Russia at war 1941-1945

Throughout the de Gaulle-Bidault visit, Stalin was, significantly, in regular

communication with Churchill. The day after his first meeting with de Gaulle he cabled to Churchill saying that he had informed de Gaulle that the question of Germany's

western frontier could not be settled independently of Britain and the United States. As regards the Franco-Soviet Pact, he had told de Gaulle that the matter would require a many-sided examination. Churchill, in reply, indicated his preference for a Tripartite Pact.

It was during the Molotov-Bidault meeting of December 5 that the Russians bluntly

raised the question of the recognition of the Lublin Committee by France.

Molotov: Why shouldn't France and the Polish Committee exchange official representatives? After all, both Britain and the USSR entertain relations with both the Yugoslav Liberation Committee and the Royal Yugoslav Government. By

establishing official relations with Lublin, France would not need to break with the Polish émigré government.

Molotov then said that he liked the French draft of the Soviet-French Pact, but the Soviet Government considered that the signing of this Pact should go together with the

establishment of official French relations with the Lublin Committee.

Bidault, obviously taken aback, said he was surprised that the Franco-Soviet Pact should have this condition préalable attached to it; for their own part, the French also had some questions they would like urgently settled: for instance, that of the Rhine frontier.

Molotov dodged the issue, without telling Bidault that Stalin had already cabled to

Churchill about it. Instead, he stressed that the Soviet Union was still bearing the brunt of the war and that, in signing a Pact with France, she would like a definite decision to be taken about Poland; this would be of the greatest importance to the implementation of the Pact.

During the second Stalin-de Gaulle meeting on December 6, Poland was the main topic.

De Gaulle referred to the old cultural and religious bonds uniting France and Poland, and (without mentioning the anti-Soviet cordon sanitaire) said that France had tried, in 1918, to turn Poland into a great anti-German force. Unfortunately, men like Beck had tried to make an agreement with Germany, and were both anti-Russian and anti-Czech. He [de

Gaulle] was all in favour of both the Curzon Line and the Oder-Neisse Line.

He had no objection to an Anglo-Franco-Soviet bloc; but he would like a straight Franco-Soviet Pact to begin with.

Stalin (still busy consulting Churchill) said he thought the matter could be settled in the next few days. He would like, instead, to return to the question of Poland. He hoped France would adopt, vis à vis Poland, a more realistic attitude than that shown by Britain and the United States. The British Government had, unfortunately, got itself tied into knots with both the Polish Government in London and Mihailovic, who was now "hiding somewhere in Cairo". The London Poles were playing at musical chairs, while the Lublin Poles were carrying out a land reform, similar to what France had done in the 18th

century. He went on to demonstrate that the London Government were becoming more

and more discredited in Poland and talked at some length of the "folly" of the Warsaw rising, saying that the Red Army could not have taken Warsaw in time, with its guns and shells lagging 200 miles behind.

De Gaulle was not convinced about the London Government being "discredited" in Poland, and said it would become more apparent what the Polish people really felt once the whole country had been liberated.

On December 7, Stalin cabled Churchill saying that he and his colleagues had approved Churchill's idea of a Tripartite Anglo-Franco-Soviet Pact, and had submitted it to the French, but had not yet received a reply.

That same day Bidault told Molotov that it was not satisfactory for France to simply

"join" in the old Anglo-Soviet Pact; it might give rise to the idea that France figured in such a Pact as a kind of junior partner. Molotov brushed this argument aside, and

returned to the question of French recognition of the Lublin Poles. This was an aspect of the Franco-Russian talks on which Stalin was not keeping Churchill informed—though the British Embassy in Moscow knew, of course, more or less what was going on.

During his third meeting with Stalin on December 8 de Gaulle again announced that

Germany was France's Number One Problem and that "so long as the German people