741.61/835: Telegram
The Ambassador in France (Bullitt) to the Secretary of State
[Received August 16—4:10 p.m.]
1502. I was informed by Bonnet this morning that Voroshilov35 had stated to the French and British military and naval negotiators in Moscow that the first condition for Soviet military cooperation with France and England was that the Polish Government should announce to the Soviet Government its willingness to permit the Red Army to enter Poland by way of Vilna on the north and by way of Lemberg (Lwow) on the south for the purpose of combating the German armies in case France, England and Poland should become involved in war with Germany. Bonnet added that he had sent at once for the Polish Ambassador and had informed him of this condition of the Russians. He said that the Polish Ambassador had stated as a personal opinion that the Polish Government would never agree in advance of war to permit the entry of Bolshevik troops into the territory of Poland.
The Polish Ambassador agreed, however, to communicate the Soviet proposal to his Government together with Bonnet’s plea that it should be accepted.
Bonnet for obvious reasons was most insistent that this proposal of the Soviet Government should be kept absolutely secret.
- Marshal Kliment Efremovich Voroshilov, People’s Commissar for Defense of the Soviet Union.↩