860C.01/725: Telegram
The Chargé in the Soviet Union ( Hamilton ) to the Secretary of State
[Received May 25—11:30 a.m.]
1867. Moscow newspapers for May 24th published communiqué of Union of Polish Patriots regarding arrival in Moscow of plenipotentiaries of National People’s Council reading in translation as follows:
“A few days ago there arrived in Moscow, after crossing the front line from German occupied Poland, plenipotentiaries of the National People’s Council of Poland. The National Council of Poland was organized in January 1944 in Warsaw by Democratic partisan groups fighting the German invader. There entered into the personnel of the National Council of Poland representatives of the following political parties and social groups: The oppositional wing of the Peasants Party ‘Stronnictwo Ludowe’, the Polish Workers Socialist Party, the Polish Liberal Party, the Committee of National Initiative, the group of non party Democrats, the underground trade union movement, the Union of Struggle of Youth (Walkimmlodych68), groups of writers, groups of cooperatives, groups of intellectual workers, groups of artisans, and also representatives of the underground military organizations: The People’s Guard, the People’s Militia, the Peasants’ Battalions, number of representatives of local military formations of the territorial army (the Army of Sosnkowski) and various others.
In the circumstances which developed in Poland under the bloody yoke of the German usurpers, it became necessary to establish a center organizing the struggle with the Germans and coordinating all the efforts of the Polish people in the cause of liberating the homeland from the invaders. All the hopes which the Polish people placed in the Emigrant Government in London proved to be vain. The Emigrant Government not only did not carry on the struggle with the occupants, not only urged the people to inactivity, but even attacked those Polish patriots who struggled with the Hitlerites not even stopping at bestial killing of partisan detachments and treacherous murders of individual leaders and activists fighting for the national liberation of Poland. In the final analysis the activity of the Emigrant Government and its ‘delegates’ in the country went hand in hand with the invaders and weakened the political position of Poland, undermining her alliance relations with the United Nations.
Events at the end of 1943 aroused in the Polish people high hopes for speedy liberation especially in connection with the victorious offensive of the Red Army to the west. At the same time the raging Hitlerite terror threatening the Polish people with final extinction was intensified.
Thus the formation of the National Council of Poland as the guiding center of struggle for the liberation of Poland from the German occupants answered the urgent requirements of the fighting Polish [Page 1413] people. The National Council at its first session took a most important decision regarding the unification of all partisan groups, armed detachments and military formations fighting the invaders, into one People’s Army (Ludowa Armja). There entered into the personnel of this Army the People’s Guard, the People’s Militia, a substantial portion of the Peasants’ Battalions and other military organizations. The establishment of the National Council and the formation of the People’s Army as a most important step on the path of struggle for a free and Democratic Poland was greeted by the Polish people with joy and enthusiasm. During the several months of its work the National Council has been able to establish in the country a whole network of local organizations (village, town, and provincial) and also considerably intensified the armed struggle of the people against the invaders. The plenipotentiaries of the National Council of Poland have arrived in Moscow, firstly, in order to acquaint themselves with the activities of the Union of Polish Patriots in the USSR and the condition of the First Polish Army and, secondly, for the establishment of contact with the Allied Governments, including the Government of the USSR.69
For understandable reasons the names of the members of the National Council of Poland as well as the names of the plenipotentiaries who have arrived cannot be published at the present time.[”]
- Zwiazek Walki Mlodych, the Union of Young Fighters.↩
- The Chargé in the Soviet Union further reported in telegram 1883, May 25, 1944, that Premier Stalin, in the presence of Molotov and Wanda Wasilewska, received these plenipotentiaries in a meeting on May 22 which “lasted more than two hours in a cordial atmosphere”. The plenipotentiaries, who were headed by Edward Boleslaw Osubka-Morawski, “acquainted Comrade Stalin in detail with the situation in Poland and with the activity of the National Council of Poland and the Polish People’s Army”. (860C.01/726)↩