760C.6115/29½
Memorandum by the Assistant Chief of the Division of Eastern European Affairs (Durbrow)
Significance of Soviet Proposals for New Frontier With Poland
According to newspaper reports it appears to be clear that the proposal announced yesterday by the Soviet news agency Tass offers to Poland a frontier based on the Curzon line, which ended at the Eastern Galician frontier, while the latter area which never formed part of the Czarist empire17 is now to go to the Soviet Union.
There seems to be little doubt that this proposal is an effort by the Soviet Government to reach a unilateral solution of its western frontier. In presenting the proposal the Soviet announcement gives the impression that they are making considerable concessions favorable to Poland. If the Polish Government does not accept this proposal they will probably be denounced again as “reactionary” for not having accepted a very “fair” proposal.
While the disputed area is inhabited by Poles, Ukrainians, White Russians, and Lithuanians and while the majority of the persons living in this area in 1939 were of non-Polish race, the most reliable statistics available, which come from Polish sources and therefore are obviously not unfavorable to Poland, show that 36 percent of the persons in the disputed area are of pure Polish race.18 In this connection there seems to be little doubt that in certain areas to the east of the proposed line the Polish population makes up the vast majority of the inhabitants.
On an ethnographical basis there would appear to be little question as to the desirability of making certain changes in this area; however, the Soviet proposal, particularly in regard to the areas in Eastern Galicia, is quite unfavorable to the Poles since it deprives them of half of the province of Lwow which includes the predominantly Polish city of Lwow and the Polish oil fields. Available statistics indicate that in the part of this province which would go to the Soviet Union under the present proposal the largest racial group is made up of Poles.
The same situation obtains in the eastern part of the province of Bialystok which under the Soviet proposal would go to the USSR.
[Page 1222]It should be pointed out in connection with the Soviet desire to annex Eastern Galicia, a province never held by the Czars, that its incorporation in the USSR is envisaged in order for the Soviet Union to have a comparative large common frontier with its new ally Czechoslovakia.
In considering the Soviet proposal it is felt that the United States Government should bear in mind that the acceptance of this unilateral proposition would tend to run counter to the basic policy laid down by this Government of not reaching final settlements on frontier questions until after the termination of hostilities.
While there seems to be little doubt that the Polish Government will be very reluctant to accept this proposal it would appear that on the basis of confidential indications from Polish sources that that Government might be willing to accept a compromise frontier which included all of the provinces of Lwow and Bialystok.
It should be noted that the Soviet Government, at least through its news organs, has indicated that Poland should be compensated for the loss of eastern provinces by obtaining East Prussia, part of the area west of the Polish Corridor (Pomerania) as well as most of German Upper Silesia.
There is attached a table showing the areas which Poland would lose if the line were fixed along the Ribbentrop–Molotov line of 193919 or the Curzon line of 1919. There are also shown in the table the approximate areas which Poland would gain if she should take over the German territories indicated above.
- Although Eastern Galicia never formed part of the Russian Empire under the tsars, as the Principality of Galicia it was a part of ancient Rus during the 11th, 12th, and 13th centuries under the rule of the Rurikovich Grand Princes.↩
- The last prewar census in Poland was made in 1931, and was published in Drugi Powszechny Spis Ludnosci, Statystyka Polski, December 9, 1931, Series C (Warsaw, 1937), where 38% of the population of this area is claimed to be of Polish race; see U. S. Bureau of the Census, The Population of Poland, by W. Parker Mauldin and Donald S. Akers (Washington, Government Printing Office, 1954), pp. 152 ff.↩
- This line is provided for in the Treaty of Boundary and Friendship between Germany and the Soviet Union signed at Moscow on September 28, 1939. The text of the treaty and maps of the boundary line are in Documents on German Foreign Policy, 1918–1945, series D, vol. viii (Washington, Government Printing Office, 1954), p. 164 and Appendix VI, respectively.↩