Russia at war
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prostitution.
On March 2 a Tass communiqué declared that this Polish attempt to deny the Ukrainians and the Belorussians their rights was "contrary to the Atlantic Charter... Even Lord Curzon, hostile though he was to the Soviet Union, understood that Poland could not
claim Ukrainian and Belorussian territories."
Then it sounded the motif that the Polish Government in London was not representative of the Polish people.
It was all well orchestrated.
Wolna Polska made its first appearance a few days later. It declared itself to be the organ of the Union of Polish Patriots, and aimed at "uniting all Polish patriots living in the USSR, regardless of their past, their views and their convictions, in the joint task of waging an uncomprising struggle against the German invaders... " The aim, the paper said, was to "regain for Poland every inch of Polish ground, but not to claim an inch of other people's land."
Other articles were published by Wands Wasselewska, Wiktor Grosz and others, calling for friendship with the Soviet Union and denouncing both the London Government and
various Polish "quislings".
Many wondered at first who these people of the Union of Polish Patriots were. Only one, its President, Wanda Wassilewska, was well known. But she was in a somewhat
ambiguous position, being, at the time, a member of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR,
and moreover, the third wife of Korneichuk, the newly appointed Vice-Commissar for
Foreign Affairs. Then there was Colonel Berling, one of the very few officers who had refused to follow Anders's Army to Iran. There were some other Poles—Borejsza, the
editor of Wolna Polska, and Victor Grosz, Jedriehowski, and Modzelewski—mostly young and unknown people whom the collapse of Poland had, in one way or another,
brought to the Soviet Union. Many of them were Jews. Who were the public to whom the Union of Polish Patriots in the USSR were appealing?
In March, this still seemed very vague. There were hundreds of thousands of Poles and Polish Jews scattered over large parts of the Soviet Union—mostly people who had been deported by the Russians in 1939-40 from Western Ukraine and Belorussia, including
some ex-war-prisoners who had not had time to be incorporated in the Anders Army.
There were others who had come voluntarily, to escape from the Germans in 1941, but
how many of these could be called real Poles—rather than Ukrainians, Belorussians or Jews— was in some doubt; and, altogether, it seemed doubtful whether many of these
people were "Polish Patriots" in the Moscow sense. Even a well-known Russian said to me, when he heard of the decision to form a Polish division on Russian soil, that he did not quite see how it could be done, for it was not much use putting nothing but
Ukrainians or Jews into the "Polish Division", and as for real Poles, the only ones who would be willing to enter such a division would be Polish Communists; and these were a rara avis.
Yet neither the Union of Polish Patriots, nor, still less, the Polish Division (later followed by three more divisions formed on Soviet soil) turned out to be a joke, as not only the enemies of the whole scheme, but also many friendly sceptics seemed to expect at the time. It was not until the Kosciuszko Division made its appearance in July 1943 that most of the sceptics recognised that the Russians had, somehow, pulled it off. As for the Union of Polish Patriots, nondescript though it may outwardly have been, it had created the ideological basis for that New Poland, of which the Kosciuszko Division was to be the first important manifestation.
It was certainly not accidental that throughout April all the loyal friends of the Soviet Union should have been built up in the Soviet press. It was as if their activities were being compared with the "reprehensible and shortsighted" conduct of the London Poles.
Thus, great publicity was given to the Czechoslovak unit that fought its first great action
—a very costly but successful action—on the Soviet front. Great prominence was also
given to the resistance movements in France, Belgium, and Norway, and more
particularly to the French Normandie Squadron already fighting on the Russian front on de Gaulle's initiative.
The Czechoslovak unit fighting on the Russian front won the greatest fame of all during those days. It was not a large unit— 2,000 or 3,000 men under the command of Colonel Svoboda, who was later to become Minister of War in the Czechoslovak Government in
Prague. In March it went into action and on April 2, the Russian communiqué told the story of its first great engagement. Two things were, politically, of the greatest
importance; first, that, unlike the Anders Army, the Czechoslovak unit was fighting on the Soviet front; secondly, that it was doing so with the blessing of the Czechoslovak Commander-in-Chief, President Benes, and of the Czechoslovak Government in London.
The unit was, of course, under the operational command of the Russians.
On April 8, Alexander Fadeyev wrote a glowing account of the Czechs' heroism and, two days later, warm congratulations were sent to Colonel Svoboda by President Benes, by the Minister of Defence (also in London), and by the Czechoslovak Communist deputies who were then in Moscow, Gottwald, Kopecky and others. Captain Jaros who was in
command of one of the companies during the heavy fighting in the Kharkov area, and had been fatally wounded, was posthumously awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.
Svoboda received the Order of Lenin, and eighty-two other men of the Czechoslovak unit were decorated by the Russians.
Such relations with the Czechs contrasted strangely with the first-class row with the London Poles which was on the point of reaching its climax.
From the beginning the Polish Government's principal worry had been the fate of the
Polish officers who had been in the Soviet Union since the debacle in 1939. Where were they? In their many conversations with Stalin, Molotov and Vyshinsky during the winter of 1941-2, General Sikorski, General Anders (who had himself been in Russian prisons for many months), Ambassador Kot, and other Polish representatives kept on raising this question. The Russians (according to the Poles) never gave a definite answer, saying that these prisoners would eventually turn up or that they had perhaps escaped to Poland, or Rumania, or Manchuria or, finally (a very belated afterthought of Stalin's) that some of them might have been trapped by the Germans during the invasion of the Soviet Union.
The announcement by Goebbels's propaganda machine in the middle of April, 1943, that the Germans had found several mass graves in the Katyn Forest near Smolensk
containing the bodies of thousands of Polish officers, was therefore well timed to
exacerbate further the strained relations between Moscow and the London Poles.
The Germans had set up a much publicised Committee of Inquiry which had "proved"
that these Polish officers had been shot by the Russians in 1940.
The news was sprung on a startled Russian public in an official communiqué on April 16:
"Goebbels's gang of liars have, in the last two or three days been spreading revolting and slanderous fabrications about the alleged mass shootings by Soviet
organs of authority in the Smolensk area, in the spring of 1940. The German
statement leaves no doubt about the tragic fate of the former Polish war prisoners who, in 1941, were in areas west of Smolensk, engaged on building, and who,
together with many Soviet people, inhabitants of the Smolensk Province, fell into the hands of the German hangmen, after the withdrawal of Soviet troops from
Smolensk... In this clumsy fabrication about numerous graves which the Germans
are supposed to have discovered near Smolensk, Goebbels's liars mention the village of Gnezdovaya; but they deliberately omit to mention the fact that it was precisely here, near Gnezdovaya, that archaeological excavations were in progress on the so-called Gnezdovsky Tumulus... With this faking of facts, and these stories of Soviet atrocities in the
spring of 1940, the Germans ... are trying to shift on to the Russians the blame for their own monstrous crime...
"These professional German murderers, who have butchered hundreds of
thousands of Polish citizens in Poland, will deceive no one with such lies and
slander..."
All this was a little mystifying; for it seemed to suggest that, although the Poles had no doubt been murdered, the Germans had invented the story about the mass graves at
Smolensk. It was not at all clear what the Gnezdovsky Tumulus had to do with it all.
The position became a little clearer a few days later; or, at least, one thing now became perfectly clear—and that was that Goebbels had engineered a first-class diplomatic row.
On the 19th, the Pravda editorial indignantly wrote:
Goebbels's fabrication has been taken up not only by his German scribes, but, to
everybody's amazement, by the ministerial circles of General Sikorski... The Polish Ministry of Information knows perfectly well the purpose of this German
provocation, for it says itself: "We are used to the lies of German propaganda, and can understand the purpose of its latest revelations." Yet, in spite of this, the Ministry of Information can think of nothing better than to appeal to the
International Red Cross with the request to "investigate" something that never existed, or, rather, had been fabricated by the hangmen of Berlin, who are now
trying to attribute their crime to the Soviet organs [i.e., the NKVD]. They have been caught by this German bait. It is not surprising that Hitler should also have
appealed to the International Red Cross. Yet this is not the first case of its kind: already in Lwow in 1941 they staged "The victims of Bolshevik Terror".
Hundreds of witnesses then showed up the German liars. [The article then referred to Sovinformbureau's statement on the subject of August 8, 1941.]
Feeling the indignation of the whole of progressive humanity over their massacres of peaceful citizens, and particularly of Jews, the Germans are now trying to rouse the anger of gullible people against the Jews: for this reason they invented a whole
collection of mythical "Jewish Commissars" who, they say, took part in the murder of the 10,000 Polish officers. For such experienced fakers it was not difficult to invent a few names of people who never existed—Lev Rybak, Avraam Borisovich,
Paul Brodninsky, Chaim Finberg. No such persons ever existed either in the
"Smolensk Section of the OGPU", or in any other department of the NKVD. In the light of these facts, the request made by the Polish Ministry of National Defence to the International Red Cross can be regarded only as a demonstration of their desire to give direct aid to Hitler's forgers and provocateurs.
And then, two days later, a Tass statement said that this Pravda editorial "fully reflects the attitude of Soviet leading circles".
The statement made by the Sikorski Government on April 18 makes matters worse,
since it identifies itself with the provocative statement of the Polish Ministry of Defence... The fact that the anti-Soviet campaign started simultaneously in the
German and the Polish press, and is being conducted on the same plane—this
amazing fact allows one to suppose that this campaign is being conducted as a result of an agreement between the German occupants in Poland and the pro-Hitlerite
elements of the ministerial circles of Mr Sikorski. The Polish Government's
statement shows that the pro-Hitlerite elements have great influence in the Polish Government and that they are taking new steps to worsen relations between Poland
and the USSR.
The Soviet case was not at all well presented. Detailed facts and figures were missing.
Something of the secretiveness that had surrounded the whole affair of the "missing Polish officers" was still maintained. To the Russians, the allegations were "beneath contempt". They would say what there was to say once the Red Army got to Smolensk.
Now there was only one thing to do: draw the political conclusions.
On the evening of April 27 it was announced that the Soviet Government had suspended diplomatic relations with the Polish Government. The announcement was contained in a letter from Molotov to Romer, the Polish Ambassador in the USSR.
The word used was "prervat" (suspend), not "porvat" (break off), and those who believed that the breach was only temporary, at first attached some importance to this fine point of Russian grammar.
The Polish Ambassador himself suggested at first that the quarrel might be patched up, and that he "would soon be back in Moscow". He was clearly upset at what had happened, but made a point of being very "correct" about the Russians at the press conference he gave to the British and American correspondents the night the
"suspension" was announced. He said he had refused to accept the Russian Note, because the motives were "unacceptable". He argued that an article in the official Polish paper in London, the Dziennik Polski had, on April 15, rejected the German proposal to appeal to the International Red Cross; but he did not know when and how exactly this appeal had finally been made, and on whose authority. Instead, speaking studiously more in sorrow than in anger, he made a few general complaints about the Russians. According to the lists of the Polish Embassy, he said, there had been 400,000 Poles in the Soviet Union.
Since then 95,000 soldiers and 40,000 civilians had gone to the Middle East. The Polish soldiers had been demobilised in 1939, but the officers and N.C.O.'s were kept in camps.
The Polish Government had asked the Russians in vain to give them lists of these officers and N.C.O.'s; and, unlike Kozielsk, the camps of Starobelsk and Ustashkovo had not been occupied by the Germans. If the Polish officers and N.C.O.'s had been transferred to Smolensk, the Polish Government had not heard of it until now. It was apparent that if the Russians had left the Poles behind to fall into German hands, the Russians did not wish to admit it, and were, therefore, humming and hawing. It was most unfortunate, and had
played into the hands of German propaganda. "Je ne crois pas au crime russe— I don't believe in a Russian crime", he said, "only why could they not be franker with us? " He said the three camps in question had been closed between April and June 1940, and it had been believed that the officers had been scattered through the Soviet Union in small groups. The news that they had been left behind near Smolensk was something quite new.
In these camps (he said), there had been 12,500 officers and N.CO.'s and when the Polish Army began to be formed, it was found that only a handful of officers were available.
He then talked about the 570 children's homes, schools, canteens, old people's homes, and other Polish institutions which had been set up in the Soviet Union, and had mostly been run on lend-lease stuff by 420 personnes de confiance appointed by the Polish Embassy at Kuibyshev, but had latterly been taken over by the Russians. After that, all these centres had lost contact with the Embassy. He had heard of Madame Wassilewska but did not know what she was doing or was proposing to do.
And then, on January 16, the Soviet Government went back on its former decision
to allow certain categories of people from Eastern Poland to rank as Polish citizens.
I (Romer) had been discussing this question with the Russians for some time, and it is most disappointing to me that these negotiations should now have had to be
suspended.
He ended, however, on a note of confidence, saying he thought the quarrel would yet be patched up.
I have quoted Romer's statement because, a few days later, Vyshinsky was to answer
him, though not on the crucial point of the "missing officers." Romer's suggestion that it would "blow over" was not justified. The Russians, having in effect broken off relations with the London Government, were now going to get tough.
Romer was not to forestall Vyshinsky. From the Russian point of view he was no longer Ambassador, and, therefore, had no business to give interviews. None of his statements was
passed by the censorship, not even the statement that he did not believe the Russians had committed the Katyn crime!
[ After recapturing the Katyn area the Russians tried to prove that the Polish officers had been shot by the Germans. See pp. 661 ff.]
On the very next day, while Pravda was fuming against the "Polish Imperialists" and
"German agents", Wanda Wassilewska came out with an article in Izvestia which was a landmark in the history of Polish-Russian relations. After making the usual charges
against the London Government of preventing active resistance to the Germans in
Poland, and of haggling, instead, over Poland's eastern frontiers, she said that this Government had "done everything to silence progressive Poles abroad" and to
"undermine the Poles' confidence in their natural ally, the Soviet Union."
"Yet every honest Pole knows that such an alliance is a matter of life and death to his country, especially now when Europe's and Poland's fate is being settled on this front."
And then she came to her main point: she said that another Polish Army might shortly be constituted on Soviet soil, which would fight side by side with the Red Army, as the Czechoslovak troops and the French airmen were already doing. This Polish Army would not be under the jurisdiction of the Polish Government in London.
What this meant was that a new Polish Army, drawn from Polish citizens in the Soviet Union, and former Polish citizens (though Wassilewska did not mention this point) would shortly be formed on Soviet soil. It now seemed likely that the point about Polish
nationality which the Russians had, for a short time, stretched in favour of the Anders Army, might now be stretched again for the benefit of the new Polish Army, and, indeed, stretched much farther.
The question as to who would replace the London Government from the point of view of authority was left vague; but, for the present, the new Polish Army would, in fact, owe its allegiance to the Soviet Government pending the formation of a real Polish Government.
Many sceptics wrongly thought that what was contemplated was merely a "token force", or even only a "gesture".