Russia at war 1941-1945

member; Stalin said he would appoint Zhukov in the next few days. Stalin persisted in expressing the belief that Hitler was not dead and said he thought that Goebbels and Bormann had also escaped.

Stalin, without objecting to the termination of Lend-Lease, said it had been done in an

"unfortunate and brutal" way. "He added that the Russians had intended to make a suitable expression of gratitude to the United States for the Lend-Lease assistance during the war, but the way in which the programme had been halted made this impossible

now." Hopkins, while deploring certain "technical misunderstandings" which had created this situation, added that the termination of Lend-Lease was not intended as a "pressure weapon" against Russia, as Stalin had suggested. He said "he wished to add that we had never believed that our Lend-Lease help had been the chief factor in the Soviet defeat of Hitler... This had been done by the heroism and blood of the Russian Army."

Another important question discussed by Hopkins and Stalin related to Russia's entry into the war against Japan. Stalin declared that the Soviet Army would be properly deployed in its Manchurian positions by August 8. This part of the Hopkins-Stalin talks will be dealt with later.

The Moscow trial of the Polish Underground opened in the Pillared Hall in Moscow (the very hall where the great Purge Trials of the '30's had taken place) on June 18, and lasted for three days. The presiding judge was the notorious General Ulrich, also of the Purge Trials.

General Okulicki, the principal defendant, a dapper Polish officer, defended himself ably and with courage, pleading guilty to most of the charges (formation of an underground after the dissolution of the Armija Krajowa, ignoring the Red Army's orders to surrender arms and radio equipment, secret wireless communications with London, anti-Soviet

propaganda amongst the population, etc.) but declined responsibility for the killing of Russian officers and soldiers. Since he had taken command of the A.K., he had been in the part of Poland still under German occupation, and he had had no control over eastern Poland or Lithuania, where the Russians were murdered; when the Russians penetrated

into western Poland, nothing like that happened.

When he was asked by the Second Public Prosecutor, General Rudenko, why he had not

surrendered the A.K.'s armaments, radio transmitters, etc., to the Red Army, the following exchange took place:

Okulicki: I intended to keep them for the future.

Rudenko: For what purpose?

Okulicki: To fight for Poland should she be threatened.

Rudenko: Fight against whom?

Okulicki: Against anyone threatening Poland.

Rudenko: What country did you have in mind?

Okulicki: The Soviet Union.

Rudenko: So what you had in mind was a war against the Soviet Union, with this qualification: "if the Soviet Union threatens the independence of Poland". In such an eventuality what allies, what bloc were you thinking of?

Okulicki: A bloc against the Soviets.

Rudenko: That meant Poland, and who else? What other states?

Okulicki: All other states.

Rudenko: Will you enumerate the states mentioned in your letter to Colonel

"Slawbor"? [one of his subordinates].

Okulicki: I mentioned England.

Rudenko: And whom else?

Okulicki: The Germans.

Rudenko: So you were thinking of a bloc with the Germans, with Germany, the enemy of all freedom-loving countries, notorious for its cruelty and barbarity...

Okulicki: I meant a bloc, not with the Germans, but with Europe.

(Laughter.)

[Sudebnyi otchet po delu... polskogo podpoliya (Report of the Trial of the Polish Underground) (Moscow, 1945), pp. 141-2.]

On the last day of the trial, in his "last words" before the verdict, Okulicki admitted that he had been mistaken in distrusting the Soviet Union and in trusting the Polish

Government in London; this had not accepted the Yalta Agreement on Poland, and that