7 JANUARY 1944, Page 1

NEWS OF THE WEEK

IT is natural enough that the Polish Cabinet should have been meet- ing ing to consider Polish relations with Russia in the light of the fact that Russian outposts are already on Polish soil and that the main Russian armies soon will be. There is a situation here that the two parties themselves, and perhaps even more the friends of both, should make it a primary duty to handle with resolute discretion. Diplomatic relations between Russia and Poland are severed, and the question of Poland's eastern frontier has still to be decided. The Russian advance is not to be stayed while such matters are discussed. The essential fact is that when the Russian armies enter Poland they enter it as deliverers. That is tacitly recognised by the Polish Cabinet in the proclamation it issued on Wednesday. The Govern- ment's position is difficult. As a Government in exile it has to be jealous to excess of the rights for which it is trustee. To abandon in London any fraction of Polish sovereignty would ensure its over- throw the moment it got back to Warsaw. In those circumstances, the Polish Ministers could not well have said less than they did, but there is no reason why what they have said should give offence any- where. The Cabinet takes its stand on what it conceives to be Poland's full rights, but the statement is not intransigent, and it closes no doors. Marshal Stalin has declared his belief in the need for a strong and independent Poland, and there is no reason to doubt that he is perfectly sincere in that. It will, more- over, be a Poland certainly not less in area than the Poland Germany invaded in 1939—though that does not mean that its frontiers and contour will in either east or west be necessarily identical with what they were.

Meanwhile the immediate military problem transcends all others. The Russian armies are at some points already passing out of the region of Russian guerrilla support into that of Polish guerrilla support, and it is imperative in the interests of the whole alliance, and of the liberation of Poland herself, that the latter should be as effective as the former. The westward drive must not be checked. The sooner the Russians get to Warsaw (which no Russian has ever dreamed of retaining) the better for the whole of the United Nations and for Poland most of all. Effective co-opera- tion, indeed, between Polish irregulars and Russian regulars may prove the best means of all of preparing the way for the necessary political rapprochement, and it is eminently satisfactory that the Polish Government should take this opportunity of announcing that instruc- tions were given to the Polish underground movement as long ago as October to continue its warfare against the Germans, to avoid all conflicts with the advancing Soviet armies and to co-operate actively with those armies in the event of the resumption of Polish-Soviet relations. This might have been put more strongly, it is true, and the condition laid down in the last paragraph is unfortunate. The first thing, not the second, is to beat the Germans. But at least the danger of any clash between the Russians and the Polish guerrillas should be avoided.