Yalta
and the Polish Question:
Why
the West Lost
Part III: Churchill
Like Roosevelt,
Churchill was under pressure to bring home results. Britain had gone
to war over the violation of Poland’s borders, and had played host for
almost five years to the Polish government in exile, which moved to London
after the fall of France. Moreover, Churchill was the head of a notoriously
fickle parliamentary democracy. As he pointed out himself at one
Yalta dinner meeting, he “was the only representative present who could
be thrown out at any time by the universal suffrage of his own people and
... he personally gloried in that danger.” True as that may have
been, he probably did not glory in the prospect of actually being thrown
out.
Unlike
Roosevelt, Churchill was an irremediable, unapologetic imperialist. He
came of age in the waning glory days of the British Empire, and the ideals
of broad self-determination Roosevelt brought to the table did not obscure
Churchill’s interest in preserving as much of Britain’s prestige and power
as possible. Churchill was also a deeply pragmatic statesman of the
old school. He dealt with what was rather than what he would have
liked to have been. He was much better equipped to handle Stalin
than Roosevelt.
Unlike
the majority of the American delegation, Churchill brought a deep suspicion
of Russians and an even deeper distrust and dislike of Bolshevism.
Churchill spent the decade before the war opposing communism just as fiercely
as he denounced fascism, and for him an alliance with Stalin was in every
way a “lesser of two evils” calculation. Kissinger quotes Churchill
as explaining his decision to support Stalin when Hitler invaded the USSR
in 1941 by saying “If Hitler invaded Hell, [Churchill] would at least make
favorable reference to the Devil.”
Churchill’s
mistrust had a long history; as early as 1919, long before he uttered his
famous “riddle wrapped in a mystery cloaked in enigma” line about the Russian
character, he displayed his talent for generalization in a letter: “Nobody
wants to intervene in Russian affairs. Russia is a very large country,
a very old country, a very disagreeable country inhabited by immense numbers
of ignorant people largely possessed of lethal weapons and in a state of
extreme disorder. Also Russia is a long way off.”
Unfortunately
for Churchill and the Poles, events in the meantime had brought Russia
and its affairs very close. Churchill’s mentality at Yalta is the
most well-explained of the three participants, largely because of his extensive
memoirs. Of the western allies, he had the most to lose when it came
to the Polish question; as he told Stalin and Roosevelt at a plenary session,
Britain’s honor was at stake.
He was
also in the weakest position of the three. Though he was friends
with Roosevelt, there was a definite American attitude that Britain was
a junior partner in the western alliance. From the outset, Britain
had been reliant on American industrial might to supply and field its armies,
and by the end of the war its own capacities were stretched to the limit.
“Churchill’s wartime diplomacy therefore consisted of maneuvering between
two behemoths ... Roosevelt’s advocacy of worldwide self-determination
was a challenge to the British Empire; Stalin’s attempt to project the
Soviet Union into the center of Europe threatened to undermine British
security.”
A realist,
Churchill went into Yalta with his eyes open. His dealings on the
Polish question were reflective of this. Churchill’s priority was
Britain and the interests of the Empire. He was willing to make any
concessions he thought were necessary to further the interests of his state.
This aspect of Churchill’s personality was a significant factor in his
decisions to concede to Stalin on key points. By the time of the
Yalta conference, he had realized that the London government in exile was
a virtually worthless ally. Churchill had spent years listening to
the Poles bicker, more time than any of the other participants. It
is clear from his recollections and from the conference notes that he,
too, was impatient and eager to solve the issue, regardless of the specific
demands of the government in exile.
Unlike
Roosevelt, Churchill saw nothing wrong with settling the question of Poland’s
territory before war’s end. On this question, Churchill was ready
to come to a quick accord with Stalin. He had never really supported
the Pole’s claims to their pre-war borders, which represented territorial
gains made after defeating the Red Army in 1920. Instead, Churchill
and Stalin both supported the Curzon Line, drawn by Britain and France
after WWI, as Poland’s eastern border. Part of Churchill’s willingness
to concede the Curzon border was pragmatism. Stalin already controlled
the entire area, and both the western delegations were aware that there
was no reason for him to negotiate at all.
On the
second day of the conference, Churchill put a more noble face on the issue.
“He felt that “after the agonies which Russia had suffered in defending
herself against the Germans, and her great deeds in driving them back and
liberating Poland, her claim was founded not on force but on right.”
His one hope was that the USSR would give Poland Lwow and its oil fields–
which, he said, would be “an act of magnanimity.”
Stalin
quickly reminded Churchill that Russia hadn’t even been present when the
Curzon line was drawn up. “In regard to the Curzon line, concessions
in regard to Lwow ... and Mr. Churchill’s reference to a magnanimous act
on our part, it is necessary to remind you that not Russians but Clemenceau
and Curzon fixed this line ... Should we then be less Russian than Curzon
and Clemenceau? We could not then return to Moscow and face the people
... It is, therefore, impossible to agree with the proposed modification
of this line.” Stalin’s proposal was to compensate the Poles
from captured German territory instead. Churchill opposed this too,
but eventually conceded on both issues.
Churchill’s
focus was less on the territorial issue, which he realized was a foregone
conclusion, than on the issue of free elections, an area he still hoped
to exert some influence on. A democratic Poland would go far towards
preserving a balance of power favorable to the British, and would make
it easier for the western allies to rebuild Germany, also important for
a balanced Europe. Here, too, Churchill expressed his strategic interests
with an almost poetic eloquence:
It
was for this that we had gone to war against Germany -- that Poland should
be free and sovereign. ... Great Britain had no material interest in Poland.
Honor was the sole reason why we had drawn the sword to help Poland against
Hitler’s brutal onslaught, and we could never accept any settlement which
did not leave her free, independent and sovereign. Poland must be
mistress in her own house and captain of her own soul.
As with
the question of Poland’s borders, Churchill was forced back from this position
by a combination of circumstances and cunning. At the meeting quoted
above, he emphasized that the British government “could not agree to recognizing
the Lublin government of Poland.” Three days later in plenary
meeting with all three delegations, Churchill listened to Molotov insist
that the Lublin government was at the head of the Polish people.
Molotov and Stalin undermined his insistence on coming to an agreement
on the Polish question, using the western allies’ arguments against them
by pointing out that to reach a settlement about the composition of the
Polish government without consulting the Poles was hardly fair.
The Soviets
also tried to convince Churchill that the Lublin Poles were much more popular
than the London government, a claim Churchill, denied access to Soviet-controlled
Poland, was in no position to deny. Promised free elections to let
the Poles make their own choice in the near future -- Stalin made no specific
promises as far as when -- Churchill backed off, admitting that “free elections
would of course settle the worries of the British government at least.
That would supersede at once all questions of legality.” Once
again, the western allies had been outmaneuvered. “This was the best
I could get,” Churchill wrote in 1953, curt and almost apologetic in his
assessment of the Yalta agreement on Poland.
The British
failure to secure guarantees from the Soviets on the issue of elections
can also be partially attributed to fatigue. Unlike Roosevelt, Churchill’s
impatience had little to do with illness or an eagerness to get home.
Churchill was simply sick of dealing with the London Poles. He said
as much in open plenary sessions. On February 8, he prefaced his
reservations over recognizing the Lublin government by saying “I myself
do not agree with the London Government’s action, which has been foolish
at every stage.” The views he expressed at Yalta had been formulated
long before. Though he respected the Polish government-in-exile Prime
Minister Stanislaw Mikolaczyk, “he was provoked by the stubbornness and
pretensions of the Polish group in London” in 1944, long before he was
called on to stick up for them at Yalta.
In the
final reckoning, the feelings of the London Poles weren’t Churchill’s priority
either. As it had been all his life, the Empire was where Churchill
placed his loyalty. In terms of their views of the value of empire,
Churchill and Stalin may have been closer than Churchill was willing to
admit. Stalin, of course, could cloak his push for Russian dominion
over the “near abroad” in the language of Soviet internationalism.
Churchill never bothered. At a revealing dinner on the second night
of the conference, Churchill and Stalin affirmed the right of the great
powers to decide the shape of the post-war international system.
According to Chip Bohlen’s notes, “the Prime Minister, referring to the
rights of the small nations, gave a quotation which said: ‘The eagle should
permit the small birds to sing and not care wherefor they sang.’”
To its
credit, the British delegation struggled the hardest to extract concessions
for Poland from the Soviets even though it was the weakest member strategically.
A strong, democratic Poland was in Britain’s interest, of course, but despite
his realism Churchill had a strong romantic streak, and his talk of Poland
being a question of honor rings true.
Still,
there was no clouding the British delegation’s analysis of the conference’s
results. Foreign Minister Anthony Eden wrote afterwards that “only
if a genuinely representative new government had been formed in Poland
quickly would the pledge of free and unfettered election have any meaning.”
Another member of the delegation, disparaging the American enthusiasm for
the agreement, said at the time “I do not know what decisions they have
in mind. It was plain at Moscow, last October, that Stalin means to make
Poland a Cossack outpost of Russia, and I am sure he has not altered his
intentions there.”
<<Back
Next>>
Part I: Prologue
Part II: Roosevelt
Part IV: Stalin
Part V: The
London Poles
Part V: Aftermath |
