Stalin's Secret Agents: The Subversion of Roosevelt's Government by M. Stanton Evans & Herbert Romerstein

Author:M. Stanton Evans & Herbert Romerstein [Evans, M. Stanton & Romerstein, Herbert]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Tags: History
ISBN: 9781439147702
Amazon: 143914768X
Goodreads: 13573513
Publisher: Threshold Editions
Published: 2012-10-31T23:00:00+00:00

14.

THE RAPE OF POLAND

The political outcomes of World War II were disastrous not only for the defeated nations, but also for many who sided with the victors. Nowhere was this more obviously so than in the case of Poland. The war in Europe was ostensibly fought for Polish independence, but would end in the country’s total subjugation. Poland thus embodied the tragedy of the conflict as described by Churchill: the democracies at terrible cost had won the war, then lost the peace that followed.

Poland became the proximate cause of fighting by the Western powers in September 1939, when it was invaded first by Hitler, then by Stalin, and the dictators divided up the country between them. Hitler’s invasion triggered a guarantee from England and her ally France to come to the aid of Poland in the event of such aggression. However, neither the British nor the French had the means of enforcing these brave pledges, so that Poland quickly fell to the invaders (as France herself would fall some nine months later).

Subsequently, when the United States entered the war as well, the Anglo-Americans would make further vows to Poland, as to other nations conquered by the Nazis. Such pledges were implicit in the Atlantic Charter of 1941 and related statements by the Allies about self-government and freedom, reinforced in comments to Polish exile leaders about the reign of liberty that would follow when the war was over. But these promises too would not be honored. Rather, when the fighting ended, Poland would again be conquered and dismembered—this time with the explicit sanction of the Western powers.

The reason for this reversal was that, between the beginning of the war and its conclusion, the Soviets had been converted from foes to allies, and in this new guise continued to press their claims on Poland. When Hitler invaded Russia, the Communists were thrown willy-nilly into alliance with England. Grateful for backing from any quarter, Churchill embraced them as newfound friends and praised them in extravagant fashion. As has been seen, similar notions would prevail at the Roosevelt White House, in terms exceeding the views of Churchill. The pro-Soviet attitudes now suffusing Western councils would spell the doom of Poland.

Among the most striking features of wartime diplomatic history was the oft-repeated belief of the Western leaders that they had to make concessions to Moscow, while asking little or nothing in return from Stalin. The rationale for this would vary from one case to the next: to keep the Soviets from making a separate peace with Hitler, to build up their confidence in our intentions, to reward them for “killing the most Germans,” to placate them because of their great military power. Whatever the stated purpose, the result in nearly all such instances was the same: to give Stalin things that he demanded.

Foremost among such demands was that the Soviets keep the part of Poland they had seized in 1939 in common cause with Hitler. Despite efforts by some in the State Department to oppose

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