Russia at war 1941-1945

was a mistake, which he had recognised at once. Nevertheless, he had maintained the

Polish Underground, complete with arms stores and radio equipment, because he had

continued to distrust Russia. He remembered that Tsarist Russia had oppressed Poland for 123 years, and he had not been convinced that Poland's independence would be

respected by the victorious Russians; he did not know at the time what changes had taken place in Russia. He had fought the Germans, but said that there was nothing in his

directives to the AK to show that he had ordered acts of terrorism against the Russians, and if these took place without his knowledge (and they did take place) it was deeply regrettable. As for his ideas about an alliance with "Europe", including England and Germany, these related to the future and were purely "hypothetical".

That was as far as he would go. But the official Russians were fairly satisfied; in their eyes the trial had shown up the London Government and, indirectly, Churchill, with his cordon sanitaire.

As Stalin had already foretold to Hopkins, the sentences were relatively lenient. The Public Prosecutor, no doubt acting on instructions from above, did not demand the death sentence, not even for Okulicki. The latter was given ten years, the three members of the

"underground government" between five and eight years, the others much shorter sentences, and three were acquitted.

Even so, there was something distasteful about the whole thing, not only to Western

observers, but also to many Russians who remembered the Purge Trials in the late '30's.

Just before the trial there had also been a particularly nauseating article by Zaslavsky in Pravda calling all the accused murderers, bandits, etc., in the worst style of 1937. To many it also seemed a confession of weakness to have these men tried by a Russian, and not a Polish, court. Would there have been too much sympathy for them in Poland? After all, many of them had fought for years against the Germans, and the main charge that they were directly responsible for the deaths of many Russian officers and soldiers had not been proved.

Although, on the face of it, the trial looked fair enough, many Russians wondered, as they looked at this same court room and the same sinister Judge Ulrich, whether some

pressures had not been brought to bear on the defendants.

Soon afterwards in Poland I found that even pro-Soviet Government Poles were a little embarrassed about the whole thing, and many Poles wondered, of course, what would

actually happen to Okulicki and the three other principal prisoners.. .

[The evidence here is conflicting. According to the US Ambassador in Warsaw, Arthur

Bliss Lane (/ Saw Freedom Betrayed, London, 1947), Okulicki and the others still in Russian prisons were amnestied in 1946, though a few (not Okulicki) were later

prosecuted by the Polish authorities. Poles, both in Warsaw and in England, have assured me that Okulicki died in Russian captivity in 1947.]

As a result of Harry Hopkins's prodding, the Molotov-Harriman-Clark Kerr Committee at last managed to bring about the formation of a Polish "Government of National Unity".

Only a small number of "London Poles", though none of them members of Arciszewski's Polish Government there, entered this government. The most prominent among them was

Mikolajczyk, who had resigned from the London Government some months before, and

had, albeit reluctantly, accepted the Yalta Agreement on Poland. Despite the great

hostility shown him by the "Lublin Poles", Churchill had insisted that he join the new Polish Government. The final negotiations which ended in the formation of this

government took place in Moscow between June 17 and 24, thus coinciding, by a grim—

and perhaps intentional—irony, with the trial of Okulicki and the other Underground

leaders. Both before and after the trial Mikolajczyk had pleaded with the Russians that the Underground leaders be released; he argued with Molotov that such an act of

magnanimity on the Russians' part would have a wonderful psychological effect in

Poland; but it was of no avail. Bierut, whom Mikolajczyk begged to support his plea, refused to do so, saying it would merely annoy Stalin. "Besides, we don't need these people in Poland just now."

[Mikolajczyk. Le viol de la Pologne, p. 158.]

The Polish Government that was finally formed, and in whose honour Stalin gave a

sumptuous banquet at the Kremlin before its members left for Warsaw, was a somewhat

lop-sided affair, in which the key positions were held by pro-Soviet Poles; but it was the best the Western Powers could achieve in the circumstances, and they hastened to