Abstract
Poland occupied a central place in Stalin’s foreign policy throughout the Second World War. During the British Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden’s visit to Moscow in December 1941, Molotov deliberately stressed that one of the most important objectives of Soviet policy was ‘our Western borders’.1 The borders he meant included territories already seized by the USSR in 1939–40 under what Stalin- in front of foreign visitors, including Churchill — used to tease Molotov as being ‘your pact with Hitler’. They covered three main areas: the fate of the Baltic States, the future boundaries of Poland and the eventual border between the USSR and Romania. For Stalin at the end of 1941, the first two looked the most problematical.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Notes
Anthony Eden, The Reckoning (London, 1965), p. 296.
Ibid., pp. 289–90; G. Ross (ed.), The Foreign Office and the Kremlin (Cambridge, 1984), pp. 82–97.
S. Miner, Between Churchill and Stalin (London and Chapel Hill, NC, 1988), pp. 197–207;
M. Kitchen, British Policy Towards the Soviet Union During the Second World War (London, 1986), pp. 113–15.
H. Phillips, ‘Mission to America: Maksim M. Litvinov in the United States, 1941–43’, Diplomatic History, Vol. 12, No. 3 (1988), p. 269;
Sovetsko-amerikanskie otnosheniya v gody Velikoi Otechestvennoi voiny (Moscow, 1975), Vol. I, pp. 155–6.
C. Bolen, Witness to History, 1929–69 (New York, 1973), p. 210.
Eden, op. cit., pp. 327–9; Miner, op. cit., pp. 238–49; V.Ya. Sipols, Na puti k Velikoi pobede. Sovetskaya diplomatiya v 1941–1945 gg. (Moscow, 1985), pp. 111–13.
Eden, op. cit., pp. 329–30; Miner, op. cit., pp. 249, 258, 267; see also War and Diplomacy: The Making of the Grand Alliance (Abingdon and Amsterdam, 1996), pp. 122–39.
See W. Anders, Bez ostatniego rozdziału. Wspomnienia z lat 1939–1946 (Newton, MA, 1950).
Leon Trotsky, Oeuvres, Vol. 22 (Paris, 1985), p. 38.
Kitchen, op. cit., pp. 154–5; Dalek, op. cit., pp. 400–401; V. Rothwell, Britain and the Cold War, 1941–1947 (London, 1982), p. 161;
Voitek Mastny, Russia’s Road to the Cold War (New York, 1985), p. 76;
U. Cherchill’ [Winston Churchill], Vtoraya mirovaya voina, Vol. 1V (Moscow, 1955), pp. 737–8;
Winston S. Churchill, The Second World War, Vol. 1V (London, 1951), p. 681.
W. Isaacson and E. Thomas, The Wise Men (New York, 1986), p. 217.
K. Sainsbury, The Turning-point (Oxford, 1985), pp. 104, 120;
J. Karski, The Great Powers and Poland, 1919–1945: From Versailles to Yalta (London, 1985), pp. 429–31, 448, 451, 476–80;
Tegeranskaya konferentsiya rukovoditelei trekh soyuznykh derzhav — SSSR, SShA i Velikobritanii (Moscow, 1984), p. 150.
Averell Harriman and E. Abel, Special Envoy to Churchill and Stalin, 1941–1946 (New York, 1975), pp. 329–30.
Ibid., pp. 665–8; Kitchen, op. cit., pp. 179–85; L. Aronsen and M. Kitchen, The Origins of the Cold War in Comparative Perspective (London, 1988), pp. 23–4, 91–2, 98–9.
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Copyright information
© 1999 Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Kudryashov, S. (1999). Diplomatic Prelude. In: Kemp-Welch, A. (eds) Stalinism in Poland, 1944–1956. International Council for Central and East European Studies. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-27680-6_2
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-27680-6_2
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-27682-0
Online ISBN: 978-1-349-27680-6
eBook Packages: Palgrave History CollectionHistory (R0)