Churchill turning his back on Poland

Not quite true. The USSR was able to reach the pre-Great War level of average wealth per person only in 1933.
But even this is just "lies, damned lies, and statistics" because the population was robbed blind in order to finance the Soviet industry, mainly heavy industry.
Soviet citizens, especially in rural areas were shockingly poor by the pre-Great War standards. And lots of them were quite dead as result of all that robbing going on.

 

Not just dictatorships, but all forms of government need at least the tacit support of the majority.

 

Are you challenging facts presented in a a book you haven't even read because of some anonymous opinion found on internet? Google "User ratings are unreliable, and we fail to account for that" for more.

Anyway from Political Realism and the Crisis of World Politics by Kenneth W. Thompson:

If Mr. Churchill expected to satisfy the House of Commons that the Polish settlement was not only necessary but also just, he was disappointed. If he expected to allay what The Time., (of London) has frequently called the hagridden fears of the problems of power that possess the more utopian members of Parliament, his hopes proved short lived.
Sir William Beveridge of Berwick upon Tweed, author of the Beveridge Plan, responded to the Prime Minister in words of haughty contempt:
"We have to stick to principle. We have to stick to principle in international affairs, and if it happens that one cannot both stick to one's friends and stick to principle, one must stick to principle; because principles do not change, but friends, even if they appear for the moment to be unreasonable, may change and become reasonable. Opportunism, appeasement, self-regarding policies, power politics, all lead to the grave of all our hopes."'

There were other members who asserted that Britain had long been the trustee of Poland and therefore was not free to yield Poland's rights to Russian power. If Britain were to be guided by expediency, she would prove herself no better than Nazi Germany.
If she yielded to this temptation, World War II would have been fought in vain.

Commander Sir Archibald Southby sought to persuade his wayward colleagues to return to the path of virtue when he said:
"With much of the Yalta Agreement I am in accord, but if our foreign policy is to be based upon expediency and not upon principles then it is bound to fail, and I cannot in honour express my confidence in it. . . . I hold that there is a greater loyalty than that which we owe to any one man, Government or party - the loyalty to those fundamental ideals of justice, liberty and honour to uphold which we have twice in our lifetime seen the British sword drawn."'

The Prime Minister's defense of Yalta came under attack from other directions and from other camps. He had been challenged in behalf of high principles; now he was held to account for the gulf that seemed to separate his lofty pronouncements and the cruel, stark demands of the balance of power wrought by the conduct of the last stages of the war.
Thorneycroft calmly but firmly reminded his colleagues: Of do not regard the Polish settlement as an act of justice. It may be right or wrong, it may be wise or foolish, but at any rate it is not justice as I understand the term. It is not the sort of situation ... (before] a disinterested body . . . in which the strength and power of one of the parties is never allowed to weigh in the balance. The sooner we recognize that we are a long way from that sort of thing happening the better.'"'
One speaker after another, including those who supported the Prime Minister, conceded that Yalta was inevitable. The Russians could not be expected to recede from territory that they had seized in the last days of the war. But the hypocrisy of claiming that this was an act of justice compatible with the Atlantic Charter was more than they or by implication, the people could swallow.

 

Churchill's letter to Roosevelt shortly afterwards, from Churchill and the Soviet Union by David Carlton:

The news from Moscow about Poland is also most disappointing ... I have based myself in Parliament on the assumption that the words of the Yalta declaration will be carried out in the letter and the spirit.
Once it is seen that we have been deceived and that the well-known communist technique is being applied behind dosed doors in Poland, either directly by the Russians or through their Lublin puppets, a very grave situation in British public opinion will be reached.
As to the upshot of all this, if we do not get things right now, it will soon be seen by the world that you and I by putting our signatures to the Crimea settlement have under-written a fraudulent prospectus ... I feel that this is the test case between us and the Russians in the meaning which is to be attached to such terms as Democracy, Sovereignty, Independence, Representative Government and free and unfettered elections.

 

Let me join this off-topic subject as I have some empiric knowledge on the subject. I have lived in both system; in a socialist country that turned into a capitalistic democracy. In real life there is almost no difference at all, just in socialist system human values were respected better and working class people had some chance for self respect.

@OhneGewehr: I am from the territory directly annexed to the Reich 1941-1945 - Untersteiermark. I am lucky enough that I haven't lived under the Nazi regime. However, from my relatives and people I knew I've heard that the Nazi regime was the most dreadful system that has ever existed and had fo be elliminated by all means. Nazis were the worst turd that has ever surfaced to this world.

 

Maybe they should try the Soviet Gulag, or a Holodomor or two before making such sweeping judgment.
It seems the Soviet socialists loved their working folks to death, and quite literally.

Allies' cooperation in destruction of the Nazi regime has nothing to do with their cooperation in imposing Soviet rule in Central Europe.

 

Takao already demonstrated the authors' ability to bend "Facts", yet you question me??!?

I've read enough to see it has an agenda, and is full of artistic hyperbole. In other words, not really a proper paper of historic significance; it's sole purpose is to generate money for the authors rather than providing penetrating insights. It does not reason, it appeals to emotion. These huband-and-wife authors spew forth books.

I'm sure it has entertaining moments. But quit pretending it is more than what it is.

You keep harping on the same song, yet have repeatedly ignored the question posed to you:

"If you can see some other alternative action that benefits both Poland and the Western Allies more, you're welcome to explain. But you've failed miserably so far."

 

You've deliberately misread and/or misquoted Kenneth W. Thompson;

"Thompson's desire to ground international relations thought in history led him to distrust mono-causal theories, whether the Marxist championing of class and economic relations, the liberal faith in democratic government, or the "scientific" theorizing of much of international relations thought since the behavioral revolution. For Thompson, theory picks out what is most essential from reality, but theory that strays too far from the complexity of reality revealed in history is more likely to be the projection of the theorist’s own prejudices than a useful way of understanding the international states-system."

"His distrust of the great simplifiers has led to his refusal to rely on one truth and to his acceptance of the Niebuhrian belief that all political insights are partial, motives are usually mixed, and any one truth taken to its logical extreme will prove harmful. Unlike many students of normative theory in international relations, he has been reluctant to judge one side in a dispute entirely right and the other irrevocably wrong, granting instead that both may have some claim of justice which they might press too far if unopposed. This belief has led in turn to Thompson’s consistent position that ethically tolerable outcomes in international politics are more likely to be achieved through a counterbalancing of power than through moral exhortation."

Emphasis my own.

Indeed, in the Preface of that very book you elect to quote selected passages from, we can read;

"In this respect, political realism is an invitation to seek the truth and not a termination of free inquiry. It provides a framework and not a doctrine, a set of hypotheses rather than a list of answers. The pages that follow have been written in this spirit and I would profoundly hope might be read this way, however emphatic or outspoken I have been at certain points in explanation or analysis."

Later we can read:
In a lecture at Princeton he (Woodrow Wilson) declared: "Morality is a great deal bigger than law. The individual morality is the sense of right or wrong of one man. The social morality must strike an average. This is where reformers make their tragic mistake. There can be no compromise in individual morality but there has to be a compromise, an average, in social morality." There is indeed an element of morality in the very fact of compromise in social under- takings. In this same vein we recall the words of Cavour: "If we had done for ourselves what we did for the state, what scoundrels we would have been."

 

Could you be more specific to what exactly are you objecting to?

I didn't say anything about Thompson's theories because I've never read his book.
I didn't say anyting about that huband-and-wife team and their hyperboles if any, because I've never read their book too.

I only used the facts they provided because I've know they are true, and it was convenient to copy/paste from their works.

I hope you are not claiming that the debate didn't happen, that many MPs criticized Churchill, that 25 of them introduced an amendment regretting their government's "decision to transfer to another power the territory of an ally".

As far as I know:

We have, dozens of times in our history, accepted this kind of arrangement as a fact of power. I accept it as a fact of power, but I cannot be asked to underwrite it as an act of justice.

if our foreign policy is to be based upon expediency and not upon principles then it is bound to fail.

If Britain were to be guided by expediency, she would prove herself no better than Nazi Germany.

I hold that there is a greater loyalty than that which we owe to any one man, Government or party - the loyalty to those fundamental ideals of justice, liberty and honour to uphold which we have twice in our lifetime seen the British sword drawn.

were said during that debate and faithfully represent opinions and believes of those MPs.

You've said it was only Poles and it is not true, many opposed the deal even then in 1945. Just an example, this time I hope irrefutable one:



View attachment 25021

 

Few decisions that are worthwhile, are ever unanimous.

Competent Politicians have to face not only their constituents, but also the realities of the world to consider.

It is precisely this reason, that there has to be some accommodation made towards the reality that is. A reality that, when the PGiX consistently tried to deny it out of existence, made the PGiX completely irrelevant.

In this context is is entirely wrong, to accuse the British of nearly single-handedly betraying the Poles.

What it is, is a present day agenda by Poles to blackwash the Western Allies, without admitting any of the realities facing hard-pressed UK, up to and including 1943. Poles accept no political blame whatsoever, and demand the Western Allies capitulation in the face some supposed Polish moral superiority and apparent righteous indignation.

What's worse, is so-called authors such as Lynne Olson, & Stanley Cloud (actually journalists trying to parade around as historians) perpetuating this, by twisting facts and including emotional arguments without providing any greater enlightenment or deeper discourse into the reasons.

The opinions and protestations of the Bishops of Scotland in February '45 is neither here nor there. They wouldn't have to live with any of the consequences in their ivory towers.

 

The lease elaborate on the above? Who should try the Gulag or the Holodomor?

 

The people who claim that "in socialist system human values were respected better"
Because the USSR was a socialist country. The Soviets claimed it themselves, it was written in their constitution too.

 

Why are you attacking the messenger? They seems to be hard working people, it takes a lot to write a book using foreign language sources.
Certainly it's a thoroughly American book, the Poles don't write like that.

Still, the facts shown above are correct. We could always call some heavy hitters to testify if needed:

Roosevelt, Stalin, and Churchill discuss the problem of Poland, Yalta Conference, February 1945
YALTA Conference - Third Plenary Meeting February 6, 1945 4:00pm, Livadia Palace
TOP SECRET

PRESIDENT: The main suggestion I want to make is that there be created an ad interim government which will have the support of the majority of the Polish people. There are many ways of creating such a government. One of the many suggestions is the possibility of creating a presidency council made up of a small number of men would be the controlling force ad interim to set up a more permanent government. I make this suggestion as from the distance of three thousand miles. Sometimes distance is an advantage. We want a Poland that will be thoroughly friendly to the Soviet for years come. This is essential.
STALIN: (interrupting) Friendly not only to the Soviet but all three allies.
PRESIDENT: This is my only suggestion. If we can work out some solution of this problem it will make peace much easier.
PRIME MINISTER: I have made repeated declarations in Parliament in support of the Soviet claims to the Curzon line, that is to say, leaving Lvov with Soviet Russia. I have been much criticized and so has Mr. Eden especially by the party which I represent. But I have always considered that after all Russia has suffered in fighting Germany and after all her efforts in liberating Poland her claim is one founded not on force but on right. In that position 1 abide. But of course if the mighty power, the Soviet Union, made a gesture of magnanimity to a much weaker power and made the gesture suggested by the President we would heartily acclaim such action.

So Churchill faced much opposition, even among his own colleagues.


Three Approaches to Peace: Roosevelt, Stalin, and Churchill in World War II
by Henry Kissinger
In October 1944, Churchill undertook an almost quixotic enterprise to settle the future of Eastern Europe directly with Stalin.
During a visit to Moscow which lasted eight days, Churchill jotted down a spheres-of-influence arrangement and handed it to Stalin. In it, he envisaged a delineation of spheres in terms of percentages, with Great Britain obtaining 90 percent in Greece, and the Soviet Union 90 percent in Romania and 75 percent in Bulgaria; Hungary and Yugoslavia were divided according to a 50-50 basis.
Stalin accepted on the spot -though Molotov, in the best Soviet tradition of horse trading, sought in a dialogue with Eden to shave the British percentages, giving the Soviets a greater edge in every East European country except Hungary.

The British effort had a certain pathos about it. Never before had spheres of influence been defined by percentages. No criteria to measure compliance existed, or any means of enforcement. Influence would be defined by the presence of the contending armies.
In this manner, Greece fell into the British sphere, with or without the agreement, while all the other states - except Yugoslavia - became Soviet satellites regardless of the percentages assigned to them.
Even Yugoslavia's freedom of action resulted not from the Churchill-Stalin agreement but from the fact that it had been under Soviet occupation for only a very brief period and had liberated itself from German military occupation through a major guerrilla effort of its own.

By the time of the Yalta Conference in February 1945, nothing remained of the Churchill-Stalin agreement. The Soviet army was already in possession of all the disputed territories, making the frontiers issue largely moot. Moreover, it was intervening massively in the internal arrangements of all the occupied countries.

So it was more like dividing the spoils, than for the greater good of the natives.


Below the infamous percentages agreement:


View attachment 25032

 

You still have refused to even acknowledge the question posed to you.

All you do is harp on. None of what you have provided is evidence of "betrayal."

 

I really do not see the controversy here. Once the Soviet Union entered the war, and survived the initial onslaught, Poland's fate was effectively sealed. Indeed, until the American entry in to the war (which could have come much later than it did), Britain would have been lucky to secure much of western Europe at all. They first had to cross the channel, then build a secure base to move into Europe proper.

Even accounting for the historic time line it would take a maximum effort to reach Berlin before the guns fell silent. This would still leave Poland under Soviet control. The 'percentage plan' was the best that could be hoped for and pure propaganda for both sides.

Short of war there was no way the West could change the outcome.

 

Betrayal means "to deliver or expose to an enemy by treachery or disloyalty", "to be unfaithful in maintaining, or fulfilling", "be disloyal to". It's a perfect word in those circumstances.

As to "some other alternative action that benefits both Poland and the Western Allies more".

It should be noted it wasn't benefits, it was ill gotten benefits obtained by blatantly raping international law. It's bad because provides a good precedent for those in need to rape international law for their own benefits today.

Then, an alternative needs a primary action. There was a primary action but as Mr Kissinger writes it failed immediately because of its naivety. So basically the primary action was a wishful thinking exercise. The Allies didn't get any hopped benefits at all.

A good alternative would be to limit cooperation with Stalin to a few clearly and easily attainable goals like defeating of Nazi Germany, its disarmament, denazification, and nothing more.
He would subjugate Central Europe anyway, but without the Allies' support he would be forced to do it more cautiously so maybe a few lives would be spared.
The main benefits would be that international law would be still intact, and the Allies' leaders wouldn't be called betrayers later.

 

That was ok. What wasn't ok was the fact they cheered Stalin's actions and gave him free advice how to seal Poland's fate better.

 

In your imagination. You may not have noticed, but post July, 1941, the Soviet Union was not the enemy.

Once again, your whole premise rests on hindsight. But entirely without considering the dilemmas faced by the accused. Which you instead neglect entirely, or dismiss entirely.

Once again, your accusation completely exonerates the Polish government. Which an author you quoted would not do. Then you admitted to not actually having read the book...

Once again, you are making claims based on morality for individuals and some supposed "international law", although which you never state.

Once again, you are using strong language to evoke feelings, instead of relying on reason. To use your imagery; you are blatantly raping logic.

Once again, for all the West knew, up until late 1943, Stalin could've gotten a better a deal from Hitler. It wasn't until November 1943, that Stalin agreed to the unconditional surrender of Germany. You use terms lightly, and akin to the bishops of Scotland in 1945, you do not need to consider what they actually entail, nor are you precise in time when you consider these; your accusations span from 1939 to 1945. You make a sweeping general statement, "easily attainable goals" / "nothing more" (!)... I'm left wondering if you actually noticed it took 4 years of fighting across an entire continent by the three greatest powers on Earth to defeat Nazi Germany, and left one of them shattered and spent, and another bled white.

"International law intact?" Don't make me laugh; It never was "intact".

 

You must either believe the Polish Government of the time was either incredibly stupid, or incredibly naïve and gullible, or both.

Those same Poles that navigated the Machiavellan post WW1 period in Eastern Europe.

They knew and understood what would likely happen.

They focused entirely on whitewashing themselves. What befell the Poles, was largely their doing. They were never willing to share the blame, which a compromise would've entailed. Nevertheless, and luckily for them, the UK didn't fold. Considering this widespread belief about UK betrayal, the UK should've backed off, and left Eastern Europe to rot.

 

International law has always been a fungible factor, often being over ruled by Force Majeure. Poland's central problem was her location, stuck between two expansive totalitarian empires and with no easy access to a large ally who had the willingness or need to push Poland's interests.

One could argue that Poland lost its best chance to remain free by staying on the sidelines during the Munich crisis.