p Nazi-occupied Poland had been made a territorial adjunct of fascist Germany. The Polish nation was doomed to annihilation. Hans Frank, Hitler’s Governor-General in Poland, said so in so many words: "Henceforth, the political role of the Polish people is ended — We shall see to it that the very concept of Poland should be eradicated once and for all. Never again will there be the Rzecz Pospolita or any other Polish state."  [166•1  But in that, too, the nazi invaders were wide off the mark. They had not reckoned with the will of the peoples of the Soviet Union and Poland.

p As the Red Army drove closer to the Polish border, the partisan movement, especially in the Lublin area, gained in intensity. Now Frank changed his tune: "To all intents and purposes, almost one-third of the Lublin area is out of the control bf the German administration. Neither the administration, nor the executive bodies are operative there —just the transport apparatus. In that territory the German police can act only in force, a force of not less than a regiment."  [167•1  The Polish partisans fought hand in hand with Soviet partisans, who extended their field of operations to the fraternal country.

p As part of the Byelorussian Operation, the Red Army entered Poland, enthusiastically welcomed by the population, which offered the Soviet troops every possible aid. The emergence of a new, people’s democratic Poland impelled by the will of the Poles, was rapid.

p On July 23, 1944, Chelm, a Polish town liberated by the Red Army, became the seat of the Polish Committee of National Liberation, the establishment of which, and the programme document, the Manifesto, was hailed by the masses. The Manifesto restored democratic freedoms throttled by the Pilsudski reactionaries before the war, paved the way for important social reforms, mosl prominently the land reform, and proclaimed close alliance and friendship with the Soviet Union. It said that with the delineation of the SovietPolish border Polish lands would henceforth be part of the Polish state, while Byelorussian, Ukrainian and Lithuanian areas would be incorporated in the respective Soviet Socialist Republics. Western lands, once seized by German conquerors, would be returned to Poland. The document opened a new chapter in the history of the Polish nation, raising the curtain on a new, genuinely popular state.

p The ist Polish Army activated in the USSR and the partisan Armia Ludowa merged in the Wojsko Polskie in June 1944 and by the end of the year grew into a force of 286,000 men equipped with the latest Soviet-supplied arms.  [167•2 

p The Soviet attitude to the emerging new Poland was set out in a special statement of July 26, 1944. It said that Soviet troops had entered Polish territory jointly with the Polish 168 Army, thus beginning the liberation of the long-suffering fraternal nation. It stressed that the Soviet Army was determined "to smash the hostile German armies and help the Polish people to liberate itself from the yoke of the German invaders and to restore an independent, strong and democratic Poland".  [168•1 

p The Soviet Government said it regarded the military operations in Polish territory as operations in the territory of a sovereign, friendly and allied state and therefore had no intention of establishing there any of its own administrative bodies, leaving this to the Polish people. In line with this policy, the Soviet Union concluded an agreement with the Polish Committee of National Liberation governing relations between the Soviet Command and the Polish administration. A similar agreement was concluded with Czechoslovakia.

p The Soviet Government said it regarded the military operations in Polish territory as operations in the territory of a sovereign, friendly and allied state and therefore had no intention of establishing there any of its own administrative bodies, leaving this to the Polish people. In line with this policy, the Soviet Union concluded an agreement with the Polish Committee of National Liberation governing relations between the Soviet Command and the Polish administration. A similar agreement was concluded with Czechoslovakia.

p Referring to the joint Soviet-Polish operations during the Second World War, Wladyslaw Gomulka, First Secretary of the Polish United Workers’ Party, said that "in the flames of this war, this life and death struggle, the comradeship of Polish and Soviet soldiers and of Polish and Soviet partisans cemented the Polish-Soviet alliance, spelling Poland’s liberation from the bloodstained Hitler occupation".  [168•2 

p The governments of the United States and Britain looked askance at the constitution of the new People’s Poland. They redoubled material and political aid to the anti-popular Mikolajczyk Emigre Government and opened discussions with it of possible counter-action. "Political actions" were plotted, including the untimely Warsaw Uprising, doomed to failure before it began.

p Although the uprising was against the German occupation 169 forces, its purpose was political. It was to show that the Polish e’migre’ government was still influential in Poland, with the Polish reactionaries hoping to appear as national liberators and assume control over the national liberation movement. The reactionaries thought this would be best served by seizing control over Warsaw, if only for a few hours.

p The Warsaw rising began on August i, while the Red Army had not yet reached the Vistula anywhere close to the Polish capital, with only a minor bridgehead on the western bank south of Sandomir. Not until September 14-15 did Soviet troops, co-operating with the Polish ist Army, liberate Praga, a Warsaw suburb on the eastern bank of the Vistula.

p The uprising was started by the Armia Krajowa, which took orders from the e’migre’ government. There were many genuine patriots among its men, thirsting to come to grips with the enemy, but unaware of the political aims of their leadership. Units of Armia Ludowa, led by the Left, were not even informed of preparations. The Armia Ludowa commanders rated the uprising as premature and reproved its organisers as people alien to the true interests of the nation. But there was no choice but to join the fighting; the’ city population, too, had taken up arms. The participation of the people of Warsaw in the general rising was evidence of their deep hatred of the fascist invaders and their desire to avenge the na/i atrocities.

p The Soviet Government, belatedly informed, of the rising, denounced it as "a reckless and fearful gamble".  [169•1  However, it did its utmost to aid the rebellion and reduce human losses. Supplies were air-dropped regularly, with Soviet aircraft flying 2,243 supply missions between September 14 and October i, parachuting large numbers of mortars, anti-tank guns, submachine-guns, rifles, grenades, cases of ammunition, food and medical supplied.  [169•2 

p Units of the Polish ist Army, supported by artillery, air and engineers of the ist Byelorussian Front, storm-crossed the Vistula during the night of September 15, with the Polish 3rd Infantry Division developing a narrow bridgehead, but failing to contact the insurrectionists and to widen its foothold due to superior enemy forces. Another reason for the failure was the reluctance of the leaders of the Warsaw rising to 170 effect a junction and fight on jointly. After a week of costly fighting, the bridgehead had to be abandoned.

p In the meantime, infuriated by the resistance of the Warsaw population, the nazis moved in large forces and began a methodical destruction of the city. They tied Polish children to their panzers as cover, or drove crowds of defenceless women before themi German engineers blew up house after house, and street after street.

p More than 200,000 people, of whom the active insurrectionists comprised only a fragment, were killed; the entire city was all but razed to the ground. Those who escaped with their lives were shipped out.  [170•1 

p The losses could have been greater still if the Soviet troops had not rendered aid. Go-operating with Wojsko Polskie, the Red Army helped part of the insurgents and civilians to escape from embattled fire-engulfed Warsaw and cross to the eastern Vistula bank.

The Warsaw rising impaired still more the prestige of the Polish e’migre’. It became clear even to people ignorant of politics that the emigre’s had been pursuing ends far removed from the needs and interests of the nation. The designs of Polish reaction and its protectors in the United States and Britain to re-establish a bourgeois-landlord regime, turning Poland into an anti-Soviet staging area, fell through completely. The people had the final say and made an unequivocal choice. Nothing could make them turn off the chosen road.