860C.01/679: Telegram
The Ambassador in the Soviet Union (Harriman) to the Secretary of State
[Received February 17, 1944—2:30 p.m.]
532. Wolna Polska34 for February 8 which has just appeared contains the following announcement at the top of page 1.
Formation of National People’s Council35
The Kosciuszko radio station36 broadcast on January 30, 1944:
“As is known, in December 1943 there was formed on our territory a National People’s Council. The National Council was chosen by [Page 1400] People’s Oblast,37 raion38 and local councils which in turn were chosen from the patriotic organizations which comprises them. The National People’s Council was established in the most democratic way; representatives of all influential political parties and groups carrying on active struggle with the German invader are included in its makeup. In the National People’s Council there are Populists, Polish Socialists, representatives of the Polish Labor Party, Democrats of all shades, leaders of the Committee of National Initiative and others. Representatives of all strata of the People: Peasants, workers, intellectual workers, artisans as well as progressive, industrial and commercial circles.
The National People’s Council has addressed to the Polish people a manifesto calling upon it to close its ranks without regard for old party and political differences and to struggle against the German invader who is torturing Poland. The manifesto calls on the Polish people for closest cooperation with troops of our ally; urges the establishment of the most cordial friendly relations with our closest neighbor the Soviet Union and with Great Britain and the United States and points the way to the establishment for free, independent, strong and democratic Poland.
The political parties and groups which have entered into the National People’s Council enjoy widespread influence among all strata [of] the people because they have performed great services in the sphere of organizing the struggle against the German invader and of creating Polish armed units. With them is linked the heroic struggle of the People’s Guard, the Peasants’ Battalions and all the other armed organizations carrying on active struggle with the Hitlerite invader. The members of the National People’s Council are people who stand in the firing line of daily direct battle with the Hitlerite invader; people bound by unbreakable ties with the struggle and sufferings of our nation.
For this reason the National People’s Council has every right to act in the name of the people and represent its interests. Organizing the popular forces for the struggle for independence it is fulfilling a task of great historic significance for our people.
We did not doubt that in Poland there were people who would greet with recognition this step which is of enormous political significance for our national life, a step which strengthens tenfold the power of our people in its unswerving struggle for the freedom of the fatherland and for the creation of a strong and independent Poland. And we were not mistaken. All those who preserved patriotic feelings in their hearts greet with great joy the creation of a National People’s Council and are expressing readiness to participate in its self-sacrificing patriotic activity. This is the thought of all honorable Populists, Socialists, Nationalists; this is the thought of all [Page 1401] people of various strata and inclinations in whose breasts beat upright Polish hearts.
It is quite understandable that the appearance of the National People’s Council aroused the fury of the German invaders. They know that the creation of the National People’s Council and its activity is a potent step forward on the path of our people to final reckoning with the foe on the path to liberty.
At the same time we knew in advance that in reactionary emigrant circles whose egotistical group interests stand higher than the interests of the people the popular initiative expressed in the creation of the National Council would meet with a hostile reception. And here again we were not in error.
‘Swit’ the radio station of the Fascist emigrant clique has come out with attacks against the National People’s Council endeavoring to defame it in the eyes of Poles and suggest that it was created on ‘orders from above’ or ‘on orders from abroad’ and in this also there is nothing surprising for the interests of the people are foreign to the Fascist clique in emigration and its so-called government and the ‘National Council’ which was duly established in emigration39 consists exclusively of politicians of yesterday elected by no one [not?] isolated from the people, appointees of the former Minister40 and present so-called [President?] Raczkiewicz. The creation of the National People’s Council chosen by the broad masses of the people is a crushing blow to the emigrant Fascist clique and all its efforts at dragging Poland into the mire of Fascism and into imperialistic adventures; efforts calculated to prolong the sufferings of the Polish people under the yoke of Hitlerite occupation.
But the Polish people are not falling into the trap [of] those who seek still to deceive it; those who bearing the entire responsibility for the September catastrophe41 are preparing to plunge Poland into eternal Hitlerite slavery in order to safeguard their own egotistical group interest. The country and the people do not wish to have anything in common with reactionary elements of the ilk of Sosnkowski,42 Raczkiewicz and their henchmen. The country and the people has its own representation, announces its own leadership, gathers and organizes its forces for the decisive battle for the expulsion of the Hitlerite invader. And the people will undoubtedly follow this path and will win a Poland free and independent, strong and democratic.[”]
- Official newspaper of the Union of Polish Patriots, an organization of Poles sympathetic to Communism, supported by the Soviet Union; the paper was first published in Moscow in 1943.↩
- Also called the National Council of the Homeland (Krajowa Rada Narodowa).↩
- A Polish language station operating inside the Soviet Union.↩
- Region, or province.↩
- A district.↩
- A decree issued on December 9, 1939, by the President of Poland, Wladyslaw Raczkiewicz, created a National Council to serve in an advisory capacity to the Polish Government in Exile at London. Although this was dissolved on September 3, 1941, the President again signed a decree on February 3, 1942, summoning some 32 representative Poles to become members of the National Council.↩
- Gen. Wladyslaw Sikorski was Prime Minister of the Polish Government in Exile from September 30, 1939, until he was killed in an airplane crash near Gibraltar on July 4, 1943.↩
- The rapid defeat of Poland in September 1939 by the German attack beginning the Second World War.↩
- Gen. Kazimierz Sosnkowski, Commander in Chief of the Polish Armed Forces.↩