Plain Talk from a Pole

Tough-talking, tougher-thinking General Wladyslaw Sikorski, head of Poland's Government in Exile, spoke up to Russia, the U.S. and Britain last week. Said he in London:

"I wish solemnly to state here, and with the greatest emphasis, that if, at the conclusion of war, our rights are not respected and our long and passionate devotion to freedom is not taken into consideration, all Poles, irrespective of religious or political creed, will be united to the last man to resist any claims which aim at the sovereignty of our country, from whatever quarter they might be raised."

Sikorski had his reasons for such inflammatory talk, but both the time and the tone were ill chosen. He and his Poles had been aroused by: 1) Russia's refusal to promise the restoration of Poland's eastern frontiers; 2) recent signs that Moscow is growing more & more distrustful of the Sikorski Government, which until lately seemed to be on good terms with Stalin; 3) the lack of any recent evidence that Great Britain and the U.S. will back Poland's claims against the Russians. In the making was a row which might easily wreck any hopes of postwar harmony in Eastern Europe.

Benes or Bedlam. Last week, in Collier's, the Polish Premier turned on Russia with a proposal to enact a federation of small states from the Baltic to the Black Sea, a bloc which would wall off the Soviet Union within its prewar boundaries.

Sikorski and Eduard Benes, President of Czecho-Slovakia, once stood together in support of a Central European federation aimed not at Russia but at Germany. Lately the Poles, heady with resurgent nationalism now that the Allies are beginning to win, have demanded some Czech territory, and Benes stands alone. But Benes still has the good will of Britain and Russia. Said the Czech Government last week, scorning rumors (current in anti-Benes circles in diplomatic Washington) that it was moving to Moscow: "We stand for an agreement between the Western democracies and Soviet Russia in Central Europe. We will not enter into any combination against Soviet Russia or any combination against the Western democracies."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.