Cold war historians researched the Polish question, which was diplomatic question over Polish government and borders after the Second World War, as one of the origins of the Cold War. The Polish question became the subject of heated debates of the Yalta conference, whereas the question was not resolved completely during the conference. Nevertheless almost all of the cold war historians, which are classified into three groups: the orthodox, the revisionist and the post-revisionist, did not pay attention to British diplomatic policy vis-à-vis Poland after the Second World War. In order to clarify the British foreign policy towards sovietising Poland, this paper analyse the negotiation process of the Anglo-Polish Financial Agreement, which dealt with the settlement of Polish debts to the UK. Regarding documents, this paper utilised mainly records of the British Foreign Office, which are kept in the National Archives (TNA), Kew.

British Foreign Office and Ernest Bevin, British Foreign Secretary, aimed at forcing the Polish Provisional Government of National Unity to hold ‘free and unfettered elections as soon as possible on the basis of universal suffrage and secret ballot’ in order to establish liberal democratic Poland without communist influence. For this object, Britain utilised two questions as levers. The questions were the financial questions between the UK and Poland, which this paper focused on, and the repatriation of the Polish Armed Forces under British command. The British diplomacy towards Poland, however, did not work well for two reasons. The first reason is that Poland used financial questions as propaganda that Britain hindered Polish reconstruction. Secondly, the British Foreign Office failed to act in cooperation with the United States and Canada when they resolved Polish financial questions. Moreover, Cavendish-Bentinck, who was then British Ambassador to Poland and led British foreign policy towards Poland, was involved in the trouble caused by Polish Worker’s Party. Eventually, Stanisław Mikołajczyk, who was supported by Britain, lost in the general election of January 1947. Although Britain failed to establish liberal democratic Poland, she did not abandon her purpose even after the election.

In spite of the background of the conflict between the United Kingdom and the Soviet Union, Britain did not forsake Poland and intended to diminish Polish communist influence just after the end of World War II. As a result of the unavoidable diplomatic failure, however, the relation between Britain and Poland deteriorated gradually.