POLAND'S DILEMMA
DIPLOMATIC negotiations cannot with advantage be carried on through the medium of public manifestoes, and the only person who ii likely to derive unalloyed satisfaction from the exchange of declarations between Poland and Soviet Russia is Dr. Joseph Goebbels. To say that is not to condemn the manifestoes in themselves. While there are points in them which invite criticism, there are on both sides welcome signs of responsibility and restraint and some indications of conciliatory disposition. But the con- troversy has obvious dangers, and the sooner the present method of conducting it is abandoned the better. The most hopeful step that could be taken would be the resumption of diplomatic relations between the Soviet Union and Poland, and there is no greater service that British and American, and, it may be added, Czecho- slovak, diplomacy could render than to exert reasonable persuasion in the required quarter to that end. Meanwhile, since it is inevit- able that the public declarations of the two governments should evoke public comment in this and other countries, it is desirable to place Briefly on record the facts germane to the present situation. It is only in the light of an objective review of the salient events of the past twenty-five year that a just assessment of the claims and counter-claims of the two governments is possible. The Russian statement, by its reference to the Treaty of Riga, of 1921, has made such a review unavoidable.
To be complete, indeed, the review-must go back as far as the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, in March, 1918, by which the Union of Socialist Soviet Republics renounced in favour of Germany all claim to the whole of the territory which since 1921 has been known as Poland. The Allied victory eight months later, and the Treaty of Versailles in 1919, reversed that decision, and a Polish State was established with its boundaries fixed to the north, west (subject to a future decision regarding Upper Silesia) and south, but with • the eastern frontier left provisional. The so-called Curzon line marked the limit of territories recognised as indis- putably Polish. That did not mean that the territories to the east of the line were regarded as indisputably non-Polish, still less as indisputably Russian. It meant simply that further investigation was needed before a final line could be drawn. But the withdrawal of the German troops had left Poles and Russians to contest various disputed territories ; in May of 1920 the Poles under Pilsudski swept through the Ukraine and captured Kiev, but the Soviet forces rallied, and by August were at the gates of Warsaw, only, to be thrown back by a counter-offensive. Both sides by this time had had enough of fighting, and a peace treaty signed at Riga In 1921 fixed by agreement Poland's eastern frontier as it has remained uncontested down to September, 1939. It was the Poland lying within that frontier to whose defence Great Britain pledged herself in March of that year. Meanwhile a Pact of Non- Aggression between the U.S.S.R. and Poland, containing the vital phrase " Considering that the Treaty of Peace of March 18th, 1921 [the Treaty of Riga], constitutes now, as in the past, the basis of their reciprocal relations and undertakings . . .", was signed in 1932, and in 1934 extended till December 31st, 1945. In 1938 a joint communiqué was issued by the Soviet and Polish Governments, declaring that relations, between the two countries- " are and will continue to be based to 'the fullest extent on all the existing agreements." In August, 1939, the Soviet Union signed a Non-Aggression Pact with Germany. On September 1st, 1939, Germany invaded Poland. On September 17th Russia invaded Poland, being very intelligibly anxious to preVent Germany from penetrating as far as the-old Russo-Polish (Treaty of Riga) frontier.
Till June, 194r, Russia occupied the parts of Poland which she had invaded, and declared the greater part of them to lid permanently incorporated in the Soviet Union on the basis of a plebiscite taken under armed occupation and in the absence of all Polish authority. Then, on June loth, 1941, came Hitler's attack on Russia, and on July 3oth of that year an agreement was concluded between the Soviet and Polish Governments, declaring, inter alio, that " the Government of the U.S.S.R. recognises the Soviet-German treaties of 1939 as to territorial changes in Poland as having lost their validity " ; Mr. Eden at the same time declared in an official Note that " His Majesty's Government do not recognise any territorial changes which have been effected in Poland since August, 1939." The conclusion is inevitable that these declarations constituted a reaffirmation of the Treaty of Riga line as the recognised and accepted frontier between Russia and Poland. Since then, unfortunately, relations between Russia and Poland have deteriorated. There have been faults on both sides. Poles have had good reason to complain of the treatment of some of their nationals in Russia. Russia has had reason to complain of the language used by some of the Polish papers in London regarding the Soviet Union. As the result of differences which had nothing to do with the question of the frontier diplomatic relations between the two countries were broken off by Russia in April of last year and have not yet been restored. Till a few days ago the whole of Poland remained in German occupation, and the question of the future of its eastern provinces was not therefore an immediate issue. The advance of the victorious Russian armies, with the prospect of the progressive liberation of Polish territory, has changed that situation radically, and the Poles are naturally concerned to know what the policy of their liberators will be. Hence the statement issued by them last week and the answering statement by the Russians published in this country on Tuesday.
From these facts what conclusion is to be drawn? No conclusion of any effective value at all, for the one overriding fact is that neither Poland herself nor any other Power can prevent Russia from fixing any Russo-Polish frontier that she may decide to fix. And what the Soviet Union in its latest Note proposes to fix is something approximating very closely to the Curzon line of 1919. That is an improvement on the frontier laid down in 1939 ; it will involve the return to Poland of some of the territory occupied by Russia between that year and June, 1941, and even on this there may be some room for negotiation. The Russians say they are ready to concede to Poland any territory with an indisputably Polish population—not an entirely easy arrangement to carry out where races are so indeterminate and so mixed. Poland in return is invited to enlarge her borders at the expense of Germany, notably by the absorption of East Prussia—in plain defiance of those canons of self-determination on which Russia bases her claim to Eastern Poland—and to associate herself with the Russo-Czechoslovak Pact. The Russian Note closes with an ungenerous reference to " the Polish émigré Government " in London and various strictures on that Government's incapacity to settle disputes—an incapacity which must obviously be ascribed equally to Moscow. That, then, is the situation, and it is not much use arguing whether it is a situation that has been justly or reasonably created. Great Britain and the United States both have a vital interest in it, but they can do no more than offer their services as mediators, and they cannot press even that beyond a point. The Polish Government must clearly pursue negotiations on the basis offered by Moscow, and' it ought to be possible to secure from both parties the expression of a resolve to put their relations on a new and durable bars. That will involve on the Polish side the surrender of territory held without dispute from 1921 to 1939, a grave step for a Government in exile to take, and the entry on equal terms into the Russo- Czechoslovak Pact. This in turn presumes the resumption of full diplomatic relations between the Polish and Russian Govern- n-.ents and the,abandonment by Russia of attempts to undermine the authority of the Polish Government in London. That Government is in an admittedly difficult position ; all governments in exile are ; but M. Mikolaiczyk and his colleagues are entitled to claim that it represents Poland quite as fully as the Belgian Government in London represents Belgium or the Dutch Government in London Holland. It is in constant touch with occupied Poland, and its Deputy Prime Minister is one of the leaders of the underground resistance movement there. The most disquieting development of late has been the tendency of Russia to form some sort of Polish administration in Moscow, with a view to recognising it at an opportune moment as the effective Government of Poland. If that and other difficulties can be cleared up at the sacrifice by the Poles of some territory which is neither decisively Polish nor decisively Russian by race, the sacrifice, in the circumstances existing, will be worth while.
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