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^WEEK

New Series No. 96

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21 BLOOMS BURY W A Y LONDON. W.C.I

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touch of a hidden button, a. "Polish Crisis" was

September Ist, 1944

As though at the

suddenly pushed onto the front pages of the British Pres3 this week, was nade the central theme of conversations at the Foreign Office, and the subjeot of news bulletins to the wholc of Europę broadcast by the B.B.C. Foreign Service.

Leading article3 appearod, inspired journalists wrota articles on the subject, and it became elear that for one rcason or another "offioial circles" in London had suddenly taken the ćeci3ion to follow, on this issue, not the linę which they had ostensibly foliowe hitherto, but on the contrary the linę advocated by the extreme Right, by the principal organa of the Catholic Pres3, and by the intransigents of the Polish emigre Government in London.

In these cireumstances, the gravity of the issue cannot be doubted. It is therefore desirable to report very fully on the matter.

The change occurs precisely at the moment whon the President of the National Liberation Committee in Poland not only defined the generał conditions of co-operation with the London eaigres but also for tho first tiffio officially traced the entirc futurę western boundary of Poland as the Committee would like it to run. he Boundary

The boundary is frora the source of the I^isso, on tho Czechoslovak border of south-east centr3.1 Silesia, to the confluence cf the Neisse with the Cder, and thence to the nsouth of the Oder at Stettin.

This was the moment chosen by the British Press, and by the Foreign Office and by the B.B.C. to launch a violent polemic on behalf of the enenies of the Committee, and of the Soviet Government.

It is clearly impossible, a3 we have freaucntly noted, to separate the Polish ąuestion from the German ąuestion. Every weakening of the generał linę of the Committee is, ipso facto, a strengthening of the "soft peace for Germany" linę.

Somersault

A fortnight ago, the impression was gair.ed in British official circle3, that there was generał optimism about the prospects of agreement botween M. Mikołajczyk, Polish Premier, that there was disgust with the anti-Soviet charges regarding Warsaw, first voiced by the Vatican organ "Osservatore Romano", and that there was also a vcry firm linę being taken on the "soft peace" issue, against the "soft peace" propaganda.

Now, as a result of the activities roentioned during the past few days, everything ha3 been oncc morę thrown into confusion, and the Germans a.nd the "soft peaco" propagandists alike are beginning to feel--rightly or wrongly--that if they keep on borlng away they may get somewhere yet.

The Facts

Plunging through tho propaganda haze on the Polish issue, you get these facts:—

As Premier Mikołajczyk was lcaving for Moscow, there were not merely "grounds for optimism", but grounds so strong that the Polish intransigents, in ncar-panic, started visibly to whistle up reinforcements, lay minefields, and Bet booby-traps.