other nation would have done’ and one with whom we must march through what must be ‘a very bloody year’. He must reply to Stalin, and in the absence of Polish agreeement ‘he would himself have
to support the Soviet occupation and permanent annexation of all territory up to the Curzon line, including Lvov, on the understanding that the Poles received compensation in the north and south’. There must be ‘an arrangement with Marshal Stalin’ before the Russians occupied all Poland—‘if the Polish government would not participate they would be the first to suffer’. What the Polish government presently offered would not satisfy Marshal Stalin: the ‘brutal facts’ could not be overlooked, the Prime Minister could ‘no more stop the Russian advance than stop the tide coming in’, it was ‘no use saying something which would only make the Russians more angry and drive them to the solution of a puppet government in Warsaw’. The Polish government must make ‘suggestions … on practical lines’—if the Russians rejected the settlement, the Poles lost nothing; if the Russians agreed, ‘the Poles would gain a lot’. On 19 February (two days after Mikolajczyk and Romer told the Prime Minister that they favoured a message to Stalin on the lines discussed even though the Polish cabinet refused to agree, but Mikolajczyk sanctioned a message indicating his acquiescence now and his adherence in the future), Churchill told Stalin that he hoped soon—after ‘wrestling continually with the Poles’—to send proposals for the Soviet leader’s consideration. ‘I must warn you that these proposals will very likely split the Polish government’: in that phrase, meant as an earnest indication of the gravity of the situation, the Prime Minister signalled Stalin his victory and provided him with a cue for action. Conditions were ‘ripening’ apace.