860C.01/12–2144: Telegram
The Chargé to the Polish Government in Exile (Schoenfeld) to the Secretary of State
[Received 9:32 p.m.]
Poles 134. I had a talk day before yesterday with former Premier Mikolajczyk. He referred to the debate on Poland in the House of Commons on December 15 and said he was dissatisfied with Mr. Churchill’s statement that at the peace conference the British Government would support the Curzon Line, inclusive of Lwow and the oil bearing areas in Galicia, as the Soviet frontier. He said that when Ambassador Harriman was recently in London and discussed the President’s willingness to intervene with Marshal Stalin in favor of leaving Lwow and the oilfields in Galicia to Poland, Mr. Churchill had offered to reinforce such an intervention. Now, about a fortnight later, he had publicly committed himself and the British Government to the inclusion of those areas in Soviet Russia. He regarded this as unfair and as presenting an added obstacle to a solution of Polish Soviet difficulties.
At the Moscow meetings, Mikolajczyk continued, Churchill had not touched on the question of Lwow. Even with regard to Vilna he had been more guarded even though he had indicated that the British had not approved of the manner in which Poland had taken Vilna,36 Besides the geographic position there was less favorable for Poland. An extensive area lies between Vilna and the proposed Polish Soviet frontier, but this is not the case with regard to Lwow and the oilfields. The latter area is small and could readily be given to Poland.
Mikolajczyk was pleased on the other hand that the question of Poland’s western frontiers had been publicly discussed by Mr. Churchill and been the subject of debate.
He thought the debate indicated that British opinion was conscious of the immense transfer problems that the proposed frontier arrangements would involve. He had always had this in mind. On a visit to Chequers last spring he had urged Mr. Churchill not to commit himself to the Curzon line, for it was evident that the more Poland was cut in the east the more it had to receive in the west. He had asked why make the transfer question harder than necessary, and had expressed his belief that the Prime Minister with all his popularity would not succeed in making so drastic a plan acceptable to British and American opinion. The debate had confirmed this.
[Page 1351]As for the Arciszewski Cabinet’s reaction to the debate, Mikolajczyk thought it was singularly unrealistic. They were pleased that Mr. Churchill had said that the British Government continued to recognize the Polish Government in London. They were also pleased by the amount of sympathy expressed for the Polish point of view in the debate and by the reactions of the British and American press. Mikolajczyk thought, however, that the Arciszewski Cabinet was naive in the satisfaction they derived from the speeches favorable to the Polish point of view. They did not seem to distinguish the difference in importance between a speech, however favorable, made by a back bencher like Mr. Pickthorn37 and a pronouncement of policy by the British Prime Minister adverse to the Polish point of view.
He thought the present Polish Cabinet had also taken an unrealistic view regarding Mr. Stettinius’s statement on Poland. They had taken it as an endorsement of their view that the question of frontiers should be left until the end of the war. He on the other hand thought that while this was the general principle, the Secretary’s statement meant that there could and ought to be exceptions.
Mikolajczyk indicated that there was an active ferment within the Polish political parties with respect to the present Polish Government, but he thought it would be a mistake to overestimate the likelihood of any change of government in the immediate future.
Of the four principal political parties only one, namely the National Democrats, is satisfied with the government.
The Peasant Party, Mikolajczyk said, had decided to go into open opposition. When the new Cabinet was formed, the Peasant Party had taken the position that it would support it as the legal government. This did not mean that the party supported the government’s policy (its role is something in the nature of “His Majesty’s loyal opposition”). He was in agreement that the new Cabinet should try out its policy but he objected to its pretending to follow his policy of seeking a Polish-Soviet settlement when in reality it was seeking to postpone a settlement until the end of the war.
The Socialists were divided. The more moderate members had refused to join the Arciszewski government. Moreover, following Mr. Churchill’s speech, Mr. Ciolkosz, one of the most influential Socialist leaders, came to see him and said he felt something had to be done. Mikolajczyk asked him whether this meant he would withdraw support from the present Cabinet. Ciolkosz was not prepared to go so far. It was arranged that a Socialist delegation should later confer with Mikolajczyk.
[Page 1352]The Christian Labor Party was also divided and there was some question of the party withdrawing its representatives from the Cabinet. A decision, however, had not yet been reached.
If the Christian Labor Party should withdraw and with the Peasant Party in opposition, the Arciszewski Cabinet would be left only with members of the Nationalist Party and the more irreconcilable wing of the Socialist Party. Though in agreement in their attitude toward a settlement with Russia, the Nationalists and Socialists were otherwise as fire and water in their views. Normally such a combination could not survive. But it would be hazardous to underrate the tenacity with which they might cling to office, especially as they represented the viewpoint of President Raczkiewicz and his closest advisers regarding a settlement with Soviet Russia. (Those advisers include Zaleski, former Foreign Minister who resigned38 from Sikorski’s Cabinet in protest against the Soviet Polish treaty of July 1941, and Lukasiewicz,39 former Polish Ambassador to France.)
An element which may affect the situation is the attitude of the underground administration of Poland. On December 9 a message was received from it stating that the Arciszewski Cabinet should be reorganized so as to be fully representative of all parties and that the underground was drawing up its ideas on policy and would submit them when completed. Mikolajczyk said that when the proposals submitted to Moscow last August were drawn up, they supposedly represented the last word of the underground administration. By his resignation he had brought it about that they were now drawing up revised proposals. He imagined that their views should be nearer his views than those of the present government and that they would favor a settlement with Russia at this time and would agree to certain concessions. He did not know, however, whether they would go as far as Moscow desired in the boundary matter. On this point, his own (Peasant) Party in Poland had sometime ago given him full authority to make any frontier settlement that he considered necessary, provided that the independence of the rest of Poland was fully assured.
He continued to be convinced that some effort had to be made to prevent a policy of draft [drift]. He thought the present Cabinet did not recognize the dangers. Merely letting matters run until the peace conference would not meet the situation. If meanwhile the Soviets and the British agreed on Poland’s eastern frontier, the United States would later scarcely be able to oppose it successfully. Meanwhile the Soviets were in actual possession and the results of not having an arrangement would be that several million Poles east of the [Page 1353] Curzon line would be in danger of deportation and destruction, which would mean a permanent and irreparable loss to the Polish nation. There would in addition be the uncertainties regarding the western frontiers.
There was also the question of the Lublin Committee. He doubted whether the question of its recognition as the provisional government was immediate. He was aware, however, that the British had received a message on December 13 from Marshal Stalin (a) stating that the Soviet Government was unwilling that supplies should be sent to the Polish underground over Soviet occupied areas; and (b) asking whether the time had not come to recognize the Lublin Committee. He was also aware that the French were sending an unofficial representative to the Committee. If the Committee should be recognized, this could be an added complication.
In the circumstances he was convinced that some effort had to be made to devise a positive policy. He felt particularly that when the President, Mr. Churchill and Marshal Stalin held their meeting,40 there should be some coherent plan regarding Poland which would take into account all the elements in the situation and which would permit the organization of a government which might go to Poland. He was giving thought to the working out of such a plan.
He indicated that a further element which might eventually have an influence on the situation was the possible arrival here before long of Vicente Witos,41 the well-known Peasant leader (not to be confused with his brother Andre Witos,42 recently removed from the Lublin Committee). If Vicente Witos should get out of German-occupied Poland and come here a reformation of the Polish Government around him might be possible.
While these are the principle elements in the situation at the moment, it is still too early to forecast in what form or when they will crystallize. But it should be remembered that changes in the Polish Government are less dependent on pressure of opinion or of parties than on the decisions of the Polish President. In consequence the present situation may readily run on for some time.
Repeated to Moscow.
- Gen. Lucien Zeligowski with a large number of irregular Polish troops drove the Lithuanian soldiers out of Vilna on October 9, 1920, and claimed the city and most of the province for Poland.↩
- Kenneth W. M. Pickthorn, the Senior Burgess for Cambridge University, who participated in what he judged to be “a very sad” and “rather disappointing Debate.” Parliamentary Debates, House of Commons, December 15, 1944, 5th series, vol. 406, cols. 1502–1574, passim. ↩
- Concerning his resignation, see Foreign Relations, 1941, vol. i, p. 245.↩
- Juljusz Lukasiewicz, Polish Ambassador in France at the outbreak of war in 1939.↩
- This was the tripartite conference held at Yalta in the Crimea from February 4 to February 11, 1945. For records of this Conference, see Foreign Relations, The Conferences at Malta and Yalta, 1945.↩
- Wincenty Witos, leader of the Polish Peasant Party before the war.↩
- Andrzej Witos, who had been a vice chairman of the Polish Committee of National Liberation and Director of the Department of Agriculture and Agricultural Reform.↩