Thomas Lane

A Predictable Failure

There was a very widely shared idea among the Polish exiles in Britain and the United States that, after the defeat of Germany, a new order should be established in Central East Europe to enhance the region’s security, economic development and social progress. A number of organisations and pressure groups were established by the exiles to promote this idea. At least as important in this respect was the wholehearted commitment, during the Second World War, of the Polish government-in-exile under Prime Minister Wiadysiaw Sikorski to bring about a new supranational authority in Eastern Europe to protect the region from the imperialism of its neighbours, Germany and the Soviet Union. From the Polish perspective, this regional federation would comprise one of the building blocks in a postwar federation of the whole of Europe. It seemed preferable to construct a number of regional federations first rather than to create at the outset an all-European entity. All that the states of Central East Europe could do initially was to build up their collective economic and military strength in order to deter any future German ambitions in their region.

Poland’s European Policy after Communism: Continuity and Change

When Tadeusz Mazowiecki became Prime Minister of Poland in September 1989 he led a ‘hybrid’ or coalition government composed of representatives of the Solidarity movement on the one hand and the communists, who had been in power in Poland since the end of the Second World War, on the other. Although the partly free elections in the preceding July had resulted in defeat for the communists, in the political circumstances of 1989 it seemed prudent to reassure Moscow that Poland’s new government would not make radical changes in foreign and defence policies, nor in questions of internal security. Mazowiecki, a former journalist and devout Catholic, was nominated as prime minister because he ‘would not startle the horses in Moscow’, and had the support of the Roman Catholic hierarchy.1 It was agreed that the so-called ‘power ministries’ of defence and interior would remain in the hands of Communists; General Jaruzelski, former prime minister and former leader of the Polish United Workers’ Party (the party of the communists), was elected President by the slimmest possible margin, again in the interests of stability. Krzysztof Skubiszewski, a political independent though a Solidarity sympathiser, and a distinguished professor of Law, was appointed foreign minister in the belief, correct as it turned out, that he would be cautious and realistic in conducting Poland’s foreign policy.

The Union of Polish Federalists

The previous chapter focused on the disappointment felt by the majority of Polish federalists in exile at what they saw as the ineffectual and misguided activities of the Council of Europe and the European Movement. The Union of Polish Federalists (UPF), under the dedicated leadership of Jerzy Jankowski and the journal he edited for around two decades, Polska w Europie (Poland in Europe), adopted a different and more pragmatic approach. From quite early on, it placed its confidence in the new European communities which emerged in the 1950s, seeing them as the future of Europe in embryo. In this it was ahead of other Polish supporters of a united Europe who came to recognise the centrality of the European Economic Community (EEC) comparatively late. In the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC), the EEC and the European Atomic Energy Community (EAC or Euratom) the UPF saw the possibility of achieving its ambition, a European federation with political as well as economic powers.1

Liberation, Détente and European Union

The ideas of Polish and other East European exiles were increasingly challenged during the three post-war decades by the changing relations between the Great Powers and the attempts of West European states to sustain their collective interests in a threatening international environment. For federalist thinkers among the exiles the first imperative was the liberation of their countries from Soviet control, followed by the introduction of democratic systems and free elections. These were the indispensable conditions for the establishment of confederal or federal relations between the states of Central East Europe, and for the integration of this region into a united Europe. Developments in international relations in Europe during the Cold War threatened to prevent or to postpone indefinitely the realisation of these objectives. The challenge for the Polish federalists was to persuade Western public opinion of the inadvisability of certain courses of action, and to keep in the forefront of Western minds the importance, in their negotiations with the Soviet Union, of never accepting as permanent the status quo in Central East Europe. In this respect they were guided by the Potomac Declaration of 1954, agreed by Prime Minister Churchill and President Eisenhower that ‘we will not be a party to any arrangement or treaty which could confirm or prolong’ the subordination of formerly sovereign states to the power of Moscow.

Concepts of Europe in a Polish Political Tradition

The idea of a united Europe has been an important element in the Polish political mind for several centuries. The underlying reason has always been the conviction that national freedom could only be achieved and safeguarded within wider international associations. It was assumed that the basis of relations between countries should be organised cooperation and not violence. Polish concepts of European unification have taken various forms and have evolved in response to the many and continuous changes taking place in Poland and Europe since the mid-eighteenth century.

European Ideas of Polish Political Parties

The Polish parties in exile discussed a range of ideas about the future of Central East Europe, its relations with Western Europe, and even how it would fit into the ‘global country’. Although these parties differed over the details of their plans, there was a broad agreement in principle. The consensus which held for most of the post-war period included a belief in the necessity for Central East Europe to unite (in one or more regional associations), to associate with other regional associations in Europe, and ultimately to create a pan-European entity which could take its place among the world’s great powers. This outcome would ensure the security and economic growth of the Central East European region. The parties differed over the structure and composition of this regional organisation, and whether the pan-European association should be part of a global federation. The ideas of the parties, and the debates within and between them, offer a rich source of information about the thinking of the Polish exiles in the four decades after the end of the Second World War.

War of Ideas

Polish exiles with federalist sympathies did not doubt that their aspirations for a united Europe were shared by their compatriots at home. If their assumption was correct, then the decision of the first post- Communist government in Poland in 1989 to apply for an association with the European Communities and ultimately to become a member of the European Union (EU) is readily explicable. On the other hand, compulsory membership in the Soviet-dominated Council of Mutual Economic Assistance (CMEA or COMECON), and the absence of real independence under the aegis of the Kremlin, could conceivably have led to an outburst of national feeling once the communist rulers were toppled. In those circumstances would Poland have wished to circumscribe its newly achieved independence by joining another association of states, one based in Brussels rather than Moscow? On occasion the exiles showed themselves to be aware of this possibility and used what influence they had, through their journals and through conversations with visitors from their homelands, to avoid this outcome. While continuing to guard against what they considered to be a remote possibility, the exiles remained convinced that their compatriots were in tune with their own views about the desirability of a federal or confederal Europe. Sceptics might argue that confident claims to be representative were self-serving, rested on no hard evidence, and were designed to increase the exiles’ standing in western forums, adding that the exiles’ many journals were read mainly by members of the exile communities, not by the people behind the Iron Curtain.

A Fine Idea

On 17 June 1940 a British plane from London landed at Bordeaux. On board was Jozef Retinger, Counsellor to the Polish Prime Minister, General Wiadystaw Sikorski. His mission was to contact Sikorski and other members of the Polish government-in-exile who had fled from their seat of government in Angers when German forces overran northern France and the Low Countries. Retinger was carrying an invitation to Sikorski from Winston Churchill to travel to London and re-form his government on British soil. Sikorski’s journey to London coincided with the dramatic exodus of Polish personnel to Britain from many ports in mainland Europe. This was how a Polish population of soldiers, sailors and airmen, government officials, and refugees relocated to Britain to form with the British an island outpost of resistance to Hitler. This resistance was ideological as well as military since it was among these exiles that ideas for a very different kind of Europe from Hitler’s took root.

Creating a Movement

Although the projected Polish-Czechoslovak confederation never came to fruition the federal idea among Polish exiles survived. Some of the exiles made good use of the opportunity to work with the federalist organisations which sprang up in Western Europe after the war, and we shall discuss this collaboration in the next chapter. Others devoted their energies to creating a federalist movement among the exile communities in Britain, other West European countries and the United States, forming organisations of various kinds to promote this objective. As a result they were able to develop the concept of a federal or confederal association of states for Central East Europe, which had many advantages over the existing state system in the region. In discussing this putative federation they accepted that there would be major difficulties to overcome, for example hostility between Poland and Ukraine, the fate of the former Soviet republics after the dissolution of the Soviet Union (which they anticipated), and the problem of Germany. They recognised that they could not depend totally on the support of the federal associations of Western Europe in their aim of unifying the Central East European region, not least because their Western colleagues tended to favour a one-level federation (i.e. a federation for the whole of Europe with individual states as members) rather than, as the exiles wanted, a multi-level federation in which a number of regional units would be bound together in an all-European assemblage.