Anita J. Prazmowska

The Eastern Front and the British guarantee to Poland of March 1939

Given the context of British foreign policy of the period, the guarantee to defend Poland against German aggression, announced on 31 March 1939, was to say the least an unusual gesture. Since the release of Cabinet papers in 1968 the background to this development has been studied in greater detail. The basic theory earlier propounded by A.J.P. Taylor, that the guarantee committed Britain to the defence of the contentious status of the Free City of Danzig and thus indirectly led to the British entry into war, remains unchallenged in British historiography. S. Newman, in a more recent publication, has supported this view with the argument that the British guarantee to Poland resulted in Polish intransigence which in turn led to the outbreak of the war.2 2

Poland's Foreign Policy: September 1938 – September 1939

On 31 March 1939, Britain, breaking with hitherto steadfastly pursued policy, declared her commitment to the defence of Poland in the event of a German attack. This gesture was a dramatic change in Britains foreign policy, not merely in relation to one East European state, but more notably in relation to Europe as a whole. Not surprisingly, the declaration has been the focal point of historical attention, although the events following have received less attention. The crisis days of March 1939 saw a chain of events, not necessarily of the same origin or character but which in sum total caused disquiet in European capitals, most clearly in London. Because of this it is easy to over-look the long-term nature of some of the events which culminated in March 1939 and thus, in consequence, to overestimate the effect of the British guarantee upon Polish foreign policy.

The Kielce Pogrom 1946 and the Emergence of Communist Power in Poland

On 4 July 1946 a pogrom took place in the Polish town of Kielce. This was not just a random outrage against a group of Jews, but a prolonged and sustained attack against a Jewish centre in which the town community took part and neither the police nor the security services took measures to stop. In addition to the 43 Jews dead in Kielce, further attacks claimed additional victims. This article explains how the Communists reacted to the event. Investigations which followed and interviews conducted by the Military Prosecutors Office revealed weakness in the administrative and security structures in Kielce. These were related to the general unreliability of personnel in the Communist Party and the security services. The result of enquiries which followed was to signal the need to build a more reliable party structure in the provinces and to close ranks against enemies. If the Communists still thought that they could come to power through cooperation with the community and existing party and social organizations, the results of the Kielce enquiries dispelled these hopes. They confirmed the general need to build a more reliable party in anticipation of power.

‘Frenchmen’ in Polish Mines: The Politics of Productivity in Coal Mining in Poland 1946–1948

Abstract In the period 1946–1948, 13,721 Polish miners were repatriated by the state from France to Poland. The repatriation was vital to the development of coal mining. This repatriation was distinct because it did not involve returning to Poland people who had been displaced during the war. These Poles had emigrated to France during the interwar period. After a successful start, when over 5,000 men and their families came to Poland in 1946, the project came to a halt. Poland was not a welcoming environment for these men and France wanted to retain them.

Anticipation of Civil War: The Polish Government in Exile and the Threat Posed by the Communist Movement During the Second World War:

After the occupation of Polish territories by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union in September 1939 a Polish government was formed in exile. At the same time in occupied territories underground resistance organisations emerged. All pre-war parties, to some extent, collaborated with each other. Throughout the war the government, its agencies in occupied Poland and the armed resistance prepared to take power after the war. They assumed that the end of the war would be followed by a civil war, or at least by revolutionary activities, as had happened after the First World War. Since the Communist party remained outside the consensus formed by the war time organizations, the government in exile and those loyal to it in occupied Poland feared that it would spearhead Soviet entry into Poland. Moreover they were anxious that the Communists would act as a catalyst for the revolutionary upsurges, which they anticipated. Thus throughout the war, but in particular from 1943, they gathered intelligence information on Communist activities in occupied Poland. They also investigated the likelihood of the Communists acting as a focal point for the disaffected radical elements from the peasant and the Socialist parties. This article suggests that contrary to the assertion that the main aim of war time policies was the restoration of an independent Poland, planning for the capture of power played an important role in war-time debates.

Kevin McDermott and Matthew Stibbe (eds), Stalinist Terror in Eastern Europe: Elite Purges and Mass Repression

merely as a ‘container of discourse’ (9). The main basis for Vaizey’s reconstruction is provided by research on letters sent between German soldiers and their families during World War Two. An estimated 30 to 40 million letters passed back and forth between the private sphere and the front. Far fewer have been archived. While recognizing some of the pitfalls of censored letters as a source, Vaizey argues that we can ‘witness the dialogue between men and their families as it unfurls on the page’ (11). Such material suggests that families were at the very heart of most people’s experience of war (150). In addition to the letters, she has collected material from diaries, contemporary sociological studies and postwar women’s magazines. What seems slightly strange is Vaizey’s decision not to cover ‘incomplete’ families or families in what became East Germany. She also ignores the extent to which the letters themselves were shaped by discourse. The letters are remarkable for their candour, but offer only thin slivers through which to see wartime relationships. Sustaining a long-distance relationship with loved ones was difficult and at times highly strained. Vaizey argues that ‘Wartime correspondence between husbands and wives gives us a wonderful insight into the intimate world of individual marriages’ (91). But there is more than a frisson of voyeurism in eavesdropping on these intimate exchanges. Recounting the horrific postwar conditions in great detail, Vaizey shows that most women did not feel liberated by the absence of men. Rather than a change in gender roles, above all what they wanted was the reinstatement of old ones (110). For many this meant a return to peacetime normality. In contrast to the discursive emphasis on the ‘crisis of the wartime family’, Vaizey stresses its resilience. Families pulled together to overcome adversity and despair. In essence, this book marks the beginning of an important debate about discourse. Not all of its arguments stand up to critique, but it provides a much-needed emphasis on ordinary human beings and on their struggle to sustain loving relationships amid unimaginable horror.

Reviews: Michel Fleming, Communism, Nationalism and Ethnicity in Poland, 1944— 1950, London, BASEES/Routledge Series on Russian and East European Studies, 2009; 177 pp.; £85 hbk; ISBN 9780415476515

convinced that ‘Soviet power was here to stay’ and that it was ‘critical to work with rather than against the Soviet Union’ (230), the fact of the matter is we never will know what would have happened. Other legacies are easier to establish. FDR convinced Americans to abandon their ‘isolationism’ (what Kimball more correctly calls ‘unilateralism’) and embrace internationalism, as Alan Henrikson contends in his essay. He instituted, as Mark Stoler argues in his contribution, the beginnings of the national security state, which would come into full flower under his successor, with the president at the center co-ordinating military-strategic and foreign policies. He laid the groundwork, as Randall Woods demonstrates effectively, for a postwar global economy, including, as Alan Dobson perceptively shows, a greatly expanded commercial aviation industry. These are concrete legacies that remind us of the critical role that FDR played in American and world history. Perhaps not surprisingly, the authors are mostly positive in their appraisal of FDR (although this may be the result of editorial decisions, as LaFeber relates the names of several well-known scholars who participated in the conferences but whose papers did not make it into this volume, among them Frank Costigliola, Anders Stephanson, J. Gary Clifford, Eric Alterman, and William Roger Louis). Not to be found are critics who would accuse FDR of having sold out to the Soviets or of having been irresponsibly guarded about his thoughts and intentions on a range of issues, creating, after his death, a kind of knowledge gap that was ultimately filled by officials with anti-Soviet views from the State Department and other agencies. The one essay that moves toward criticism is LaFeber’s. While he calls FDR ‘a great wartime leader’, he faults him for falling prey to Wilsonian idealism in ‘searching for a consensus for policies in 1945 he knew would not work’ (225). At least one of the editors, David Woolner, appears not to agree with LaFeber here. Woolner lauds Roosevelt for believing that ‘moral persuasion’ and not ‘military or economic power’ were necessary to ‘secure a safe and productive place’ for the United States in the world (240). On this point, I think LaFeber gets it right. All told, this volume consists of a fine collection of essays that would work well in courses on the second world war, the origins of the Cold War, and US foreign policy more generally.

Rebellious satellite: Poland 1956

“cardinals” in the Soviet Politburo in March 1985 turned out to be even more important than the vote of the cardinals in Rome in 1978’ (p. 478). Brown’s book stimulates comparisons between the Soviet Union, China, and other communist regimes. While political liberalisation certainly meant death to the communist system, economic liberalisation under party control proved to be quite possible. The real watershed, as Brown shows, was the transition from the ‘war communism’ phase in the evolution of communism as a state system to the ‘welfare state’ with institutionalised and costly social commitments. After that transition, ‘going back’ to capitalism smoothly was virtually impossible. However, the communist reformers and the ‘party intelligentsia’ did not know anything about it. Gorbachev and his ‘new thinkers’, in their attack on the legacy of Stalinism and Bolshevism, dashed into a suicidal political liberalisation and unwittingly destroyed the Soviet Union itself. In contrast, Deng Xiaoping in China managed to divide economic and political freedom successfully – in defiance of liberal as well as Marxist orthodoxies.

Polish Military Plans for the Defeat of Germany and the Soviet Union, 1939–41

After the defeat of Poland in September 1939 the Polish leaders were determined to fight the two enemies. A government-in-exile was formed in Paris with the aim of creating military units that would fight with Poland’s allies and establish Poland’s right to have a say in matters relating to the war and post-war decisions. General Sikorski’s position as Prime Minister of the government-in-exile, though supported by the French, was never secure and he and his policies were subject to constant criticism. Two dilemmas preoccupied the Polish leadership. The first focused on the trustworthiness of France and Britain to defend Polish interests.The second concerned the Polish units. Were they to be used to liberate Poland or to build up a debt of gratitude? Germany’s attack on France cut short these debates and effectively reduced the Polish government’s political choices to that of dependence on Churchill’s decisions.

Review Article : Polish Studies on German History

The Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan, Poland, has an established reputation as a centre for German studies. The University Press’s Historical series clearly reflects this specialization. To a Western reader, unfamiliar as a whole with the extent of the historical work taking place in Eastern Europe, it will be a surprise to note the familiarity which Polish scholars have with Western works and, in this case, with German historical writing. The prevailing ideology of the present regime is that the Polish state had a historical right to German eastern territories which Poland occupied after 1945. This view is not questioned by those opposed to the Communist regime and it is rare for Poles as a whole to come to terms with different interpretations of Polish rights to expand at Germany’s expense in 1919 and 1945. Nationalism is a potent factor in Polish society and remains a unifying one in an otherwise disunited nation. The years 1980 and 1981 were years of relative freedom of discussion, but this is not manifested in the publications of the Adam Mickiewicz University Press of that period. This is undoubtedly because of the inevitable lapse of time between completion of a work and its publication, but also because of the monolithic structure of Polish universities. In common with most European university practices, researchers tend to join ’stables’ or schools of thought and therefore tend to work in a relatively restrictive atmosphere. They are limited in their choice of research subjects and remain dependent on their supervisors for junior teaching posts. Not surprisingly, therefore, historical works, though well informed and closely argued, remain within the acceptable schools of thought. As stated above, the Institute of German Studies at the Poznan University encourages