Message to F. Roosevelt (Correspondence Vol. 2, No. 180)

Since Mr Churchill has sent you, as he tells me, a copy of his March 21 message to me on the Polish question, I think it proper to send, for your information, a copy of my reply to his message.
Copy enclosed.
March 23, 1944
I have lately received two messages from you on the Polish question and have read the statement made by Mr Kerr on the question to V. M. Molotov on instructions from you.
I have not been able
to reply earlier as front affairs often keep me away from non-military matters.
I shall now answer point by point.
I was struck by the fact that both your message and particularly Kerr's statement bristle with threats against the Soviet Union. I should like to call your attention to this circumstance because threats as a method are not only out of place in relations between Allies, but also harmful, for they may lead to opposite results.
The Soviet Union's efforts to uphold and implement the Curzon Line are referred to in
one of your messages as a policy of force. This implies that you are now trying to describe the Curzon Line as unlawful and the struggle for it as unjust. I totally disagree with you. I must point out that at Tehran you the President and myself were agreed that the Curzon Line was lawful.
At that time you considered the Soviet Government's stand on the issue quite correct, and said it would be crazy for representatives of the Polish emigre Government to reject the Curzon Line. But now you maintain something to the contrary.
Does this mean that you no longer recognise what we agreed on in Tehran and are ready to violate the Tehran agreement? I have no doubt that had you persevered in your Tehran stand the conflict with the Polish emigre Government could have been settled. As for me and the Soviet Government, we still adhere to the Tehran standpoint, and we have no intention of going back on it, for we believe implementation of the Curzon Line to be evidence, not of a policy of force, but of a policy of re-establishing the Soviet Union's legitimate right to those territories, which even Curzon and the Supreme Council of the Allied Powers recognised as non-Polish in 1919.
You say in your message of March 7 that the problem of the Soviet-Polish frontier will have to be put off till the armistice conference is convened. I think there is a misunderstanding here. The Soviet Union is not waging nor does it intend to wage war against Poland. It has no conflict with the Polish people and considers itself an ally of Poland and the Polish people. That is why it is shedding its blood to free Poland from German oppression. It would be strange, therefore, to speak of an armistice between the U.S.S.R. and Poland. But the Soviet Union is in conflict with the Polish emigre Government, which does not represent the interests of the Polish people or express their aspirations. It would be stranger still to identify Poland with the Polish emigre Government in London, a government isolated from Poland. I even find it hard to tell the difference between Poland's emigre Government and the Yugoslav emigre Government, which is akin to it, or between certain generals of the Polish emigre Government and the Serb General Mihajlović.
In your message of March 21 you tell me of your intention to make a statement in the House of Commons to the effect that all territorial questions must await the armistice or peace conferences of the victorious Powers and that in the meantime you cannot recognise any forcible
transferences
of territory. As I see it you make the Soviet Union appear as being hostile to Poland, and virtually deny the liberation nature of the war waged by the Soviet Union against German aggression. That is tantamount to attributing to the Soviet Union something which is non-existent, and, thereby, discrediting it. I have no doubt that the peoples of the Soviet Union and world public opinion will evaluate your statement as a gratuitous insult to the Soviet Union.
To be sure you are free to
make any statement you like in the House of Commons - that is your business. But should you make a statement of this nature I shall consider that you have committed an unjust and unfriendly act in relation to the Soviet Union.
In your message you express the hope that the break-down over the Polish question will not affect our cooperation in other spheres. As far as I am concerned, I have been, and still am, for cooperation. But I fear that the method of intimidation and defamation, if continued, will not benefit our cooperation.

March 23, 1944