The Warsaw Rising of 1944 has been one of the most controversial topics in modern Polish history. Two of the main points of contention concern 1) why the Polish Government-in-exile in London started the Rising, and 2) why the Soviet Union did not help the Warsaw insurgents. This article examines these two questions, using recently published sources, and tries to determine how the Rising affected the political struggles for power between the London Poles and Polish communists at the end of the Second World War.
The Polish Government-in-exile originally preferred sabotage activities in the rear of German communications line and did not put much emphasis on the strategy of “powstanie (rising)”. The worsening of relations between the Polish Government-in-exile and the Soviet Government, however, made the London Poles feel they should play a more active role in the struggles against the Nazis. Thus, the “rising” was planned to demonstrate their political cause more effectively to the Soviets as well as to the Western allies.
When the Rising broke out on the 1st of August, 1944, Stalin promised to help the insurgents. But soon the Soviets changed their attitude toward the Rising and became inactive or even hostile; the Soviet Government began to attack the “power seeking criminals” of the underground leadership in the latter half of August. It might well be that Stalin then assigned top priority to the grand military strategy of controlling the whole of south-east Europe, rather than becoming involved in local battles like the Rising. But new sources indicates that the political consideration of weakening the power base of the London Poles figured prominently in the change in Soviet policy.
The tragic defeat of the Rising mainly damaged the London Poles. They lost not only a promising generation of future leaders, but also the prestige in Polish society. The Polish communists, however, could not take advantage of the defeat. The impression that these Soviet-oriented Polish communists betrayed the Polish cause in Warsaw made their prospect to seize power with wide support of the Polish masses, almost impossible. After the end of the Rising, the Communists changed their tactics and radicalized their original moderate social and economic programms.
Thus After the Warsaw Rising, it became very difficult for the Polish and Russian communists to establish new regime in Poland without sovietizing it. At Yalta, the dispute over the future Polish regime became one of the most fierce political struggles between Stalin, Roosevelt and Churchill, foreshadowing the rifts in the postwar settlement that would soon solidify into the Cold War conflict.
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