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The Electoral Bloc to the Polish Referendum, January to June 1946

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British Policy Towards Poland, 1944–1956

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Abstract

This chapter analyses the accumulation of pressures that prompted Bevin to reconsider Britain’s policy of exclusive support for the PSL in early 1946. Anglo-Soviet relations were deteriorating; Britain’s precipitous economic decline pushed the country towards ever greater dependence on American financial assistance, limiting the scope of Bevin’s policy options still further. In the circumstances, British support for a broader based Polish opposition movement offered the possibility of resolving the country’s political crisis, as well as removing one of the most persistent sources of conflict in the Anglo-Soviet relationship. Bevin’s circumspect approach was increasingly at odds with that of Foreign Office officials, who counselled intervention as Mikołajczyk fought for his political survival as the PPR moved to consolidate its hold on power.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    TNA: FO 371/56439/N6471/34/55, Foreign Office Minutes, 24 May 1946.

  2. 2.

    Raymond Smith, ‘A Climate of Opinion: British Officials and the Development of British Soviet Policy, 1945–7’, International Affairs 64, 4 (Autumn 1988): 635–636; Raymond Smith, ‘Ernest Bevin, British Officials and British Soviet Policy, 1945–47’, in Britain and the First Cold War, ed. Anne Deighton (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1990), 37; Ray Merrick, ‘The Russia Committee of the British Foreign Office and the Cold War, 1946–47’, Journal of Contemporary History 20, 3 (July 1985): 454; Reynolds, World War to Cold War, 278.

  3. 3.

    TNA: FO 371/56423/N8399/27/55, Foreign Office to Warsaw, 5 June 1946.

  4. 4.

    Deighton, Impossible Peace, 78; Smith, ‘Bevin, British Officials and British Soviet Policy’, 37–38; Alexander Nicholas Shaw, ‘Sir Reader Bullard, Frank Roberts and the Azerbaijan Crisis of 1945–46: Bevin’s Officials, Perceptions and the Adoption of a Cold War Mentality in British Soviet Policy’, Cold War History 17, no. 3 (January 2017): 291.

  5. 5.

    After the war, Stalin forcefully renewed his pursuit of the long-held Russian ambition for control of the Turkish Straits (the Dardanelles and the Bosphorus, which connect the Black Sea and the Mediterranean). The Soviets demanded the right to build military bases on the Straits, “jointly” with the Turks, as well as the return of territory in the southern Caucasus ceded to Turkey under the terms of the Soviet–Turkish treaty of 1921. At the London Foreign Ministers Conference, the Soviets made a claim for the former Italian colony of Tripolitania. Finally, in a move to gain access to Iranian oil reserves, the Soviets established two secessionist regimes in Iranian Azerbaijan and in the Republic of Kurdistan. Stalin also delayed the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Iran in contravention of the agreement that all foreign powers would leave Iran within six months of the end of the war, provoking a full-scale crisis in early 1946. On 24 March 1946, one day before the issue was to be brought before the United Nations, Stalin suddenly ordered the withdrawal of troops. Vladislav M. Zubok, A Failed Empire: The Soviet Union in the Cold War from Stalin to Gorbachev (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2009), 36–38; 40–45. In May 1946, in an effort to counter Soviet expansionism in the region, Bevin authorised a more aggressive anti-Soviet propaganda campaign in Iran. Shaw, ‘Bullard, Roberts and the Azerbaijan Crisis’, 291.

  6. 6.

    Bevin quoted in Bew, Citizen Clem, 414.

  7. 7.

    Bew, Citizen Clem, 414, 424; William Roger Louis, The British Empire in the Middle East, 1945–1951 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1984), 5–6.

  8. 8.

    Keith Hamilton and Ann Lane, ‘Power, Status and the Pursuit of Liberty: The Foreign Office and Eastern Europe, 1945–1946’, in Europe within the Global System, 1938–1960. Great Britain, France, Italy and Germany: from Great Powers to Regional Powers, ed. Michael Dockrill (Bochum: Universitätsverlag Dr. N. Brockmeyer, 1995), 38.

  9. 9.

    Kent and Young, ‘British Policy Overseas’, 48–49; Greenwood, ‘Third Force Policy’, 428–432; Deighton, ‘Entente Neo-Coloniale’, 841; John Callaghan, ‘The Foreign Policy of the Attlee Government’, in The British Labour Party and the Wider World: Domestic Politics, Internationalism and Foreign Policy, eds. Paul Corthorn and Jonathan Davis (London: Tauris Academic Studies, 2008), 120–121. For a useful summary of the evolution of the revisionist historiography on Bevin’s “Third Force” policy, see Daddow, Britain and Europe Since 1945, 122–134.

  10. 10.

    To that end, Bevin held talks early in the year with French Foreign Minister, Georges Bidault, regarding imperial cooperation. Deighton, ‘Entente Neo-Coloniale’, 841.

  11. 11.

    Greenwood, ‘Third Force Policy’, 427.

  12. 12.

    Deighton, ‘Entente Neo-Coloniale’, 843. See also Deighton’s earlier work, Impossible Peace, 50–51.

  13. 13.

    Randall Bennett Woods, A Changing of the Guard: Anglo-American Relations, 1941–1946 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1990), 368–371.

  14. 14.

    Krystyna Kersten, The Establishment of Communist Rule in Poland, 1943–1948, trans. John Micgiel and Michael H. Bernhard (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991), 237.

  15. 15.

    A.J. Prażmowska, ‘The Polish Socialist Party, 1945–1948’, East European Quarterly, 34, no. 3 (September 2000): 339–341, 343.

  16. 16.

    Kersten, Communist Rule in Poland, 237.

  17. 17.

    TNA: FO 371/56437/N4601/34/55, Cavendish-Bentinck to Bevin, 3 April 1946.

  18. 18.

    The recalcitrant sections were eventually purged in two waves in April and October 1948 and the two parties formally merged to form the Polish United Workers’ Party (Polska Zjednoczona Partia Robotnicza – PZPR) in December 1948. Prażmowska, ‘The Polish Socialist Party’, 355.

  19. 19.

    Polonsky, ‘Stalin and the Poles’, 477.

  20. 20.

    TNA: FO 371/56432/N1338/34/55, Cavendish-Bentinck to Bevin, 22 January 1946; FO 371/56433/N1893/34/55, Warsaw to Foreign office, 11 February 1946; N1930/34/55, Warsaw to Foreign Office, 11 February 1946.

  21. 21.

    Kersten, Communist Rule in Poland, 243.

  22. 22.

    TNA: FO 371/56433/N1655/34/55, Cavendish-Bentinck to Allen, 23 January 1946.

  23. 23.

    TNA: FO 371/56433/N1893/34/55, Warsaw to Foreign Office, 11 February 1946; FO 371/56433/N1931/34/55, Foreign Office to Washington, 22 February 1946.

  24. 24.

    TNA: FO 371/56434/N2093/34/55, Private letter from Sargent to Cavendish-Bentinck, 12 February 1946.

  25. 25.

    M.E. Pelly et al., eds., DBPO, Series I, vol. 6: Eastern Europe, August 1945– April 1946 (London: HMSO, 1991), no. 70, pp. 269–74; TNA: FO 371/56434/N2093/34/55, Private letter from Sargent to Cavendish-Bentinck, 12 February 1946.

  26. 26.

    The Labour members of the delegation were Harry Hynd, John Rankin, Bernard Taylor, Stephen Taylor, and Harry Thorneycroft. The other members were Philip Piratin (Communist) and Tufton Beamish (Conservative). TNA: FO 371/47826/N16424/16424/55, 14 December 1945; N17806/16424/55, 15 and 21 December 1945.

  27. 27.

    TNA: FO 371/56459/N2810/47/55, ‘Report of Parliamentary Delegation to Poland’, January 1946. Beamish did not endorse the final report.

  28. 28.

    TNA: FO 371/56433/N1655/34/55, Cavendish-Bentinck to Allen, 23 January 1946; FO 371/56432/N696/34/55, Warsaw to Foreign Office, 14 January 1946; FO 371/56459/N903/47/55, Cavendish-Bentinck to Warner, 12 January 1946; N1456/47/55, Cavendish-Bentinck to Warner, 19 January 1946; FO 371/47826/N16424/16424/55, Cavendish-Bentinck to Warner, 30 November 1945.

  29. 29.

    TNA: FO 371/56459/N2810/47/55, ‘Report of Parliamentary Delegation to Poland’, January 1946.

  30. 30.

    Callaghan, ‘Foreign Policy of the Attlee Government’, 120; Jones, Russia Complex, 121–122.

  31. 31.

    Jones, Russia Complex, 122–123.

  32. 32.

    Pierson Dixon, Double Diploma: the Life of Sir Pierson Dixon, Don and Diplomat (London: Hutchinson, 1968), 241.

  33. 33.

    Raymond Smith and John Zametica, ‘The Cold Warrior: Clement Attlee Reconsidered, 1945–7’, International Affairs 61, no. 2 (1985): 243–245; Bew, Citizen Clem, 417–418, 422–424; Louis, The British Empire in the Middle East, 4–5.

  34. 34.

    DBPO, Series I, vol. 6, no. 70, pp. 269–274; TNA: FO 371/56434/N2093/34/55, Private letter from Sargent to Cavendish-Bentinck, 12 February 1946.

  35. 35.

    Hamilton and Lane, ‘The Foreign Office and Eastern Europe’, 38.

  36. 36.

    Greenwood, ‘Third Force Policy’, 425.

  37. 37.

    Hamilton and Lane, ‘The Foreign Office and Eastern Europe’, 47; Weiler, Ernest Bevin, 153.

  38. 38.

    DBPO, Series I, vol. 3, no. 99, pp. 310–313.

  39. 39.

    TNA: FO 371/56433/N1551/34/12, Cavendish-Bentinck to Allen, 23 January 1946; Foreign Office Minutes, 6 February 1946; FO 371/56434/N2397/34/55, Foreign Office Minutes, 20 February 1946.

  40. 40.

    TNA: FO 371/56433/N1931/34/55, Foreign Office to Washington, 22 February 1946.

  41. 41.

    TNA: FO 371/56434/N2093/34/55, Sargent to Cavendish-Bentinck, 12 February 1946.

  42. 42.

    TNA: FO 371/56434/N2624/34/55, Sargent Memo, 14 February 1946.

  43. 43.

    TNA: FO 371/56435/N2912/34/55, Warner Minutes, 6 March 1946; Sargent to Cavendish-Bentinck, 13 March 1946.

  44. 44.

    TNA: FO 371/56433/N1893/34/55, Warsaw to Foreign Office, 11 February 1946; FO 371/56433/N1931/34/55, Foreign Office to Washington, 22 February 1946.

  45. 45.

    419 HC Deb 5s, cols. 1125–1126.

  46. 46.

    Polonsky, ‘Stalin and the Poles’, 478.

  47. 47.

    The PPR and its satellites would have 70 per cent of the seats, and Popiel’s SP would have the remaining 10 per cent.

  48. 48.

    TNA: FO 371/56434/N2476/34/55, Warsaw to Foreign Office, 24 February 1946; FO 371/56435/N3312/34/55, Cavendish-Bentinck to Bevin, 5 March 1946.

  49. 49.

    Polonsky, ‘Stalin and the Poles’, 478.

  50. 50.

    TNA: FO 371/56435/N3312/34/55, Cavendish-Bentinck to Bevin, 5 March 1946; N3520/34/55, Warsaw to Foreign Office, 13 March 1946; FO 371/56436/N4081/34/55, Allen to Bevin, 21 March 1946; FO 371/56437/N4396/34/55, Warsaw to Foreign Office, 1 April 1946.

  51. 51.

    TNA: FO 371/56436/N3582/34/55, Warsaw to Foreign Office, 16 March 1946; FO 371/56436/N3611/34/55, Warsaw to Foreign Office, 17 March 1946; FO 371/56436/N4081/34/55, Allen to Bevin, 21 March 1946; FO 371/56437/N4396/34/55, Warsaw to Foreign Office, 1 April 1946.

  52. 52.

    TNA: FO 371/56437/N4396/34/55, Warsaw to Foreign Office, 1 April 1946; FO 371/56437/N4475/34/55, Foreign Office Minutes, 4 April 1946.

  53. 53.

    TNA: FO 371/56436/N4094/34/55, Warsaw to Foreign Office, 27 March 1946.

  54. 54.

    TNA: FO 371/56436/N4094/34/55, Foreign Office Minutes, 29 March 1946.

  55. 55.

    TNA: FO 371/56436/N4094/34/55, Foreign Office Minutes, 29 March 1946.

  56. 56.

    G.M. Alexander, The Prelude to the Truman Doctrine: British Policy in Greece, 1944–1947 (Oxford, 1982), 171–173; David H. Close, The Origins of the Greek Civil War (London, 1995), 161.

  57. 57.

    TNA: FO 371/56437/N4987/34/55, Foreign Office to Washington, 11 April 1946; FO 371/56437/N5068/34/55, Foreign Office Minutes, 17 April 1946.

  58. 58.

    FRUS, 1946. Eastern Europe; the Soviet Union, vol. 6 (Washington: United States Government Printing Office, 1969), 420–422, 423–424.

  59. 59.

    TNA: FO 371/56437/N5184/34/55, Foreign Office Minutes, 20 April 1946.

  60. 60.

    TNA: FO 371/56437/N5184/34/55, Washington to Foreign Office, 18 April 1946; FRUS 1946 vol. 6, 428–429.

  61. 61.

    TNA: FO 371/56437/N4987/34/55, Foreign Office to Washington, 11 April 1946.

  62. 62.

    TNA: FO 371/56437/N5068/34/55, Foreign Office to Warsaw, 19 April 1946.

  63. 63.

    TNA: FO 371/56438/N5384/34/55, Warsaw to Foreign Office, 24 April 1946.

  64. 64.

    TNA: FO 371/56437/N5350/34/55, Warsaw to Foreign Office, 22 April 1946.

  65. 65.

    TNA: FO 371/56505/N1000/287/55, Warsaw to Foreign Office, 22 January 1946.

  66. 66.

    TNA: FO 371/56437/N4987/34/55, Foreign Office to Washington, 11 April 1946; FO 371/56437/N5190/34/55, Washington to Foreign Office, 19 April 1946; FRUS 1946, vol. 6, 420–422.

  67. 67.

    TNA: FO 371/56437/N5194/34/55, Foreign Office Minutes, 22 April 1946; FO 371/56437/N5273/34/55, Foreign Office Minutes, 24 April 1946.

  68. 68.

    Warner asked Balfour whether anyone from the British embassy in Washington had made a final attempt to persuade the State Department not to go ahead with the credit agreement. TNA: FO 371/56438/N5398/34/55, Warner to Balfour, 1 May 1946. I did not find any response to this question from the Washington embassy in the Foreign Office files nor is there any record of an intervention by Halifax or Balfour in FRUS 1946, vol. 6.

  69. 69.

    TNA: FO 371/56438/N5445/34/55, Washington to Foreign Office, 25 April 1946.

  70. 70.

    The Polish government also undertook to abide by the principles of trade set out in the Mutual Aid Agreement of 1942 and to carry out the US–Polish Commercial Treaty of 1931.

  71. 71.

    TNA: FO 371/56438/N5385/34/55, Washington to Foreign Office, 24 April 1946; FO 371/56439/N6076/34/55, Halifax to Bevin, 2 May 1946.

  72. 72.

    TNA: FO 371/56438/N5398/34/55, Warner to Balfour, 1 May 1946.

  73. 73.

    TNA: FO 371/56423/N8399/27/55, Foreign Office to Warsaw, 5 June 1946.

  74. 74.

    TNA: FO 371/56439/N6206/34/55, Foreign Office Minutes, 15 May 1946.

  75. 75.

    TNA: FO 371/56440/N7400/34/55, Warsaw to Foreign Office, 5 June 1946; FO 371/56441/N7860/34/55, Warsaw to Foreign Office, 15 June 1946.

  76. 76.

    TNA: FO 371/56441/N7641/34/55, Warsaw to Foreign Office, 12 June 1946.

  77. 77.

    TNA: FO 371/56441/N7860/34/55, Foreign Office Minutes, 20 June 1946.

  78. 78.

    TNA: FO 371/56442/N8431/34/55, Warsaw to Foreign Office, 29 June 1946.

  79. 79.

    Clark Kerr’s title was now Lord Inverchapel. For consistency, I have continued to refer to him as Clark Kerr.

  80. 80.

    TNA: FO 371/56440/N7397/34/55, Washington to Foreign Office, 6 June 1946; Foreign Office Minutes, 14 June 1946.

  81. 81.

    TNA: FO 371/56442/N8141/34/55, Washington to Foreign Office, 22 June 1946; Foreign Office Minutes, 25 June 1946.

  82. 82.

    FRUS, 1946, vol. 6, 467.

  83. 83.

    TNA: FO 371/56442/N8260/34/55, Warsaw to Foreign Office, 25 June 1946; Foreign Office Minutes, 28 June 1946; FO 371/56423/N8363/27/55, Washington to Foreign Office, 27 June 1946.

  84. 84.

    TNA: FO 371/56422/N8192/27/55, Foreign Office to Warsaw, 24 June 1946; FO 371/56423/N8363/27/55, Bevin to Strasburger, 28 June 1946.

  85. 85.

    Hankey made this recommendation and Sargent agreed that it would be the most effective course of action. TNA: FO 371/56423/N8399/27/55, Foreign Office Minutes, 18 June 1946; N8367/27/55, Warsaw to Foreign Office, 28 June 1946.

  86. 86.

    TNA: FO 371/56441/N7963/34/55, Hankey to Cavendish-Bentinck, 19 June 1946.

  87. 87.

    TNA: FO 371/56442/N8518/34/55, Cavendish-Bentinck to Hankey, 25 June 1946.

  88. 88.

    TNA: FO 371/56443/N9147/34/55, Warsaw to Foreign Office, 12 July 1946.

  89. 89.

    TNA: FO 371/56443/N8598/34/55, Warsaw to Foreign Office, 2 July 1946; FO 371/56443/N8888/34/55, Warsaw to Foreign Office, including ten enclosed reports on the conduct of the referendum from embassy staff in electoral districts across Poland, 10 July 1946.

  90. 90.

    Prażmowska, Civil War in Poland, 196.

  91. 91.

    Robert Frazier, Anglo-American Relations with Greece: The Coming of the Cold War, 1942–47 (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1991), 108–110; Robert M. Hathaway, Ambiguous Partnership: Britain and America, 1944–1947 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1981), 276–280; Folly, ‘Ernest Bevin and Anglo-American Relations’, 157.

  92. 92.

    TNA: FO 371/56443/N8804/34/55, Warsaw to Foreign Office, 5 July 1946; Foreign Office Minutes, 9–11 July 1946; Foreign Office to Warsaw, 12 July 1946.

  93. 93.

    TNA: FO 371/56444/N9295/34/55, Foreign Office to Washington, 12 July 1946; Washington to Foreign Office, 12 July 1946.

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  1. LSE Department of International History, London, UK

    Andrea Mason

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Mason, A. (2018). The Electoral Bloc to the Polish Referendum, January to June 1946. In: British Policy Towards Poland, 1944–1956. Security, Conflict and Cooperation in the Contemporary World. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-94241-4_4

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