Civil War in Poland, 1942–1948 (review)

Poland's wartime history has most often been pictured in black-and-white terms—the good and the bad, the nationalist Armia Krajowa (Homeland Army) versus the Communists. Anita Prazmowska's careful examination of archival evidence pertaining to the various parties and underground groups puts an end to this simplistic dichotomy. Prazmowska thoughtfully shows who did what and for what purpose from the middle of World War II to the establishment of Communist rule. In so doing, she makes sense of many of the postwar tensions that are still around today.

The one thing that can be said with confidence about wartime Polish politics is that it was not simple. Prazmowska traces the words, realities, and expectations of the various Communist and non-Communist groups that argued with each other, fought the Germans, and dealt with their respective governments-in-exile (one in London and the other in the Soviet Union). She does this by looking not only at their strategies in fighting the Germans but also at their goals for Poland after the war and their attempts to elicit support for these goals not only from their allies but from the population at large. Prazmowska uses the various parties' assessments of the population's mood to build a picture of "public opinion." To this end, she highlights the intelligence collected by each party about its opponents and potential allies. She shows that although Poles thought beyond the brutalities of the war, they disagreed about the best arrangements to pursue. The one thing they were sure about is that they wanted neither Communism nor a state of large landowners, rich industrialists, and poor peasants and workers.

Prazmowska describes the conflicts within the London government-in-exile and between the government-in-exile and the various underground parties and fighters in Poland. Communications between those who were inside Poland and those who were outside were difficult but not impossible. The thorniest issue was how to deal with the Soviet Union. On this question another set of players—the British, French, and Americans—were also involved. Although the Poles assumed that their contribution of troops to the Allied war effort and their heroism at home would make their freedom a priority for the Allies, the Allies were in fact more interested in pleasing the Soviet Union than in Poland's fate. As Prazmowska knits together the many strands of Polish émigré politics and shows how the leading Polish politicians kept in contact with the Western allies and with their men and women on the ground, she defuses the myth of a "sellout at Yalta." Clearly, a great deal had happened before the Yalta talks that undercut Poland's standing and gave a decisive advantage to the Soviet Union. Prazmowska also underscores how difficult it was to maintain close ties between those fighting in wartime Poland and those in London.

Prazmowska deals only briefly with the Warsaw uprising of 1944 and does not discuss the ghetto uprisings at all. She concurs with other scholars who have found that the Warsaw uprising was far from well planned and coordinated even among the non-Communist underground groups.

Soviet control of Poland after the war was, in retrospect, a given. The decision to shift Poland's borders to the west had almost no support in Poland but was decided by the Allies. At the time, Polish-Soviet relations were precarious. Soviet and Polish Communist officials initially disagreed about the country's priorities and how to manage the chaos in Poland's new western territories. If Prazmowska is right, it was initially the Polish Communists who wanted to crack down and establish Stalinist rule. Josif Stalin himself appears to have believed that a coalition would be better as the occupation began. His concern was to ensure that the new Polish government would establish control in the former German territories and stem the mass migration of displaced people from East to West. For the time being, the question of setting up a Stalinist regime in...