Triumph and Tragedy (The Second World War) (94 page)

Next day, April 23, Mr. Stettinius and Eden had an hour and a quarter’s discussion with Molotov over Poland. They made no progress whatever.

Stettinius opened by asking whether they should discuss Poland or San Francisco. Molotov at once said San Francisco. Mr. Eden said that San Francisco depended on what progress could be made over Poland, and they must start with Poland. This was accepted. Eden then said that on April 15 the President and I had sent a joint message to Stalin about Poland. Could Molotov say what his Government thought about it? Molotov said he was aware of the message, but had not seen the full text, and the Russian Ambassador declared that the Soviet Embassy had not got it. This, if true, augured ill for the attention Stalin paid to it. The text was then read to Molotov. He asked for time to consider it.

He then referred to the treaty between the Soviet Government and the Administration in Warsaw. Eden pointed out that it had been concluded before any progress whatever had been made in setting up the new Provisional Government of National Unity in Poland. Molotov said he would do what was possible, but any new Government must be based on the existing one and be friendly towards the U.S.S.R. He was surprised that the treaty should have Triumph and Tragedy

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caused dissatisfaction, since it was an attempt by the U.S.S.

R. to foster pro-Soviet feeling in Poland. The Soviets had made no difficulties about any agreements between Britain or the United States and France or Belgium.

Eden pointed out that all three of us recognised the Governments in France and Belgium, whereas Poland had two Governments, one recognised by the United States and ourselves and most of the world and the other recognised by the Soviet Government. Making a treaty with the Warsaw Government which we and the Americans did not recognise was entirely different and made people think that the Soviet Government was satisfied with the Polish Government as it now was. Stettinius agreed.

Molotov argued that the United States and Britain were not neighbours of Poland and could afford to postpone decisions, but Russia must make her treaties without delay so as to forward the fight against Germany.

“I took a very bad view,” wrote Eden to me, “of tonight’s meeting with M. Molotov. I could see no sign of any attention having been given to your joint message with the President. Consequently there seems to be no prospect of progress tomorrow. Moreover, the Soviet Government were quite unrepentant about their treaty with the Warsaw Poles…. My impression is that the Soviet Government is still cavalier in its attitude and will not accept the seriousness of the situation, unless it is brought up sharply against realities. There is only one way in which we can now do this, and that is by postponing the opening of the Conference for some days while we continue to hammer at the Polish issue in Washington. Unless the Russians are prepared to work with us and the Americans on the basis of the Yalta decisions there is no three-Power unity on which San Francisco can be based.”

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“Seeking as I do,” I replied on the 24th, “a lasting friendship with the Russian people. I am sure this can only be founded upon their recognition of Anglo-American strength. My appreciation is that the new President is not to be bullied by the Soviets.”

To Stalin I wrote on the same day:

Prime

Minister

to

24 Apr. 45

Marshal Stalin

I have seen the message about Poland which the
President handed to M. Molotov for transmission to
you, and I have consulted the War Cabinet on account
of its special importance. It is my duty now to inform
you that we are all agreed in associating ourselves with
the President in the aforesaid message. I earnestly
hope that means will be found to compose these
serious difficulties, which if they continue will darken the
hour of victory.

Stalin replied in substance that we regarded the Provisional Polish Government, not as the nucleus of a future Polish Government of National Unity, but simply as one of several groups equivalent to any other group of Poles. This was not what we had decided at Yalta. “There,” he claimed, “all three of us, including President Roosevelt, proceeded on the assumption that the Provisional Polish Government, functioning now, as it does, in Poland and enjoying the confidence and support of the majority of the Polish people, should be the nucleus — that is to say, the principal part —

of a new reorganised Government of National Unity.

“You evidently are not in agreement with such an understanding of the question. In declining to accept the Yugoslav precedent as a model for Poland you confirm that

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the Provisional Polish Government cannot be considered as a basis and nucleus of a future Government of National Unity.”

Stalin also contended that Poland, unlike Great Britain and the United States, had a common frontier with the Soviet Union. Her security was as important to Russia as that of Belgium and Greece to Great Britain. The Soviet Union had the right to strive for a friendly Government in Poland and could never approve a hostile one. “To this,” he wrote, “we are pledged, apart from all else, by the blood of the Soviet people, which has been profusely shed on the fields of Poland in the name of the liberation of Poland. I do not know whether a truly representative Government has been set up in Greece or whether the Government in Belgium is truly democratic.” The Soviet Union was not consulted when they were set up and claimed no right to interfere, “as it understands the full significance of Belgium and Greece for the security of Great Britain.” For the United States and Great Britain to come to an arrangement together beforehand about Poland, where the U.S.S.R. was concerned above all, was to put the U.S.S.R. in an intolerable position.

He thanked me for sending him Mikolajczyk’s statement about the eastern frontiers of Poland, and promised to advise the Provisional Polish Government to withdraw their objections against inviting him for consultations.

“All that is required now,” Stalin concluded, “is that the Yugoslav precedent should be recognised as a model for Poland.”

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This was no answer. We had gone to Yalta with the hope that both the London and Lublin Polish Governments would be swept away and that a new Government would be formed from among Poles of goodwill, among whom the members of Bierut’s Government would be prominent. But Stalin had not liked this plan, and we and the Americans had agreed that there was to be no sweeping away of the Bierut Government, but that instead it should become a

“new” Government, “reorganised on a broader democratic basis, with the inclusion of democratic leaders from Poland itself and from Poles abroad.” For this purpose Molotov and the two Ambassadors were to sit together in Moscow and try to bring such a Government into being by consultations with members of the existing Provisional Government and with other Polish democratic leaders from within Poland and from abroad.

They were then to select the Poles who were to come for consultations. We tried in each case to find representative men, and we were careful to exclude people whom we thought were extreme, and unfriendly to Russia. We selected from the London Polish Government three good men, namely, Mikolajczyk, Stanczyk, and Grabski, who accepted the eastern frontiers which Stalin and I had agreed upon.

The names of those from inside and outside Poland were put forward in the same spirit of helpfulness by the Americans and ourselves. But after nine weeks of discussion on the Commission at Moscow no progress had been made. Molotov had steadily refused to give an opinion about the Poles we mentioned, so that not one of them had been allowed to come even to a preliminary round-table discussion.

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On April 29 I put my whole case to Stalin.

Prime

Minister

to

29 Apr. 45

Marshal Stalin

… We are all shocked that you should think that we
would favour a Polish Government hostile to the Soviet
Union. This is the opposite of our policy. But it was on
account of Poland that the British went to war with
Germany in 1939. We saw in the Nazi treatment of
Poland a symbol of Hitler’s vile and wicked lust of
conquest and subjugation, and his invasion of Poland
was the spark that fired the mine. The British people do
not, as is sometimes thought, go to war for calculation,
but for sentiment. They had a feeling which grew up in
years that with all Hitler’s encroachments and doctrine
he was a danger to our country and to the liberties
which we prize in Europe, and when after Munich he
broke his word so shamefully about Czechoslovakia
even the extremely peace-loving Chamberlain gave our
guarantee against Hitler to Poland. When that
guarantee was invoked by the German invasion of
Poland the whole nation went to war with Hitler,
unprepared as we were. There was a flame in the
hearts of men like that which swept your people in their
noble defence of their country from a treacherous,
brutal, and, as at one time it almost seemed, overwhelming German attack. This British flame burns still
among all classes and parties in this Island, and in its
self-governing Dominions, and they can never feel this
war will have ended rightly unless Poland has a fair
deal in the full sense of sovereignty, independence,
and freedom, on the basis of friendship with Russia. It
was on this that I thought we had agreed at Yalta.

Side by side with this keen sentiment for the rights
of Poland, which I believe is shared in at least as strong
a degree throughout the United States, there has
grown up throughout the English-speaking world a very
warm and deep desire to be friends on equal and
honourable terms with the mighty Russian Soviet
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Republic and to work with you, making allowances for
our different systems of thought and government, in
long and bright years for all the world which we three
Powers alone can make together. I, who in my years of
great responsibility have worked faithfully for this unity,
will certainly continue to do so by every means in my
power, and in particular I can assure you that we in
Great Britain would not work for or tolerate a Polish
Government unfriendly to Russia. Neither could we
recognise a Polish Government that did not truly
correspond to the description in our joint declaration at
Yalta, with proper regard for the rights of the individual
as we understand these matters in the Western world.