The Chairman of the Council of People’s Commissars of the Soviet Union (Stalin) to the British Prime Minister (Churchill)4
Recently I received from you two messages on the Polish question and have acquainted myself with Mr. Kerr’s statement to Mr. Molotov, made on your instructions on the same question. I could not give a timely reply as the matters at the front frequently distract me from non-military questions.
I give answers to questions inherent.
It stands out that your message as well as, and particularly, Kerr’s statement are interspersed with threats in regard the Soviet Union. I should like to draw your attention to this fact as the method of threats is not only incorrect in the relationship of the Allies but is harmful, as it can bring about reverse results.
The efforts of the Soviet Union in the matter of defending and realization of the Curzon line you qualified, in one of your messages, as a policy of force. This means that now you try to qualify the [Page 1269] Curzon line as not rightful and the fight for it as injust. I cannot at all agree with that position. I cannot but remind you that in Teheran you, the President and I came to an agreement regarding the rightfulness of the Curzon line.
You considered then the position of the Soviet Government on this question as entirely correct, and you called the representatives of the emigrant Polish Government insane if they reject the Curzon line. But now you are defending something entirely opposite. Does not that mean that you do not recognize any more the matters we agreed upon in Teheran and that by doing this you are breaking the Teheran Agreement? I do not doubt that if you had continued to stand firmly on your Teheran position the conflict with the Polish emigrant Government would have already been solved. As to me and the Soviet Government, we shall continue to stand on the Teheran position and do not think to depart from it, as we consider that the realization of the Curzon line is not a manifestation of a policy of force but is a manifestation of reestablishment of lawful rights of the Soviet Union to those lands which even Curzon and the Supreme Council of the Allied powers still in 1919 recognized as non-Polish.
You state in your message of March 7 that the question of the Soviet-Polish border should be postponed until the peace conference. I think that we have here a certain misunderstanding. The Soviet Union is not at war and does not intend to fight against Poland. The Soviet Union has no conflict with the Polish people and considers itself an Ally of Poland and the Polish people. That is why the Soviet Union is shedding blood for the liberation of Poland from German oppression. Therefore it would be strange to talk about armistice between the U.S.S.R. and Poland. But the Soviet Government has a conflict with the emigrant Polish Government which is not expressing the interests of the Polish people and does not express its hopes. It would be the stranger to identify with Poland the separated from Poland emigrant Polish Government in London. It is difficult for me even to point out a difference between the emigrant Government of Poland and the like emigrant Government of Yugoslavia, as well as between certain generals of the Polish emigrant Government and the Serbian General Mikhailovich.5
In your message of March 21 you inform me that you intend to speak before the House of Commons and make a statement that all questions regarding territorial changes should be postponed until armistice or peace conference of the victorious powers and that until then you cannot recognize any transference of territory effected by force. As I understand it, you are showing the Soviet Union as a [Page 1270] hostile to Poland power and are practically renouncing the liberative character of war of the Soviet Union against German aggression. This is equal to the effort to ascribe the Soviet Union things that do not exist in reality and thus discredit it. I do not doubt that the people of the Soviet Union and the world public opinion will regard such a speech of yours as an undeserved insult to the Soviet Union.
Of course, you are free to make any speech in the House of Commons—this is your affair. But if you make such a speech I shall consider that you have committed an act of injustice and unfriendliness toward the Soviet Union.
In your message you express the hope that the failure of the Polish question will not influence our cooperation in other spheres. As to me, I stood and continue to stand for cooperation. But I am afraid that the method of threats and discreditation, if it will be used in the future as well, will not favor this cooperation.