Russia at war

by Alexander C Werth

  running a short distance to the east of Lwow. It was expected that, within the next few months, not only would the whole of Soviet territory be cleared of Germans, but that the Red Army would penetrate deep into eastern and central Europe—Poland,

  Czechoslovakia, Rumania and Hungary, and possibly Germany. Finland was not yet out

  of the war, the tentative armistice talks in Moscow with Enckel and Paasikivi having broken down. Vyshinsky announced this breakdown on April 22, indicating that the Red Army would have to make the Finns see reason before long. Since Finland had not

  suffered a military defeat, there was still much opposition to accepting the stiff armistice terms, complete with a demand for $600 million in reparations.

  Soviet policy in relation to the countries of eastern Europe called for some clarification; and almost the moment Soviet troops had entered Rumanian territory, Molotov convened a press conference on April 2 and officially announced that the Soviet Union did not aim at acquiring any Rumanian territory or at making any changes "in the existing social order in Rumania." The entry of Soviet troops into Rumania was exclusively dictated by military necessity and the continued resistance of enemy troops in that country. So there was to be no forced "bolshevisation" or even "socialisation" of Rumania, no abolition of private enterprise, perhaps even no abolition of the monarchy. All this, in principle, was a matter for the Rumanians themselves to decide. It was no use, at this stage, either

  alarming the Rumanians, or upsetting the Western Allies with the prospect of

  revolutionary changes in the countries of eastern Europe. Already, various Rumanians were in contact with the British and the Americans, with a view to getting out of the war, and it was no good frightening them off. The question of the Rumanian Government, as distinct from the "social order" could be tackled once the Red Army was well inside Rumania—unless, in the interval, "the people" (as Stalin said) were to change the government themselves; for the present, the Russians occupied only a small area in northeast Rumania. "No claims on Rumanian territory" did not, of course, relate to Bessarabia or Northern Bukovina, both of which had been incorporated in the Soviet Union in 1940.

  The Second Front decided upon at Teheran was now known to be due in a matter of

  weeks. The feeling widely expressed among ordinary Russian soldiers and civilians was that it would be "too easy", now that the Red Army had already pulled most of the chestnuts out of the fire, and that if the British and Americans were going to land in France now, it would be less out of any feeling of comradeship for the Russians than out of pure self-interest and even self-protection, since they feared that the Russians might now well smash Germany "single-handed".

  These views were soon discouraged by Stalin, whose May-Day 1944 Order was

  particularly cordial to the Western Allies. After recalling that the Red Army had

  advanced in a little over a year from the Volga to the Sereth, he said:

  We owe this success in a large measure to our great Allies, the United States and Great Britain, who are holding the front in Italy and are diverting from us a large part of the German troops, and who are also supplying us with highly valuable raw materials and armaments, are systematically bombing military objectives in

  Germany and are so undermining her military power.

  In paying a tribute to the Soviet rear, Stalin said:

  In the past year hundreds of new factories and mines have come into operation,

  dozens of electric power stations, and many railway lines and bridges. Millions more Soviet people have entered industry.

  Then, after a tribute to Russia's women, intelligentsia, and collective farms, Stalin said: The satellites must now see clearly that Germany has lost the war. But their

  Governments cannot be relied upon to break with Germany, and the sooner the people

  take over and make peace, the better.

  The Red Army, he said, had reached the Soviet frontier along 250 miles, and more than three-quarters of occupied Soviet territory had now been liberated. But to drive the Germans out of the Soviet Union was not sufficient. The wounded German beast must be finished off in his lair.

  This phrase (though usually amended to "Fascist beast") was to become No. 1 slogan during the next twelve months.

  And as if to discourage any ideas that the Red Army had already done the job, and that the Second Front was no longer all that important, he added:

  The liberation of Europe, and the smashing of Germany on her own soil can be done only on the basis of joint efforts from the Soviet Union, Great Britain and the

  United States as they strike from the east and the west. .. There is no doubt that only such a combined blow can smash Hitler Germany.

  This was, politically, an important statement.

  *

  There was much display of cordiality towards the Allies during May: at a ceremony of the British Embassy on May 10 the G.C.B.E. was conferred on the Soviet Chief of Staff, Marshal Vassilevsky, and hundreds of other decorations were awarded. Molotov and

  Clark Kerr exchanged speeches.

  On May 26, the second anniversary of the Anglo-Soviet Alliance was marked by warm

  editorials in the principal papers.

  On May 25 and 27 Churchill's and Eden's speeches were reported at great length, and the Molotov-Eden exchange of anniversary messages was particularly cordial. Eden was

  clearly alluding to the coming events when he spoke in his message of the "mighty onslaught" in which "our two peoples, hand-in-hand with our American and other allies", would win the war. Such a victory, he said, would strengthen the bonds of friendship and understanding on which the Anglo-Soviet alliance was based.

  The suspension of diplomatic mail from Britain created a very happy impression in

  Russia. It was clearly an indication of what was coming—and coming soon. Alexei

  Tolstoy jokingly remarked to me one day: "If we Bolsheviks had done anything so outrageous, nobody would have been surprised; but if the correct English do such a thing, then they surely must have good reasons for doing so."

  The Second Front—the Normandy Landing—came a few days later.

  With the Russians preparing for their summer offensive which was expected to take the Red Army into Poland, this country, more than any other, continued to be in the centre of the Soviet Government's preoccupations. In April and May there were a number of

  curious developments: the visits to Moscow of Father Orlemanski, of Dr Oscar Lange,

  and of the leaders of the "Democratic Polish Underground."

  The visit of Father Orlemanski, a parish priest from Springfield, Mass., was probably the most curious episode in the whole diplomatic history of the Soviet Union. People rubbed their eyes when they looked at the front page of Pravda of April 28 showing Stalin and Molotov smiling benignly in the company of the Rev. Stanislaw Orlemanski "who has come here to study the problems of the Poles and the Polish Army in the Soviet Union".

  Stalin and Molotov were obviously anxious, through their contacts with Orlemanski, to kill three birds with one stone: to make a good impression on the Catholics in the United States; to appease and, if possible, win over the powerful Catholic clergy in Poland—

  who were, for the most part pro-London—as well as the numerous priests in Lithuania

  and Belorussin; and, possibly to lay the foundations for a rapprochement with the Vatican.

  After about a week there, Orlemanski came out with a statement on the Moscow radio:

  Dear fellow countrymen (he said), I left home on April 17. I came through the

  United States, Canada, and Alaska, and across Siberia to Moscow. I travelled very comfortably. I had never flown before, and now I flew all the way from Chicago to Moscow! I am an American of Polish origin, and I am a Roman Catholic priest.

  Moreover, we are four brothers, all priests in the United States.

  After this pleasant introduction. Father Orlemanski, the parish priest from Springfield,
Mass., said that as soon as he had heard of the formation of the Kosciuszko Division on Soviet soil, he decided to help, and in November 1943, formed the Kosciuszko League at Detroit. This, he said, was a great success. He continued: "Having achieved all this, I felt that I must inform myself more completely on the plans and aims of the Polish emigrants in the USSR." He said he had come with Cordell Hull's personal okay.

  First of all I went to Zagorsk where there are Polish children. At the school there I attended the lessons in Polish history. May I, as a neutral observer and practical

  American, say that the present conditions could not be better. We Poles must be grateful to the Soviet Government for their kindness, and we must try to preserve these

  institutions. I was told that there are such institutions in the whole of Russia.

  All this sounded somewhat naïve. Then he described his visit to the Polish Army: Here he felt "quite at home". While he was there, 8,000 new soldiers from Ternopol and from other liberated parts had joined. "I told the soldiers that I considered the arms in their hands as the key to a free Poland."

  Finally came his statement on his first two-hour meeting with Stalin and Molotov:

  I cannot repeat all that was said. But I must say that Stalin is a' friend of the Poles.

  He wants to see a strong, powerful, independent and democratic Poland which

  would effectively defend her frontiers. Stalin does not intend to interfere in internal Polish affairs. He wants Poland to be friendly and to co-operate harmoniously with the Soviet Republics...

  We are Slavs. Allied, Poland and the Soviet Union will be the mightiest power in the east. It will be of the greatest benefit to both. It will guarantee peace for hundreds of years. Long live the United, States of America. Long live the Soviet Union. Long live a free, strong, independent and democratic Poland!

  All this was reported verbatim, and in all seriousness, in the Soviet press, as was also his statement on the following day:

  I want to make the historic statement {sic) that the future will prove that Stalin is a friend of the Roman Catholic Church. Our religion will be the religion of our

  ancestors, and Marshal Stalin will not tolerate any violation of this.

  He went on to say that there were five chaplains in the new Polish Army and that the Bishop of newly-liberated Luck (in the Western Ukraine) had promised to send several more priests into the army.

  I had another meeting with Stalin and Molotov (he continued), and the result has

  exceeded all my expectations. Marshal Stalin and Mr Molotov are two great men: I

  am most grateful to both these gentlemen for the democratic reception that was

  given me during my stay in Moscow.

  Perhaps the Soviet press had its tongue in its cheek when it used the English word

  "gentleman" in quoting Orlemanski's broadcast.

  But less than a fortnight later Orlemanski was back in the States— and in the soup. For it turned out that Orlemanski represented nobody, and was either a well-meaning simpleton or else a practical joker, in which case his visit to Stalin was the biggest hoax ever played on the Kremlin. In any case, Father Orlemanski's immediate superior, Bishop O'Leary, reprimanded and repudiated the Kremlin visitor on his return to the USA, and Orlemanski had to "repent" before being reinstated. After that Stalin came to the conclusion, either that he had been fooled, or else that Cardinal Spellman and the rest of the hierarchy but not Orlemanski, were the people who really mattered among the Catholics in the USA.

  The official repudiation of a Catholic priest who had consorted with the Devil naturally had the very opposite effect on the Polish and Lithuanian clergy to what Stalin and

  Molotov had hoped for when they devoted so much of their time to their unusual visitor from the USA. This was no joking matter: for the attitude of the Polish clergy mattered greatly in a question like the recruitment of Poles into the "Moscow-made" Polish Army.

  As we shall see, this Army, by the end of 1944, when part of Poland had already been liberated, consisted of about 300,000 men. With the active co-operation of the Church and the Armija Krajowa it might have been much larger.

  Father Braun, the unofficial representative of the Vatican in the Soviet Union (and he was not going to do anything to help the Kremlin) thought the Orlemanski visit the biggest joke for years. Father Braun, of Alsatian origin, but American nationality, was the priest of the only Catholic church in Moscow. It happened to be next door to the NKVD

  headquarters and was jokingly referred to as Notre-Dame de Lubianka. Father Braun had had a good deal of trouble with the Soviet authorities during the eight or nine years he had been in Russia; in return he was an unfailing source of information to many

  foreigners, who had come to Russia with an open mind. During the earlier part of the war he had lived in two rooms at the French Embassy, till he was more or less turned out by the rather pro-Soviet and anti-clerical French Minister, M. Roger Garreau. The US

  Embassy took him under its wing after that.

  Professor Oscar Lange of Chicago University, who was to become a prominent

  personality in post-war Poland, came to Moscow soon after Father Orlemanski, and was also photographed in the company of Stalin and Molotov, and made numerous speeches,

  in which, more intelligently than Orlemanski, he advocated close bonds between Russian and the New Poland. The Russians publicised the eminent Professor's preference for the

  "Moscow" Poles in order to make the maximum impression in the USA.

  *

  Throughout May, Poland continued to be front-page news. With obvious relish the Soviet press reported on May 19 that General Zeligowski, a popular Polish veteran then in

  London, had more or less rebelled against the London Government by saying that the

  alliance of the Slavs was the only salvation for Poland, and that, by refusing to adopt this slogan, the London Government was playing into the hands of the Germans. The

  Russians gladly forgave Zeligowski the coup de force with which he had snatched Vilno away from Lithuania in 1920, and even the contemptuous remarks he now made about

  the Lithuanians, whom he described as a nondescript alien body in the Slav world. In London many Poles tried to explain Zeligowski's change of heart by simply saying the poor old boy had gone gaga.

  But the biggest surprise was still in store.

  On May 24 the Union of Polish Patriots issued a statement saying:

  A few days ago delegates of the People's Council of Poland (Krajowa Rada

  Narodowa) arrived in Moscow... This Council was established in Warsaw on January 1, 1944, by the democratic parties and groups struggling against the

  German occupants. The following are represented in the K.R.N.: The Opposition

  groups of the Stronnictwo Ludowo (Peasant Party), the P.P.S. (Socialist Party), P.P.R. (Workers'—in fact, Communist—Party), the Committee of National

  Initiative non-party democrats, the underground trade-union movement, the Youth

  Struggle Movement (Walki Mlodych), groups of writers and other intellectual workers, artisan and co-operative groups, representatives of the underground

  military organisations—the National Guard, the National Militia, the Peasant

  Battalions, local military formations of the Armija Krajowa, etc.

  These were alleged "dissidents" of that A.K. which was under the orders of the London Government. The statement went on:

  It has become necessary to form a centre of struggle and coordination. .. The emigre Government is not fighting the Germans; instead, it is calling for inactivity. Its people sometimes even murder resistance leaders... In 1943 hopes were rising in

  Poland, but, at the same time, the German terror was growing in intensity... The

  National Council, at its very first meeting, took the highly important decision to unify all the partisan groupings, armed units, etc., struggling with the occupants, and to merge them into a single People's Army (Armi
ja Ludowa)... The National Guard, the National Militia, a large part of the Peasant Battalions, etc., have entered this. The Polish people have responded with enthusiasm. In a few months a network of local—rural, urban, and provincial—organisations was set up by the National

  Council. The struggle against the occupants has been greatiy intensified.

  The statement concluded by saying that the Delegates of the National Council of Poland came to Moscow, firstly to become acquainted with the work of the Union of Polish

  Patriots in the USSR, and with the state of the first Polish Army; and secondly in order to establish contact with the Allied Governments, including the Government of the Soviet Union.

  It was also announced that, on May 22, Stalin had received the Polish delegates, with Mr

  "Morawski" at their head, that the conversation lasted for over two hours, and that Molotov and Wanda Wassilewska were present.

  That was the first news the world was to hear of the "Left Underground" in Poland, and of a National Council of Poland that had allegedly been in existence there for over five months. It was also the first mention of the name of Morawski, later known at Osöbka-Morawski. The London Poles lost no time in debunking the delegates in Moscow as a

  bunch of communist stooges or adventurers with no following whatsoever, the National Council as a pretentious fake, etc., etc.

  Indeed, Morawski and the other delegates whose names (or even pseudonyms) were not

  disclosed at the time (though many knew that they included Bierut, Andrzei Witos, and some others who were to become prominent before long), stayed for some time in the

  Soviet Union, and some did not go home until the Red Army had marched into Poland in the following July. On June 8 Morawski gave an interview to Tass in which he said that nearly 100,000 Polish troops were now on Soviet soil; among their leaders were General Berling, Alexander Zawadski (recently promoted to the rank of general by the Russians), and that great Gargantuan character, General Karol Sweszczewski, famous in the Spanish Civil War under the nom de guerre of General Walter.

  [In 1947, as Deputy Minister of Defence, he was assassinated by Ukrainian terrorists near the Ukrainian border.]