The subject of this article are interpretations of the policy of PUWP in which the activities of the party leadership was presented as manifestations of political realism. Author analyzes two aspects of this policy: 1) relations with the Soviet Union under the rule of Wladyslaw Gomulka and Edward Gierek, 2) two different strategies used by the party leadership to resolve socio-political crisis in Poland in the years 1980-1981. Until 1970 the main argument in favor of such “realism” was the fact that the Soviet Union was the guarantor of the western Polish border. In the 70’s Gierek allegedly led the game with Moscow: for the price of dependence on USSR he modernized the state and developed contacts with the West. Imposition of martial law in 1981 in the interpretation of Jaruzelski prevented Soviet intervention and destabilization of the situation in the country. In fact, the alleged realistic attitude PUWP leadership meant the choice of such a strategy which allowed to remain in power.
Polish foreign policy and role of the armed forces in geopolitical considerations of Lieutenant Colonel Tadeusz Zakrzewski addressed to Prime Minister Władysław SikorskiIn January 1943, Commander-in-chief and Prime Minister of Poland, General Władysław Sikorski, received a memorandum on the objectives of the Polish foreign policy drawn up by Lieutenant Colonel Tadeusz Zakrzewski (1897–1964), former military attaché in Bucharest (1938–1940). The policy was founded on three pillars: the Polish Armed Forces, the Polish populace, and propaganda. He emphasised that Poland would achieve true victory with the consolidation of its independent existence within its pre-war borders in the east, and strategically expanded borders – at the expense of Germany (East Prussia, Opole Silesia) – in the west. Central and Eastern Europe was to be divided between Poland (Union of Central Europe: Poland, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Greece, and Hungary) and the USSR (Eastern Union: the USSR, Finland, Latvia, Estonia, and Bulgaria). Romania could choose between the two. Peace and security in the world would rely on the cooperation of regional powers and the relations of states supervised by an international organisation. The durability of the post-war order would be ensured by the universal adoption of democracy, the protection of human and minority rights, extensive trade in commodities and raw materials, and the isolation of warmonger states from the international community. Польская иностранная политика и роль армии в геополитических рассуждениях подполковника Тадеуша Закржевского, обращенных к премьер-министру генералу Владиславу СикорскомуБывший военный атташе в Бухаресте (1938–1940), подполковник Тадеуш Закржевский (1897–1964) в январе 1943 г. отправил главнокомандующему и премьер-министру генералу Владиславу Сикорскому докладную записку о целях польской иностранной политики. Ее основой он назначил: польскую армию, отношение страны к немецкому оккупанту и пропаганду польских целей войны. Он подчеркивал, что польской победой в войне должно стать укрепление независимости в довоенных границах на Востоке, расширенных стратегически и экономически за счет Германии (Восточная Пруссия, Опольская Силезия). Центральная и Восточная Европа должны были быть разделены между Польшу (Центральноевропейский Союз – Польша, Чехословакия, Югославия, Греция, Венгрия) и Советский Союз (Восточный Союз – СССР, Финляндия, Латвия, Эстония, Болгария). Румыния могла принадлежать или к Восточному или к Центральному Союзу. Мир и мировая безопасность опирались бы на сотрудничество держав и региональные союзы государств в рамках международной организации. Прочность послевоенной системы обеспечили бы: всеобщность демократии, права человека и национальных меньшинств, торговое и сырьевое сотрудничество, изолирование агрессора от международного общества.
After the defeat in the war against Poland, the Bolshevik leaders withdrew their support for the previous military policy of the Communist Workers Party of Poland (KPRP). Soldiers of Polish origin, who in 1920 had been delegated to the I Polish Red Army, were retransferred to the Red Army units, where they had formerly performed military service. After the ratification of the Riga Treaty of 16 April 1921, Polish communists had to limit their activities to psychological warfare and propaganda against their political adversaries at home and intelligence infiltration of the Polish Army structures.
The article focuses on the circumstances of the USSR’s breaking off diplomatic relations with Poland in April 1943. The main research problem is the sequence of events in the Polish-Soviet relations in the period from July 1941, i.e. from the signing of the Sikorski-Majski pact, to April 1943, which consequently led to their breaking. The theoretical basis is constituted by the source documents and the basic literature on the subject. The primary research method was a critical analysis of sources and literature. On the basis of the conducted research, the author argues that the matter of the graves of the Polish officers murdered in Smolensk was only a pretext to make a decision to break off the diplomatic relations with the government of General Władysław Sikorski by the USSR and to start cooperation with Polish communists gathered in the Union of Polish Patriots.
The Polish-Soviet conflict during World War II is one of the most complicated issues in legal terms. The war, which, although not declared, but visible in the form of military aggression, never took place in the eyes of the Soviet side. The course of the border and other international agreements, although signed without coercion in the international period, suddenly turned out to be worthless pieces of paper. The provisions of the Atlantic Charter, signed during the war and guaranteeing, inter alia, the inviolability of the borders, turned out not to apply to Poland. The aim of the article is to show what, in such a complicated situation, from the point of view of international law, the Polish-Soviet diplomatic dispute about the future of the Polish eastern border, which is also the border between the Republic of Poland and the Soviet Union, looked like. The source of the work are archival materials stored in British archives and scientific studies.
The purpose of the article is to present the question of Poland’s borders in the years 1939-1941 from the perspective of Anthony J. Drexel Biddle, the U.S. Ambassador to the Polish Government in Exile, based on his diplomatic papers stored in American archives. Biddle’s continued service with the government of Prime Minister Władysław Sikorski since 1939 implied the U.S. recognition of Poland’s political existence despite the American neutrality towards the occupation of Polish territory by Germany and the USSR. The author proposes the thesis that this unique “ambassador of the oppressed nations” dedicated his special attention to Poland, perceived as a “political barometer” of Europe with an impact on the German-Soviet relations. Therefore, Biddle’s wartime papers indicate that the problem of Poland’s borders constituted a considerable obstacle to the U.S. wartime policy that envisaged engaging the Soviet Union as an ally against Germany. These papers show that the Polish government’s dependence upon Western allies, who since 1939 challenged Poland’s prewar eastern border, negatively influenced the content and political consequences of the Polish-Soviet pact of 1941. Contrary to Sikorski’s hopes for the U.S. support in territorial dispute with the Soviets, ambassador Biddle was critical of Polish efforts to obtain American and British guarantees of borders. He shared the British claim for restitution of Poland only within the so called “ethnographic borders” represented by the Curzon Line in the east that would be “compensated” by the annexation of still undefined German territories. Sikorski’s political ideas regarding Poland’s security against both Germany and Soviet Russia were thus met with suspicion by Biddle, who acted on behalf of American diplomacy which apparently feared the separate German-Soviet peace on the one hand, and Poland’s turning away from the Western allies on the other. It appears from Biddle’s diplomatic correspondence that the United States did not intend to guarantee any territorial designs of Sikorski’s government, since Polish claims contradicted the objectives of the foreign policy of the Anglo-Saxon powers, which assigned a crucial role in Central-Eastern Europe to Soviet Russia, not Poland. The author used abundant diplomatic correspondence gathered at The National Archives and Records Administration, at the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library and in the collections of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania in the USA.
In December of 1947 in Foreign Department of Central Committee of Polish Workers’ Party appeared a note concerning difficulties with repatriation of Poles from the USSR. They concerned mainly relatives of members of the ruling party. The note contains descriptions of many formal problems concerning arrival of Polish citizens from the USSR. The document was created when the question of repatriation in Polish-Soviet relations was in fact frozen. Nonetheless, the problems described in the document prove that repatriation remained important issue for communist party in Poland.
The May Coup did not initially bring about any major changes in Polish foreign policy, although the post-May governmental circles put a stronger emphasis on the Promethean idea and the concept of the Intermarium. In mutual relations between Warsaw and Moscow, a dialogue on the Polish-Soviet non-aggression treaty continued, as before 1926. The main point of contention was Warsaw's position on the necessity of concluding a Polish-Soviet non-aggression pact simultaneously with Moscow's analogous agreements with: Latvia, Estonia, Finland and Romania. The article presents the path to the agreement from the perspective of Warsaw, taking into account the changing international situation, including the rise of fascist tendencies in Europe, the threat of war and changes in the USSR's domestic policy. The agreement of 25 January 1932 and the non-agreement pact of 25 July that year between Poland and the USSR were the high points of mutually correct relations. Later years, the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact and 17 September showed that Sanation diplomacy was unable to prevent Poland from losing its independence. Whether this catastrophe could have been prevented remains a matter of dispute.
PL
Przewrót majowy nie przyniósł początkowo poważniejszych zmian w polskiej polityce zagranicznej, choć pomajowe kręgi rządowe silniej akcentowały ideą prometejską i koncepcję międzymorza. W stosunkach wzajemnych Warszawy i Moskwy cały czas, tak jak przed 1926 rokiem, prowadzony był dialog na temat polsko-sowieckiego układu o nieagresji. Głównym punktem spornym było stanowisko Warszawy co do konieczności jednoczesnego zawarcia polsko-sowieckiego paktu o nieagresji z analogicznymi porozumieniami Moskwy z: Łotwą, Estonią, Finlandią i Rumunią. Artykuł przedstawia drogę do porozumienia z perspektywy Warszawy, przy uwzględnieniu zmieniającej się sytuacji międzynarodowej, w tym wzrostu tendencji faszystowskich w Europie, groźby wojny oraz zmian w polityce wewnętrznej ZSRR. Porozumienie z 25 stycznia 1932 roku i pakt o nieagresji z 25 lipca tegoż roku pomiędzy Polską a ZSRR były szczytowym punktem wzajemnych poprawnych relacji. Późniejsze lata, pakt Ribbentrop – Mołotow, 17 września ukazały, że dyplomacja sanacyjna, nie była wstanie zapobiec utracie przez Polskę niepodległości. Kwestią sporną pozostaje to, czy można było tej katastrofie zapobiec.
The article discusses the fate of individuals of interest of the Soviet authorities and deemed the USSR citizens. Some of them were forced labourers on their way back home from Germany and the occupied countries. A large part of them were inhabitants of Wielkopolska who used to have Russian or Soviet citizenship. The article presents treatment thereof in Wielkopolska in 1945-1949.
Jednym z zasadniczych problemów w stosunkach niemiecko – sowieckich w latach 1925-1932 była kwestia traktatowego porozumienia pomiędzy Warszawą a Moskwą. Niestety poza jednym wyjątkiem nie znalazła ona szczególnego zainteresowania wśród badaczy. A szkoda, bo bardzo dobrze ukazuje ona prawdziwą naturę relacji Berlina i Moskwy w latach 1922-1933, które należałoby nazwać okresem rapallskim. Trudno się zatem dziwić, że nie zbadano również wpływu, jakie negocjacje tego porozumienia wywarły na stan stosunków sowiecko-niemieckich. Artykuł niniejszy ma na celu przynajmniej częściowe zmniejszenie tego rodzaju deficytów. Dotyczy on przełomu roku 1931 i 1932, kiedy to miała miejsce ostatnia, decydująca faza negocjacji polsko-sowieckiego paktu o nieagresji. Autor skupił się w nim na przedstawieniu równolegle trwających negocjacji pomiędzy Berlinem a Moskwą dotyczących zasadniczych zapisów polsko-sowieckiego traktatu.
EN
One of the key problems of German-Soviet relations in 1925-1932 was the treaty agreement between Warsaw and Moscow. For Germany, the conclusion of a political treaty between Poland and the USSR posed a threat to the realisation of its main foreign policy priority, namely the revision of the eastern border. Berlin was therefore very suspicious of any attempt at Polish-Soviet rapprochement. When the Soviets and Poles began final negotiations for a Polish-Soviet non-aggression pact in November 1931, this issue became a problem in Soviet-German relations. The problem was so significant that the Soviets consulted the Germans about the content of this agreement. German diplomacy tried to torpedo it, but as this article shows, it did not have very strong arguments. As a result, Berlin had to accept that Moscow and Warsaw concluded a political compromise in 1932.
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