BEHIND THE
POLISH-SOVIET
BREAIl
By ALTEB BBODY
Introduction by
[OBLISS LAMONT
3c
Introduction
sO~~\E:~nl~c~l~~~~~:i~;~'~:'~~~:~etl~f ~e~:i~~~ll:~i~:~hc~I:;g:Otll~:~
th e Russians murdered 10 ,000 Polish army officers, shows
clearly th c danger to th e U n ited N ations of th e splitting tact ics e ng ince re d by Hitler a nd d efinitely helped along by the
ge ne ra l campai gn of ami-Sovi et propaganda ca rr ied on during
rec e n t months in Britain a nd Am eri ca.
According to the London Bureau of th e N ew Yor k H erald
T ribun e,
" I t is a saf e assumption that th e Pol es would not hav e taken
so tough an attitude toward th e Sovi et Government if it had
not been for th e widespread support Am cricans have been
giving them ill the cases of H enry Ehrlich and Victor Alt er."
It is significant, too, to note, as Professor Lange of the University of Chicago has pointed out, that th e American Friends
of Poland, an anti-Soviet organization under the wing of the
Polish Embassy, counts among its members som e of America's
foremost isolationists and Am erica Firsiers such as Colonel
Langhorn, its chairman; General '''ood , Mr. John Cudahy,
Mr. Robert Hall McCormick and Miss Lucy Martin. These
individuals have all been leading advocates of a negotiated
peace with Hitler at the expense of Soviet Russia .
Mr. Walter Lippmann well sums up the matter ill his
column "Today and Tomorrow" when he states that the net
effect of American public opinion has becu "to mislead the
Polish Government into taking risks it could not afford to take
and to provoke the Russian Government into forcing a showdown." The bitter truth to which these various considerations
point is that we here in the United Stares share the responsi-
bilil) [or this grave situation. And we now hax e the obligation
of avoid iug any further action that will result in dividing lIS
from OUl' grcat Russian ally.
The Soviet-Polish situation constitutes a real test of the
sinccrit y of America's claims of friendship for the Soviet
Union, Influential persons and newspapers in this country
nave been placing equal responsibility for the crisis on the
U.S.S.R. when it is perfectly clear that the blame rests on
• 'ali Germany and the reactionary, diehard Russophobes in
the Polish Government-in-Exile. It is extremely important
that we understand precisely where the guilt lies and that we
make clear our confidence in the integrity of our Soviet ally
and her devotion to our common cause, which has been sealed
with the blood of so many millions of her people. Certainly
the acts of the Polish Government have not been such as to
warrant our confidence.
Soviet-Polish relations have unfortunately been marked by
a long series of Polish provocations, official and unofficial.
There was no move on the part of the Polish Governmentin-Exile to repudiate or counteract anti-Soviet agitation by
Polish newspapers and organizations. The agreement to leave
the settlement of boundary issues until after the war was
broken by Sikorski's statement of last December insisting on
the terms of the compulsive Treaty of Riga, which is discussed in this pamphlet. This was promptly made the occasion
for a rancorous campaign disruptive to Allied unity by Polish
reactionary circles in England and their friends in other
countries. The Polish army formed on Soviet soil was withdrawn on Sikorski's orders to Iran at the very height of the
Stalingrad campaign. then hanging in the balance. Polish
guerrilla activities were discouraged. The shameful antiSoviet agitation around the Alter-Ehrlich case was followed
by the collaboration with Coebbels' propaganda around the
German mass murders of Poles.
The Soviet-Polish crisis further brings out the fact that the
3
new wave of ant i-Soviet propaganda which has arisen recent ly
in the United States should cause gravcst concern to every
patriotic American. For this campaign against the U.S.S.R. ,
covcring many different issues and stirring up old fears a nd
prejudices, threatens to undermine American-Soviet friendship, which is so essential for victory over the Axis and for
the establishment of enduring peace.
The anti-Soviet forces in our country have never aba ndoned the disastrous and discredited poli~y that cu lminated at
Munich. Thev include all those elements whose hatred of
Soviet Russia ' is greater than their hatred of fascism. These
circles are willing to prolong the war indefinitely, even to ris k
our u lt im ate defeat, our ow n country's frecdom and securi ty,
in the hope that Hit ler will bleed to death the Union of Sovie t
Socia list R ep u b lics. The American people must be vigi lant in
ide ntifying these disru ptive for ces in our midst, in ex posi ng
them, com bati ng them, dep riving them of in fluence a nd
powe r b y bui ldi ng an indes tructi ble unity with our Allics.
To this all-Important end this pamphlet by Alter Brody,
issued by Soviet Russia T oday, makes a notable contribu ti on
by tell ing th e tru th abo u t the Soviet- Polish situation and
CORLISS LAMONT
deve lop ing its full im p licat ions.
STALIN ON POLISH·SOVIET RELATIONS
R~e:Y~'~~k ;~,,~::~~r~:p~':I=e~~7;~ ;~;k~:,~;~e~~
Stalin declared that the Soviet Government unquestionahly
de sires a strong and independent Poland after the defeat
of Hitler' s Germany, and that in hi s opinion po st-war
r elations between the two countries should he based "upon
the fundament of solid good neighhorly relations and
mutual re sp ect , or, should th e Polish people so de sire,
upon the f u n d a m en t of an alliance providing for mutual
assistance against the Germans as the ch ie f enemies of the
Soviet Union and Polanrl;"
Ilehiml thePnllsh-Snviat Break
By Alter Brody
R El~E;I·~~~~~)th:'I;~~;:e:~~'~;tl~:~u~~)~~~·;\~~e~~~~~~i~\~~r:I~~C~~~
college students arc of the most elementary facts of American
history and geography. It is hardly surprising, therefore, that
i he public as a whole should be even less well informed on
the subject of Russo-Polish history and geography. Yet, much
of the suspicion and hostility which have been engendered in
American-Soviet relations by the ill-timed boundary dispute
which the Polish Government has seen fit LO launch at this
most critical ucriod of a war which, for the Polish as well as
for the Amertcan, British, Russian, Chinese, and other United
i ' ations, is a war [or survival-could have been dissipated at
once by a wide. ' knowledge of the basic facts of Russo-Polish
history. These [acts are as indisputable and as verifiable as
the Iact that Abraham Lincoln was President of the United
Stales during- the Civil \\'ar and not Jefferson Davis, as many
of our students thought; that \\'illiam James was the brother
of Henry James and not of Jesse James; 01' that California was
not one of the thirteen original colonies.
It would of course be naive to believe that a mere recital
of objective ethnographic and historic facts is all that is necessary to clear the air. There were political rather than ethnographic Illatives behind the Sikorski government's sudden
reopening of the boundary controversy which, according to
the Soviet-Polish treaty of t941, was to have been postponed
till after the war. And there are political rather than ethnographic motives for the lively interest which certain circles
in America are taking in the matter. The American public as
a whole, however, has no political axe to grind in the dispute
and to them this verifiable outline of the ethnographic and
historic background of the controversy is submitted.
Polish claims to ',"estern Byelorussia and the " 'estern
Ukraine go back, primarily, to the end of the 14th Century,
when, as a state, Poland was more unified and, therefore,
more powerful than Russia. In alliance with the similarly
more unified Lithuanian State, Poland conquered parts of
Russia.
The situation was reversed in the i Sth Century. Its neighbors, Prussia, Austria, and Russia, had been unifying and
cent raliviug their state power, outstripping Polish power. Together they absorbed Poland in a series of partitions of Polish
territory,
Therefore, if historical precedent be used to justify Polish
claims, similar historical claims could be advanced against her
very national existence! And not only the three powers mentioned, but Lithuania and Sweden could also advance claims
upon Polish territory,
But the ideas that move and condition the war efforts of
the United 1 Tations have no affinity with such "historic"
claims. They are based on the principle of the self-determination of nations, to which the Soviet Union has subscribed,
Russian revolutionary circles called for ' the liberation of
Poland from Russian rule and when the revolution occurred,
one of the first acts of the new Soviet Government was to
acknowledge Poland's independence,
The most delicate chapters in Russo-Polish history are the
partitions of Poland. In these partitions it is interesting to
note that, whatever the reasons were, the territory taken by
6
Ru"ia was not Polish. The Catholic Encyclopedia states: " I n
1772-9 2-95 th e territory of Poland was divided among the
three ad j o in ing sta t es. Lithuania, '''hite Russia, and Little
Rus sia wer e g i\ c n to Russia, th e jJurel y Poli sli territory t o
Prussia and Austria." However, after the Napoleonic wars,
Russia did ac q u ire purely Polish territory as well, when the
,o·calle d Du ch y of \\'arsaw, created by Napoleon, was r ediv ide d . Then , as part of the European sculcnicnt made at the
~:~~~~~.~~ ~: r~':I~;:I;~I: ;n:~~tl:~nb::kPt~~:s:;:sa:~~:I~~o~~~:~~~
Poli sh kin gdom under Russian su zer a in ty , known in Polish
history as Congress Poland.
It was, th erefore, by the Treaty of Vienna and not by the
p a rl it io ns of Poland that Russia first acquired a Polish probkm. The Cat h o lic Encyclopedia d eclares: "The Poles under
I .nist rul e ar e found chi efly in Congress Poland, also in
,m all numbers in Lithuania . Volhvnia and the Ukrain e"; and
it ad ds as to E ast Galicia, then un~lcr Austrian rule, "The San
di \ id es Gali cia into an Eastern and \\'estern half, the latter
occ u p icd b y Poles, the former by Ruthcnians" (Ukrainians),
It is illuminating in the light of the traditional Polish
fo re ig n poli cy to compare the treatment meted out to the
I'o lt-s b y th e b.rr ba ro us, autocratic gO\'ernment of fellow-Slavic
Ru'Sia to that whi ch th ey received from the enlightened con-r it ut ional monarchies of Prussia and Austria, both Corman
-r.u c«. To quote the Catholic Encyclopedia again:
.. \ft cr Poland disappeared from the political map of Eu-
:::1:\t ~~~~'I~fp~~¥c~h:~~Ct~lt~1 t~~lI~\~li;:ll ~~~_:~:'~le)~~ ~ t . I~e~~~st~~ac;~~·~
Prussia in part ir ular sought to repress the Polish national
-p iri t. Colonization of Polish territory with German colonists
was begun systematically. In Prussia, all church lands were
ronfisratcd and the Catholic clergy as a whole were made
.m vwcra b lc for the political crimes of individuals. Under Rus-
7
sian rule, hostility to the Polish uat ioual spirit was Hut enLirel) open but the persecution of th e Uni ai s continued,"
1n other words , th er e wa s com pa ra t ivel y less official persecu tion of Polish nationalism or Polish Catholicism, Since the
Uniats wer e not Pol es but Ukrainian Gr eek Orthodox pea,ants whos e clergy had be en organized und er Polish pressure
into a semi-autonomous Catholic Church. Russian-Greek
Orthodox cou lller-pn" ' lIlT to get th em tll re-en te r the lold
can hardly be termed persccut iou of th e Poles , Raymond
Buell in "Poland" notes:
"A Poli sh writer (Euse nj u" Kwi.ukowsk i) calls at tcn t iun
to the cssenrial difference between the Russian and German
oppression of the Poles during the partition period . Russi»
:::l!t:~:::~I:(~;te~tl;:~n~fl\:\'~.~g~~i~:~n~~~~~:~~~l~~~fll~, l~~~el~~;~~
were to have their place as one of the Slav peoples, Russia
opposed Polish ind ependence, Always, how ever. in one [orru
or another, the existence of an ethnically Polish territory wa,
recognized, i To t so Germany, There the fight against the Poles
LOok the form of a systematic attempt to denationalize the
b~~~·I\I~~~Sp:.~~l~~:~~~,(IGbd;'I:;~~~'P~;:~Ytl;~:~~{~~'1~10~!,~~I~ :11~~~i)~;~I:;~~I~
and extermination , which even the more
interpreted as a nat ional ncccssitv."
liberal Gcrmaus
This difference in policy was as striking in the economic
a, in the ethnic sphere. In Germany government fund,
(100,000,000 marks in 188G) were appropriated to buy ul'
Polish land and dispossess the Polish peasantry and part icularlv the Polish nobil itv so that the laucr became extinct as a
clas~ in German Polan~l. 1n Tsarist Russia not only were the
Polish landowners 1101 dispossessed of their estates in Russian
Poland but were permitted to hold on to their vastly larger
estates in \\ 'hite Russia and the Ukraine, so that there was
the anomalous situation of the "subjugated" Polish nobilitv
oWllin~ and exploiting millions of "liberated" White Russian
and Ukrainian peasants.
10 this da y th e obst iuacy of th e Polish Govcrmuun t on
the llnestion of " Eas te rn Pol and " is primaril y ba sed on th e
natural dis incli nat io n of th e Poli sh ruling class, ch ie fly "Ea st
Polish" landow ne rs, 10 surrend er th e right to ex p lo it th ese
m iilions of R ussian !'casants o n the ir vast \\ 'hite Russian
(B ) d or ussia n) a nd Ukraini an estates. Tsarist indu stri al d evelopment ",as ma in lv in th e \\ 'est. a nd Polish industry was a
rh icf bencficiarv. I'h c E ncyclo pe dia B ritannica testifi es:
"The a bo litio n in 1851 of the CUSLOms frontier between Rus,ia and Pol and laid th e foundation for an extraordinary indus,
ii:~'!i!S,\~;;~~1/~~;f,f~~S~;;i;':~~:':;~I;~~~:~::,r£~~i~~~
The for egoing docs not mean, of course, that the Polish
!,cop le we re no t oppressed . The Tsar's Government had it s
own reasons fo r its sp ecial terms 10 the Polish landed nobility
,1IId m anu facturers , It sought to bas e its rule of the subjugated
Poli sh people on their support. But it is pertinent to note that
P ussia n rul e was less pr ejudicial to Polish nationhood in e,'c r )
sense tha n G erm an or Austrian rule.
.\ft er a cen tu r y and a quarter of political eclipse, Poland
,,'as rebo rn as a political state at the Versailles Peace Confere nce, I t was mad e abundantly clear at th e Peace Confer('I](C th a t it was not
the iurcnt ion of the Allied Powers to
rcco ns titutc a New Polish Empire. The forerunner of the
\ tlanti c Chartcr-e Wilsons famous Fourteen Points-specifically stip u la ted that "The Polish State shall include territor ies inh abited by indisputably Polish populations."
Despit e pr essure from Polish nco-imperialists and their
French ba ck er s, British and American inlluence resulted in th e
Confcren ce fixin g th e Polish east ern boundary on an cthno~ ra phic basis. on a line running through Grodno, Brest -Li -
tovsk , Rawa Russka and Przcmvsl. which carne to be called t he
Curzon Li ne after Lord CUI"Zo'n, t hc British lTPITSl:JJlati\T at
the Peace Conference. This ethnographic boundary line ret ognized by the Versailles Peace Conference was precisely the lin e
at which the Red Army stopped when it headed alI the. .a zi
occupation of "Eastern Poland," ami is roughly the line which
t hc Soviet Union now consiclers its boundarv with Poland .
But the leaders of the new Polish State C('ndd not gi\T up
their dream of making PolancI a \VorId Power, a d rca m ->
gin'n Poland's limited area and populat iou -c-which could 0111\
be realized at the expensl: of its neighbors. Says Buell in his
"Poland": "Pi lsudsk i believed that Poland had to have a large
tcrti tory. For historical reasons it was easier to get this base'
at i hc expense of Russia than of Germany ." Pilsudsk i's grall diose ambitions fitted in with Clcmenceau's scheme for a
Conlon Sauitairc to hem in and ulrimately to strangle th e
Soviet Union.
Fighting on a cIozen fronts,
revolution, Civil \Var, and
was finally compelled to sign a
surrendering the western part
ern part of the Ukraine. Says
this infamous Treaty of Riga:
exhausted by six years of war ,
intcrvcntion . the Soviet State
compromise peace with Poland.
of \\'hite Russia and the west the Encvclo pcdia Britannica '"
"On March i S, 19:!I, a tlTat) was signed on terms Iavora hlc
to Poland which placed some four million Russians under the
Polish nag (exclusive of another four million Russians in East
Galicia which were not included in this transaction) , Again
(as at Brest-Litovsk) the Soviet Government had paid a hcavx
price for peace,"
About the same t ime little fellow-Catholic Lithuania sul fered the same fate as Soviet Russia at the hands of l!t(
intoxicated new Polish imperialism, Vilna, its traditional rap iral, had been awarded to Lithuania by the same Curzon Lim decision which also denied Western White Russia, \Vl:S!CrII
10
Ukraine and East Galicia to the Poles. The dav before the
date set by the League of Nations for Lithuania' to reoccupy
its ancient capital, Polish General Zeligowski staged one of
1110se "non-interventionist" affairs that Hitler was later to
perfect, and seized the whole Vilna district.
This very first defiance of the League of Nations, antedating
by eleven years Japan's aggression against China and by fifteen
leal'S Mussolini's aggression against Ethiopia, created such
anti-Polish sentiment in the Allied world that Poland was con-trained to nominally disavow the Zeligowski coup. Zeligowski
ucvcrthcless continued to occupy Vilna and three years later,
when the world 's conscience had lost its sensitivity, the Council of Ambassadors sanctioned the Polish seizure of Vilna.
Lithuania refused to recognize this annexation of her capital.
'ihe severed all relations, including rail and postal, with
Poland and for eighteen years considered herself in a state of
helligerence with her neighbor until 1938, when a Polish ultimatum forced her to make "peace."
The conqllo~st of Vilna rounded out the Eastern frontiers
of the new Polish empire. As Pilsudski had planned, it had
been created at the expense of R1!ssia-one of the original
Allied powers, which had sacrificed more lives in the war
which liberated Poland than all the others put togetherrather than at the expense of Germany, the vanquished enemy.
Pilsudski, it should be noted, had been an enemy of the
Allies and his "Legion" had been organized by the Germans.
.-\ cco n l ing to Polish statistics there were less than a million
Gennans in the territory annexed from Germany, whereas
there were eight million \\'hite Russians and Ukrainians in
the territory .mncxed from Russia.
From its birth in 1919 to its demise in 1939, the twenty-onelear record of the second Poland is a disheartening- defama-
tion of th e ideals of self-dc tc n u iu.u ion, th e rights ot ,m all
nations and international d ecency in gen eral. H er e is a nation
;:':::~:In~::so~.ll~e:;~I(:' ~~~ig~~~~,C(:I)II(;)te(I~:lt~~l~\:1 (:~i;)Sr:~~it(~~~n. S~ll:~
denlv, aft er more than a ce n tury of su ffer ing. afte r m an v
bloody bu t fruitl ess effort s to fr ee it self , it find s Iibcrt y a nd
nationhood handed ba ck to it by a fiat o f history. But no
sooner was partitioned Poland lib erated tha n it started to
se ize th e territory of its n eighbors; no soon er were the e nslav ed Poles em a nc ip a ted than th ey began e ns la vi ng ,,'h ite
Russians, Ukrainians and Lithnanians; no sooner wer e t h c
Polish Catholics saf e from religious per secution than th ey set
about pers ecuting th e million s of J ews and Gr eek Orthodo x
co m m u n ica n ts who wer e at th eir in crcv.
On Jun e 28, 1!)l9, th e Versailles Po~\'(:rs wh ich had crea ted
the second Poland made the new state sign a tr eaty accepting
cert a in international obli gations wit h resp ect to its minorit ic-,
as a precondition of recognition. The tr eaty stipulat ed th at .
" .\11 Polish nationals shall enjo y th e sam e civil and political
rights without distinction as 10 race, language or religion.
equal opporrun it y to public employment. functions and
honors and th e exercise of professions . .. where minoriucs
form a considerable proportion of the population , facilities for
instruction in their own language, ... etc."
The very same stipulations were cheerfully signed and pu t
into practice by the new Czechoslovak state, but from the very
first the second Poland showed its colors by brazenly balking
at signing such a treaty. Finally even Poland's best friend
Clemenceau, then President of the Peace Conference. lost
patience and wrote a caustic letter to Paderewski, first Polish
President, which has a reminiscent ring today:
..It is to the endeavors and sacrifices of the Powers in whos e
namc I am addressing you that the Polish nation owes the 1'('of its independence. It is on the support that the reo
COVCI)'
12
sources of thes e Pow er s sha ll aflord th e Leagu c of . .at ions tha t.
for th e futur e, Poland will, to a larg e exte n t. d ep end for th e
secur e possess io n of thc se terr itori es." Poland relu cta nt lv
' igne d th e min orities tr eat y b ut proc eed ed imm edi at el y to nul l if'yrt.
THR EE MI LLIO N "Sl:R P LU S" JEWS
Fort y p CI' cent of th e population of the new Polish Empire
wer e non-Polish-a much higher perc entage than the nonRussian population of th e tsar ist Empire, term ed "prison-house
of nations." The four important national minorities wer e
White Russians and Ukrainians, th e j ews and th e Germ an<;.
Sinc e th er e was no Jewish Stat e acros s the bord er to cha m p io n
J ewish ri ghts the nullification of the minority tre at y, so far as
J ews wer e conc erned, was a sim p le matt er. Accordingl y th e
birth of th e second Poland was cel ebrated by a wave of
pogroms that swept the country. The official Morgcnthau commission, appointed by the American Versailles delegation to
investigate the massacres, reported that ~80 Jews had be en
killed and ma)' hundreds wounded. Between these intermitlent outbreaks of violence there was always an unabated and
less spectacular but far more effective "cold pogrom"-the
publicly sponsored boycott of Jewish stores, industries and
professions, the exclusion of Jews from all public or municipal
employment and by num erus clausus (li m ited number) from
the universities, climaxed by a licensing law which forced old
Jewish tailors, shoemakers and other artisans to pass arbitrary
written tests in order to "practice."
As the late Raymond Leslie Buell, President of the Foreign
Policy Association, testifies : "The most visible form of antiSemitism is an economic boycott which has been approved b)
courts, the government, and dignitaries of the Catholic
Church. The head of the Catholic Church, Cardinal Hlond,
in a pastoral letter in 1936, declared 'One does well to prefer
one's own kind in commercial relations and to avoid Jewish
13
stores but it is not permissible to demolish Jewish businesses.'
\nd Prim e M inist er Skladkowski d eclar ed in that same year
'. ' o !>oc!Y in Poland should be harmed, but econom ic warfarethat's ail right .' A Swedish authorit y, Hugo Val entin, writing
in 193(i savs : ' It ca n no t he said that th e Polish J ews are sub jeered to the sam e ph ysi cal tort u re as the Germ an J ews but
th eir mat erial distress is far wor se.' ''
The object of this policy , as th e leading Polish politi cal
parties mad e it clear in th eir platforms , was nothing less th an
r hc program wh ich th e . 'al i" arc now carrv in g out in all of
occupi ed Eu rop e including Poland-not th e su p pres sio n but
the complet e elim ina tion of the Jew from Poland . Thus the
Camp of 1 .at iona l Unity, th e party dominant at th e outbreak
of the war, declared: "The Jews are an eleme nt weakening
the state . . . the best solution is emigration ." Colonel \Venda,
the Party 's Chief of Staff, said: "The departure of the Polish
Jews is a nec essity on account of national def ense." The 1 ' ational Democratic Party, the opposition party, urg ed that
"J ews be prohibited from voting, holding any public office or
owning land." The National Radical Party demanded that
jews be forbidd en to work for Poles or employ Poles . "Elimination of the Jew from Poland is the ultimate solution of th e
Jewish problem." In view of this record it is difficult to sup press the suspicion that th e authors of these statements, many
of whom are now members of the Polish Government-in-Exile,
must have a sneaking admiration and gratitude for the thorough job which Hitler is doing on the "Jewish Problem" in
Poland.
In its anxiety to get rid of its Jews the Polish Government
e ven turned Zionist and could always be counted on in a
pinch to vociferously back the Balfour- Declaration. Enlightened Polish statesmen complained euphemistically of Poland's
" su rp lus" Jewish population, or more specifically of Poland's
three million sur p lus Jews. i.e., all of them. In 1938, shortly
after Munich , when there was talk of redistributing the
14
colonial world, Poland actua llj demanded colonies on the
basis of her need to export her "superfluous Jews." As Vice
Premier Kwiatkowski declared plaintively: "The rich nation
call upon the poor overpopulated ones to practice humanitarian principles while they themselves close the doors of their
colonies before the superfluous Jews from Poland," \\'hen
President Roosevelt called the first Refugee Conference at
Eviau, the Polish Covcrumcnt protested agailbt the Conh-rcncc concentrating on the vict ims of the Hitler terror to the
exclusion of its own "superfluous Jews," It is this same Polish
Covcrumcnt, which considered it three million Jews "superfluous," which is taking such an .ur ive interest in the fate of
two Jewish traitors executed by the Soviet Union,
POL\,'U'S E,\S'IFR.' COI.O:-;IES
Until the Soviet Union was admitted to the League of , 'ations in 1934 the \\'hite Russian and Ukrainian minorities in
Poland were practically in the same helpless position as the
Jews. The Soviet Union was a political outcast and since it
was not a member of the League it was unable to invoke the
minority treaty in behalf of its subjugated blood brothers in
\\'hite Russia and Western Ukraine, There was therefore
nothing to prevent Poland from treating \\'estern \\'hite Russia and Ukraine as newly occupied colonies with a native
population which was to make room for Polish settlers,
Since the land was largely the property of a few great
Polish landowners it was CIS) 10 expel the \\'hite Russian
and Ukrainian tenant Farmers from their native soil and
supplant them with Polish peasants, usually army reservists
and their families, thus forming a network of military galTisons in the "occupied regions," By v.uiou-, electoral tricks
familiar in our own South the \Vhite Russians and Ukrainians
were practically disfranchised. The language provision of the
minority treaty was largely ignorcd and in the universities of
their own ancient cities Ukrainian students II'CIT subjected to
Ii)
the lIumerus clausus, hitherto reserved [or Jews. Buell, in his
"Poland," stales "Out of a total of 140 students in the Lvov
medical school only
Ukrainians were admitted in 193I.
clausus many Polish Ukrainians
As a result of this
studied abroad, [or instance at the Ukrainian University at
Kharkov in the Soviet Ukraine."
In 1930 the Polish Ukra inc broke out into an opcn revolt
against the unbearable Polish voke, Several Polish divisions
were mobilized to crush the ;'cvolt and the "pacification"
reached such a pitch of brutality that the League of Nations
was forced to take notice of it with a gentle reprimand.
In 1934 when the Soviet Union was admitted to the League
of .'-lations Poland was in a panic lest the Soviet Union initiate a League investigation of her minorities policies.
Poland took no chances. In the [all of that year Foreign
Xlinister Beck formally declared: "Poland was compelled to
refuse cooperation with the international organization in the
matter of supervision of the application by Poland of the
system of minority protection under the agreement of June 28,
1919." Thus Poland unilaterally abrogated a treaty which was
the diplomatic precondition of its independent existence.
HITLER'S GERMANS PREFERRED
The Polish Covernmcnt's policy toward the German minority was characteristic. In the days of the weak, republican
\\'eimar regime which, until 1926, was not a member of the
League of I lations, the Gcrman minority was gradually edged
out of the \Vestern Polish provinces and its place taken by
Polish settlers. \·\Then Germany became a Nazi dictatorship
all this changed. The equality which the Polish Government
refused to !!rant to the Jews and Ukrainians and White Russiam in the name of justice was granted readily to the Germans in the name of brute force. Though the Nazis later
used the persecution of t hc German m inoritv as a pretext for
their invasion of Poland it is an ironic fact that during the
16
· .azi regime the German m i no i i t v en j oyc d exempla ry tr eat ment in Poland,
From its birth in t9'9 to Hiller's advent in 1933, Poland's
fureign policy was ori entated almost exclusively on its plans to
dism ember th e Sovi et Union and replace Russia as Europe's
easter n Gre at Power. On thi s grandiose program Poland's
leading political parties were in essenti al agr eem ent -somewhat as japan's leading political parties ar e in essent ial
agre ement on an even mor e grandiose program-the moderates, radicals and cons ervatives merely differing on th e tempo
of its execution . The Polish Government realized, however,
that the scheme was too ambitious [or its own unaided
strength . But it looked hopefully for support from its neighbors of the Cordon Sanitaire, from Finland to Rumania, and
for military, financial and industrial assistance from France,
then the dominant military power on the continent. And
always there was the hop e of a "Second Front" from Japan .
The rise of Naz i Germany put the Polish government in a
quandary. l .ot only its diplomatic but its military and industrial orientation had been based on an imminent war against
the Soviet Union with an innocuous, disarmed Germany safely
m the rear. Poland's army, with the ];u'gest percentage of
cavalry in the world, had been organized with a view toward
action on the plains of th e Soviet Ukraine and not in the
semi-ur ba n. semi-wooded , semimountainous terrain of their
German frontier. Its fortifications were inconveniently concentrated on its Russian border and its industry even more
inconvenient lv concentrated on its "safe" German border.
It was inde~d a perilous situation. All the dictates of reason
and self-interest, all the lessons bitterly learned during centuries of Polish history, pointed to a reorientation of Polish
policy toward an alliance with Russia against a foe whose
avowed program was the subjection of all the Slav peoples.
17
Instead Pitsudski signed a ten-y ear non-aggression pact with
Genuany. whir h was in effect an al liancc, though it attracted
far less reciimination in certain circles than the Soviet-German
non-aggression pact which was in effect only an armed truce.
PULA , ' D DRIFTS L'TO HITLER'S ORBIT
Yery soon it became evident that Poland's non-aggression
pact with , a zi Germany was very aggressive, not only against
the Soviet Union but against its former allies including those
to whom il owed its \Try existence. Raymond Leslie Buell
commented: "Poland proceeded to go beyond the publ isncd
version of the. ' o n-Agg ressio n Pact. It showed its hostility to
the whole thesis of 'Collective Security' as compared to th e
~:e~;~l~::e t:~e~sse~~_e:B~~~~:I;::~nl:~I:~S;:10~~1~:l~~~~:~~::X;~;;I;:::'I~
for Poland's policy was its belief that the League had become
an ideological alliance inspired by Russia and directed
against the Fascist states, a belief reinforced by the withdrawal
of Germany. Italy and Japan. In the autumn of 1938 Poland
declined to stand for re-election to the League Council."
In the wi nt cr of 1938 when Hitler seized Austria, Poland
lol lowcd suit by forcing Lithuania to make "peace" with her
; h ;1 preliminary to its future annexation. In the final Mu nich
ciivis of September, 1938. while the crucified Czechoslovak
pcople were debating resistance to the. ' azi ultimatum, the
Polish army mohilized and placed itself squarely between
C/cchoslovakia and its hopes of assistance from the Red Army.
viuurhaneouslv Poland served an ultimatum on Czechoslovak ia demanding the iuuucd iate cession of the Teschcn
district. This Polish stab in the back played no small part in
forcing the Czechoslovak Governmcnt to yield at Munich.
After helping the Nazi lion gobble up Czechoslovakia the
Polish jackal suddenly realized that it was next on the 1 'azi
menu. In the :,pring 01 1!);19 Poland began shamefaced efforts
to renew the ties it had dropped in the democratic camp and
18
reminded itself that it was st ill a member of the League of
- .at ions , It even began La consider the question of coming to
terms with the Soviet Union. But there was a cleavage in the
Polish ruling class which stultified any decisive step in that
direction , The Polish bourgeoisie, with industrial interests
mainly in Western Poland, i.e., in Poland proper, had most
10 fear from Germany and therefore pressed for a Soviet alliaucc. But the military clique of Marshal Smigly-Rvdz and
Colonel Beck, which was in the saddle, mostly East Polish
landowners with vast estates in western " 'hite Russia and the
L'krainc, had no stomach for a Soviet alliance, The dominant
wing of the Polish ruling class preferred risking the independ,' nce of Poland rather than their private estates.
There is no doubt that the outbreak of this war was
hastened by the disinclination of the Allies to accept the
'>mict conditions for effect ive Allied-Soviet military coopera·
t ion, and that . in turn , was primarily due to the suicidal
ohst inacy of the Polish Covcrnrncnt in refusing to permit
the Red Army to occupy battle stations in "Eastern Poland,"
. .evcrtheless, when war broke out, the Soviet Union, if for no
other than selfish reasons, was only too anxious for Poland's
resistance to th e , Tazis to be as prolonged as possible.
It was only when the Polish army was hopelessly crushed
and the Polish Government had fled to Rumania and the
. .az is were sweeping unopposed toward "Eastern Poland"
that the Red Army moved in to stop the Nazis at the cthno~raphic boundaries of Russia and to rescue thirteen million
\\ 'hite Russians, Ukrainians and Jews from 1 Jazi enslavement.
Shortly after, in accordance with the laws laid down by the
Soviet Constitution, the population of \\'estern \\'hite Russia
and \Vestern Ukraine voted in a plebiscite to join their
hrothers in the \Vhite Russian Soviet Republic and the
l ' kra in ia n Sovi et Republic
19
" 'h en th e Sovie t Union was dr awn in to the war and became
ipso facto an ally of Poland, th e Soviet Gov ernment sign ed a
treaty with th e Polish Gov ernrn cnt-iu-Exilc giv ing it facilities
to recruit its on ly m ass arm ) among th e Poli sh war prisoners
and refugees in Russia and formall y arranging to postpon e
all boundary disputes while the war was ragin g. In 19.12, th e
Polish Government brok e this tr eat y pl edg e and publicly
insisted on its claim to "Eastern Poland ." The Sovi et Gov ern ment then had no alternative but to mak e kn own its indi sputable ethnographic po sition on \\ 'hit e Russi a and th e
Ukraine, a position in accord with th e At lantic Charter.
The Polish Government insi sts upon the restoration of its
pr e-war boundaries, that is to say, th e status quo of 1939. But
the fact is that iuternatioual banditry did not start abruptly
in '9 39, Japan , for example, might conc eivabl y be willing to
settle for the boundaries it enjoyed in China in 1939, hut
China might want to go back to 1931 or even further back to
recover its territorial int egrit y. Neither Czech oslovakia nor
Ethiopia nor Albania nor for that part Loyalist Spain , mi ght
consider the status (IUO of '939 particularly satisfying. It is
not strangc, therefore, that \\ 'estern " 'hil e Rus sia and \\ 'cstern Ukraine, which had been despoiled b> Polish impctia livm
in 1!)~I, just ten years before '\[anchuria was wr ested by Japan
from China-should prefer to go back to th e status quo of
19~0 or I!HO rather than the stat us quo of 1939 when the y'
enjoyed the privilege of being Polish colonies.
It should be clear even to the Poles who hav e raised this
issue, that the interests of their country can best be served by
the quickest and most complete defeat of Hitler Germany.
Anything that threatens the unit)' of the United . .ations
delays and threatens that outcome. Let the Polish people mark
the forces that have most loudly taken up the issue. They
will find them to include those forces that speak, suspiciously,
in echoes of Coebbcls' short wave messages. in echoes. that is.
of the voice of their real enemy.
Textof Soviet Note toPolish Government
On -Ilm l 25. 191:\. 1'. M . Xl olot oo, Peopl e's Commissar of
Foreig n . l fJairs of th e U .S.S.R .. handed to T. Romer, Polish
Am bassad o r. ' he follo wing note of th e So vi et Go vernm ent:
On behalf of the Government of the Union of Soviet Socialist R epubli cs. [ have the honor to n otify the Polish Governmcnt of th e Iol lowi ng:
The Sovie t GO\'u 'nlJlelll consider, th e r ecent behavior of th e
Polish G overnment with regard to th e USSR as entirely abnormal . violat ing all regulations and standards of relations
betw een two alli ed Stat es. The slanderous campaign, hostile
to th e Sovi et Union. launch ed by the G erman fascists in connection with the murder of Polish officers which they themselv es commuted in th e Smolensk area on territory occupied
bv German troops, was at once taken up by the Polish Governmcnt and is being fanned in every way by the Polish official
press.
Far from o lk r ing a rebuff to the vile fascist slander of the
L'SSR. th e Polish Government did not even find it nccessarv
to addrcs: th e Sovi et Government with any inquiry or e;' planation on this subj ect.
Havinu rommiit cd a monstrous crime against the Polish
officers. th e Hitl erite authorities now stag e a farcical investigation, ami for this staging they made use of certain Polish
pro -fascist cle me n ts whom they themselves picked in occupied
Poland where c\ 'erything is under Hitler's heel and where
an hom-, Pole r.umot o!, l'nly have his say. For the "investigation" both th e Polish Government and the Hitlcrire Governmcnt invited the Intcrnational Red Cross. which is compelled,
in conditions of a terroristic regime with its gallows and mass
cxtcrruinarion of the peaceful population, to take part in this
invcsrigat ion fa rce staged by Hitler. Clearly such an " investigat ion ." condu cted behind the back of the Soviet Covernment
at that, cannot evoke the confidence of people possessing an,
amount of honesty.
The fact that the hostile campaign against the Soviet Union
commenced simultaneously in the German and Polish pre,s
and is conducted along the same lines-this fact leaves no
doubt as to the existence of contact and accord in carrying
out this hostile campaign between the enemy of the Allies Hitler, and the Polish Government.
\\'hile the peoples of the Soviet Uniun arc bleeding pro fusely in the hard struggle against Hitlerite Germany and
strain every cllort for the defeat of the common enemy of the
Russian and Polish peoples and all freedom-loving, demo cratic countries, the Polish Government, to please Hitler's
tyranny, deals a treacherous blow to the Soviet Union.
The Soviet Government is aware that this hostile campaign
against the Soviet Union was undertaken b) the Polish Gov ernment in order to exert pressure upon the Soviet Government by making use of the Hitlerite slanderous fake for th e
purpose of wresting from it territorial concessions at tht
cxpense of the interests of the Soviet Ukraine, Soviet Byelo russia and Soviet Lithuania.
All these circumstances compel the Soviet Government to
recognize that the present Government of Poland, having slid
to the path 01' accord with Hitler's government, has actuallv
discontinued allied relations with the USSR and has adopted
a hostile attitude toward the Soviet Union.
On the str ength of all the above, the So, iet Government
has decided to sever relations with the Polish Government.
Please accept, Mr. Ambassador, assurances of my very hig-h
esteem.
Vyshinsky's Statement
o ~~~y~\~a~lt~s~~:~~l~l~~tu:;:l:;:~\l~~)~'ri;:~:~e;~~~ r~~:~iit~~l ~~~.~I:~
regarding hostile activities of the Polish Government-in-Exile.
He described how, in accordance wit h the military agree,
22
mc n t of Au gU'lt, 1941, which provided for the formatiou of a
Poli sh a rm v on Sovi et so il, th e Sovi et Gov ernment financed
rhe Polish ;m llY, provided it with th e sam e supplies as R ed
.\ n ll Y units in tra in ing, and r estored Polish citizensh ip to per -ous of Polish na t ion al iiv from \\'estern Ukraine and \\' est ern
Bye loru ssia to fac il ita te 'its formation. By February, 19.P, th e
I'oli sh a rmy reached th e agr eed upon str ength of 73,'115 men.
Then, co ntra n to th eir co m m it me n ts, th e Poli sh lead ers
ref used to send t'he Polish units into battle. The Sovi et Gover nme n t ac ced ed to the requ est of th e Polish Gov ernment to
e-vacu ate th e ~l r my to th e . 'e a r East , and by the en d of 1942,
75 ..191 Polish a rm y m en a nd 37,756 m embers of th eir families
ha d le ft th e U. S.S.R. Additional m embers of th eir families
were lat er cvacutu ed. \Vith the withdrawal of th e army, provisio n for furth er recruiting was naturall y d eni ed , and the
cit izens h ip pro vision inval idar cd .
.\lr. Vyshinsk y then described th e coop eration of the Soviet
a u tho rit ies in relief measures for Polish families evacu a ted
fro m di stri ct s occ u p ied by th e G erm ans. The Sovi et Governme n t its elf ad va nce d funds lor this purpose, as well as food,
a nd transportation faciliti es, and arranged for the distribution
of fu nd s and supplies from abroad. The Soviet authorities periuit tcd the Polish Goverumcnt to set up a network of reprcsc n tat ives throughout the Sovi et Union, and assisted them
ill the esta b lish me n t of dining rooms, children's and invalids'
ho mes a nd other institutions to giv e relief to Polish citizens.
But m emb ers of th e Pol ish Embassy stat! and their local rep resr n tatiues utilized th eir relief functions as a cover for espiolin,!!
." and di sru ptiu e acti vities.
Vvshinsky named among those exposed and deported from
I he U .S.S.R. th e former chief of the Polish military mission,
Gen. Volikovski: th e first secretaries of the Embassy, 'Ar le t and
Zalenski, and numerous other Embassy employees and agents.
In May, 1942, the Commissariat for Foreign Affairs warned
t he Polish Embassy of these findings, but the espionage and
host ile activities continued, and accordingly on July 20, 1942,
' he Soviet Government informed the Polish Government that
t he provisions for Polish relief representatives were withdrawn.
23
POLISH OFFICER EXPOSES TREACHERY
EE~'I:il~:~t to~;;i7io:lig~1; I:II~~ ~~;':::;g.:\I~~~~n~~ ~1~~eL~:.;.~~~
refused to take part in the evacuation of Polish armed forces
Persia. In an article appearing in "Free Poland" (May 5),
published in Moscow, he exposes the true purposes of the
Polish Government-in-Exile in forming this anny:
10
""'e were all overjoyed at the Iact that finally there would
be formed a democratic Polish army, , . , Unfortunately bitter
disillusionment awaited us. The pla ns of the Polish Governmcnt in London regarding the org,u:ization of the Polish army
in the U.S,S.R. were of an entirely different nature. \\' h en
choosing the territory of the " fiddle \'olga for the purpose (of
training), General Anders in conversation with Polish officers
expressed himself as Follows:
.. 'I am highly satisfied since this territory as yet is distant
eno ugh from the front and m ilitary opera tions won't h inder
us during the training period. And when the Red Army collapses under German blows, which will be no later than within
.. few months, we will be able to brea k through to Ir an via
the Caspian Sea. Since we wi ll be the only armed power on
this territory, we will be in a positio n to do as we p lease.'''
Li eu t. Co l. Berling furt her related how an ti-Semi tism and
hatred for the Ukrain ians an d Byeloru ssia ns were systematically inculcated in the Poli sh armed forces, wh ile sabo tage and
esp ionage aga inst th e .S.S.R. were carried ou t by the Po lish
Governme nt agents. A secret anti-Soviet orga n izat io n was perm itte d to exist withi n the Pol ish ar my wh ich ca rr ied out
exec u tion of Pol es suspected of bein g' fr iend ly to the U.S .S.R.
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