The Polish Ambassador has today received instructions from his
Government immediately to communicate to the Secretary of State
the following memorandum from the Polish Government:
“Foreseeing that matters concerning Poland will be discussed
at the forthcoming meeting of the Heads of the Governments
of the three great Powers, and having full confidence in the
intentions of the President of the United States of ensuring
the Polish State real independence and the guarantee of its
rights,—the Polish Government would like to take this
opportunity to express the following views:
“I—The Polish Government shares the attitude taken by the
Governments of the United States and Great Britain that
territorial questions should be settled only after the
termination of hostilities. The Polish Government is ready
to reach an amicable settlement of the Polish-Soviet
controversy which has arisen as a result of the claims of
the USSR to the eastern territories of the Polish Republic
and will accept any one of the methods foreseen by
international law for the just and fair solution of the
controversy with the participation of both parties
concerned. Moreover, the Polish Government is decided to
conclude with the USSR an alliance guaranteeing the security
of both states and closely to collaborate with the USSR in
the framework of a general international organization of
security and of the economic organization of the States of
Central-Eastern Europe.
“Under no circumstances will the Polish Government recognize
unilateral solutions, mindful of the fact that Poland,
belonging as she does to the family of United Nations in the
common struggle for
[Page 229]
freedom of the world, has made enormous sacrifices of her
most precious values and has lost practically one-fifth of
her population fallen in battle, murdered in penal camps, in
Ghettos or deceased in prisons, in exile or in labor
camps.
“The Polish Government is convinced that the simultaneous
establishment and guaranteeing of the over-all territorial
status of the Polish State, the solution of the controversy
with the USSR, the grant to Poland of territories to which
she has rightful claim situated to the North and the West of
her frontiers, the insurance of her real independence and
full right to organize her internal life in accordance with
the will of the Polish Nation untrammeled by any foreign
intervention,—is a vital matter not only for Poland, but for
the whole of Europe.
“II.—Should the Soviet Government, notwithstanding the
insistent efforts of the Polish Government, refuse to enter
into a voluntary understanding, the Polish Government,
desirous of insuring internal peace and freedom to its
country, suggests that a Military Inter-Allied Commission
should be created under whose control the local
administration of Poland could perform its functions until
it will be possible for the legal Polish Government to take
over authority.
“Such a Commission should have at its disposal military
contingents of the States represented on it. The statutes of
the Commission and the principles upon which the local
administration would be based should be established in
detail in agreement with the Polish Government. The Polish
Government additionally stresses that the authorities of the
Polish Republic, abolished by the German occupying
authorities in violation of the stipulations of the IV-th
Hague Convention of 1907,1
in effect continued to function underground and should
constitute the foundation of the administration of the
country.
“After the return to Poland of her Supreme State Authorities
as well as of her citizens who are at present outside her
frontiers due to war events, elections will be held on the
basis of a universal, secret, equal, direct and proportional
electoral law, giving to all political parties full freedom
of electoral action, and to all citizens equal and free
right of expressing their will.
“The Polish Government will retain its authority until the
convocation of the Parliament (Sejm) on the above mentioned
principles and the creation in Poland of a new legal
government.
“III.—The Polish Government trusts that the United States
Government will not take part in any decisions concerning
the Allied Polish State taken without the participation and
consent of the Polish Government.
“The Polish Government is convinced that at the meeting of
the three great Powers the United States Government will
express its decision of not recognizing in Poland
accomplished facts and particularly of not recognizing a
‘puppet government’. The recognition of such a ‘government’
in Poland would be equivalent to the cancellation of the
recognition of an independent Poland, for the maintenance of
which the present war started.”
