Yalta
and the Polish Question:
Why
the West Lost
Part IV: Stalin
Stalin came to Yalta with the strongest position. A skilled statesman,
backed by capable ministers and on his home turf, Stalin was prepared to
dominate the conference, and dominate it he did. Stalin was a very
different person than either of his counterparts, and understood the British
and American delegations much better than they seemed to understand him.
As a result, he was able to manipulate the outcome of the conference, especially
on the Polish question. After Yalta, any obstacles to setting up
a regime subservient to the USSR in Poland that the international system
might have raised were eliminated thanks to the cooperation of Churchill
and Roosevelt.
Few 20th
century statesmen embody the 19th century idea of realpolitik as fully
as Stalin. When it came to pursuing the interests of the Soviet Union
abroad, Stalin was unrelenting and ruthlessly effective. Morality
never factored into the equation. Ideology played a role, but it
too could be set aside if it interfered with the strategic interests of
the Soviet state. As Kissinger, no stranger to realpolitik himself,
notes,
Roosevelt could not have
found an interlocutor more different from himself than Stalin. Whereas
Roosevelt wanted to implement the Wilsonian concept of international harmony,
Stalin’s ideas about the conduct of foreign policy were strictly those
of Old World Realpolitik. ... His lodestar remained the Soviet national
interest as refracted through the prism of communist ideology. ... [Stalin]
had no friends, only interests.
That Stalin
was such an eminently capable statesman did not bode well for the Poles.
His ruthless pursuit of the USSR’s interests meant he could be relied on
to extract everything he could from the western allies. When the
conference opened, every possible advantage lay with Stalin and the Soviets.
He had the goodwill of the American delegation and the reluctant acquiescence
of the British. He had control over the entire territory of Poland
and was moving rapidly into western Germany. He had a cooperative
regime on the ground in Warsaw. And he had time.
The USSR had
been through an incredible shift in fortune in the course of the war.
Originally allied to Nazi Germany, the Soviets made a rather precipitous
shift after they were invaded by Hitler’s armies. The Molotov-Ribbentrop
pact was set aside, and Stalin began courting the only allies he had left
with concessions, including promises on the Polish question. As the
tide of the war turned in his favor, he became less and less conciliatory.
As Kissinger notes,
As the military situation
turned irrevocably in his favor, Stalin progressively raised his terms.
In 1941, he had asked for acceptance of the 1941 borders and indicated
a willingness to recognize the London-based Poles. In 1942, he began
to complain about the composition of the Polish government-in-exile. ...
By 1944, he had recognized the Lublin group – dominated by communists –
as the provisional government, and banned the London Poles. In 1941,
Stalin’s primary issue had been frontiers; by 1945, it had become political
control of territories beyond these frontiers.
By 1945,
Stalin felt sure he could pressure the western allies into accepting his
version of a provisional government, which disregarded the London Poles
entirely. He was able to do this because of his military control
of the region. As early as summer 1944, Stalin had written off the
London government as players. While they still thought the Soviets
would need their cooperation to govern Poland, “the Soviet rulers did not
feel that need and had no intention of giving up anything they wanted just
to please the Polish government in London or its supporters.”
Not only
did the Soviets have possession of the territory they wanted and control
over the Polish situation, they had plenty of time. The savvier British
saw the importance of moving quickly long before Yalta, and Churchill traveled
to Moscow in October 1944 in an attempt to reach an accord on the Polish
question before it was too late. “The Prime Minister had a sense
– and it came out harshly in his talks with Mikolajczyk in London – that
Poland’s cause was being lost as time went on, and that chances of a settlement
which would allow a truly independent state to emerge were getting poorer.”
Time was
but one of Stalin’s advantages. He also had a clarity of purpose
which neither of the other delegations brought to the table. Though
he kept his true intentions concealed, Stalin had no intention of letting
the Poles hold elections that might go the wrong way. As he told
Milovan Djilas, “this war is not as in the past; whoever occupies a territory
also imposes on it his own social system. Everyone imposes his own system
as far as his army can reach. It cannot be otherwise.”
Stalin’s system had little to do with the friendly democracies Roosevelt
and Churchill imagined for Poland, and he drove towards the establishment
of a socialist Poland with a focus that is obvious in retrospect.
Part of
Stalin’s emphasis on a biddable Poland had to do with his conception of
the USSR’s strategic security requirements. He made this clear at
the third day of the conference.
For Great Britain the
Polish question was one of honor ... but for the Russians it was a question
of both honor and security. It was one of honor because Russia had
many grievances against Poland and desired to see them eliminated.
It was a question of strategic security not only because Poland was a bordering
country but because throughout history Poland had been the corridor for
attack on Russia. ... Since it was impossible by the force of Russian armies
alone to close from the outside this corridor, it could be done only by
Poland’s own forces. It was very important, therefore, to have Poland
independent, strong and democratic.”
Of course,
Stalin’s idea of a strong and democratic Poland had little to do with what
Roosevelt an Churchill were thinking, let alone the goals of the Polish
government in exile. While Churchill’s goals at the conference involved
reconstructing the balance of power in Europe, Stalin was trying to put
as much of the weight on the eastern end of the scale as possible.
To that end, he would use the Yalta agreements to institute wholly Soviet
controlled elections. Cynically or not, Stalin interpreted the agreement
as promising to use the Lublin government as the core of any provisional
government that was formed; the Lublin Poles refused to accept the participation
of the London Poles who had opposed them during the war, and in the end
the elastic Yalta agreement left Poland was left with a Soviet-controlled
regime.
By April,
when the western allies tried to push him on the matter, Stalin told them
to talk to the Polish government, which was by then in control of the country
with the support of Soviet troops. Churchill’s last message to Stalin
was plaintive, and prescient:
There is not much comfort
in looking to a future where you and the countries you dominate, plus the
Communist Parties in many other States, are drawn up on one side, and those
who rally to the English-speaking states and their associates or Dominions
are on the other. It is quite obvious that their quarrel would tear the
world to pieces and that all of us leading men on either side who had anything
to do with that would be shamed before history.”
Stalin’s
performance at Yalta was not successful simply because of the miscalculations
of the other two delegations. He also had a monopoly on the information
coming out of the country. His insistence on a friendly, cooperative
government was framed in terms of a desire to protect his army’s rear as
they drove through Poland to Berlin. Just six months earlier, in
talks with Mikolajczyk, he dismissed the Polish army as a threat: “My weszlismy
do Polski I przekonalismy sie co tam sie dzieje. Mam raporty naszych
dowodcow wojskowych o Waszsej Armii Krajowej. Co to za armia bez
artylerii, bez czolgow, bez lotnictwa? Nawet broni recznej nie ma
ona dosyc. W swietle nowoczesnej wojny to jest nic.”
By Yalta,
of course, Stalin’s rhetoric had turned the Armia Krajowa, the armed extension
of the London government, into a menace, and he practically threatened
to halt his advance if a sympathetic government was not instituted.
Despite the tragic failure of the Warsaw Uprising, which the Soviets had
refused to support, there were still “agents of the London government who
claim to be agents of the underground forces of resistance” operating in
Poland.
I must say that no good
and much evil comes from these forces. ... We have arrested some of them
and if they continue to disturb our rear we will shoot them as military
law requires. ... We will support the government which gives us peace in
the rear, and as a military man I could not do otherwise. Without
a secure rear there can be no more victories for the Red Army. Any
military man and even a non-military man will understand this situation.”
For the
western delegations, the Polish government was not worth the terrible toll
of having to take Berlin themselves.
Stalin
also used the western allies’ rhetoric against them, cannily using the
absence of any Polish representatives as delaying tactic. One exchange
is particularly vivid. One can almost see the smirk on Molotov’s
face as he smoothly deflects a long, passionate plea from Churchill for
a settlement on the Polish government question by putting real agreement
off. “Perhaps the discussions in Moscow will have a useful result.
It is difficult to consider the Polish question without the presence of
the Poles.”
Roosevelt
and Churchill gamely responded, proposing that a delegation of Poles be
rushed to the conference – and Stalin again deftly deflected the proposal,
delaying any talks until a later meeting in Moscow. With time on
his side, and knowing he would be able to pick and choose who he decided
to negotiate with once Yalta was over, Stalin couldn’t lose.
Even the
conference’s venue was a victory of sorts for Stalin. Roosevelt had
delayed the meeting until after his inauguration on Jan. 20, 1945, even
though Churchill was anxious to settle the issues before time gave Stalin
even more control over matters. Roosevelt needed to stay in touch
with Washington, and “he had tried to induce Stalin to come to Italy or
... any other pleasant spot in the Mediterranean. But Stalin had
continued to avow that on the advice of his doctors he would not be able
to attend a meeting elsewhere than at some point within the Soviet Union.”
Forcing Churchill and the gravely ill Roosevelt to trek most of the way
around the world to meet him on his turf was a symbolic coup, especially
since Stalin could no longer use the pressure of war as an excuse for not
leaving the USSR.
Looking
back on the Yalta conference, it isn’t hard to understand why the resolution
of the Polish question looked so much like a victory for Stalin -- because
it was. No matter how hard Hopkins and Stettinius tried to put the
best face on the American delegation’s performance at Yalta, Stalin had
them beat. Chip Bohlen, sitting on the other side of the table, summed
up Stalin’s victory at Yalta well. “Stalin held all the cards and
played them well. Eventually, we had to throw in our hand.”
<<Back Next>>
Part I: Prologue
Part II: Roosevelt
Part III: Churchill
Part V: The
London Poles
Part VI: Aftermath
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