861.9111RR/7–2444: Telegram
The Ambassador in the Soviet Union (Harriman) to the Secretary of State
[Received July 25—8:52 a.m.]
2736. As the Department is doubtless aware from the press, the press section of the Soviet Foreign Office released this evening four Tass89 documents dealing with the establishment of a new Polish Committee of National Liberation.
The first of these documents is a decree of the Polish National Council dated Warsaw July 21 setting up a Polish Committee of National Liberation as a provisional authority for the leadership of the battle for liberation, for the assuring of national independence and for the restoration of the Polish State. The personal composition of this body comprising 14 offices is made known. It consists of 12 persons, 5 of whom are understood to be still in German-occupied Poland.
The second document is a long manifesto of the new Committee of National Liberation datelined Kholm July 22. It states among other things that the Polish Army has crossed the Bug River together with the Red Army. It outlines the international policy of the provisional regime. This includes the granting of democratic rights and privileges with a reservation concerning all manifestations of Fascism. Properties now held by the German Government or by [Page 1426] German capitalists, such as industrial property, banks, transportation facilities, etc., as well as forests are to be taken over provisionally by the state pending their return to private owners. A land reform is outlined, which will bring about the confiscation of all estates of over 100 hectares in the territories which have been attached to the German Empire, and of over 50 hectares elsewhere. Measures of social and economic improvement are promised. Private property, and private trade and economic initiative are given recognition. Steps are to be taken to effect repatriation of Poles in emigration, with exception of “Hitlerite agents and those who betrayed Poland in September 1939”; the Soviet Polish frontier is to be fixed by mutual agreement according to the principle: Polish lands to Poland, Ukrainian, Byelo Russian and Lithuanian lands to Soviet Ukraine, Soviet Byelo Russia and Soviet Lithuania respectively. Alliance with the Soviet Union and Czechoslovakia is to be the basic principle of foreign policy, and confidence is expressed in a strengthened friendship and alliance with England, the United States and France.
The third document is a decree of the Polish National Council taking under its authority the Union of Polish Patriots and the Polish Army in the USSR.
The fourth document appoints Rolya Zhimersky,90 Commander in Chief of the Combined Polish Forces. It names as his assistants Berling and Zavadsky,91 and as members of the Army command Colonel Mariana Marek-Spykhalski92 and Mr. Chekha-Chekhovski.93
[The telegram concludes with the composition of the Polish Committee of National Liberation as set forth in the first document. The names and positions are, however, frequently garbled or distorted in transliteration in the telegram. The correct list follows:
Chairman and Director of the Department of Foreign Affairs, Edward Boleslaw Osubka-Morawski; Vice Chairman and Director of the Department of Agriculture and Agricultural Reform, Andrzej Witos; Vice Chairman, Wanda Wasilewska; Director of the Department of National Defence, Colonel General Michal Rola-Zymierski; Vice Director of the Department of National Defence, Lieutenant General Zygmunt Berling; Director of the Department of Civil Administration, Stanislaw Kotek-Agroszewski; Director of the Department of National Economy and Finance, Jan Stefan Haneman; Director of the Department of Justice, Jan Czechowski; Director of the Department of Public Security, Stanislaw Radkiewicz; Director of the Department of Labor Welfare, Social Security, and Health, Dr. Boleslaw Drobner; Director of the Department of Education, [Page 1427] Dr. Stanislaw Skrzeszewski; Director of the Department of Culture and Art, Wincenty Rzymowski; Director of the Department of Information and Propaganda, Dr. Stefan Jedrychowski; Director of the Department of Communications, Post, and Telegraph, Jan Michal Grubecki; and Director of the Department of War Reparations, Dr. Emil Sommerstein.]