Diplomatic compromise: General Wladyslaw Sikorski's Soviet policy and the Alliance of July 30, 1941 as a 'third-way' alternative for Polish-Soviet relations during the Second World War

My doctoral dissertation examines the Soviet policy of General Wladyslaw Sikorski who developed a 'third-way' alternative course for Polish-Soviet relations during the Second World War, specifically in the years from 1939 to 1943. There is a particular focus on the Polish-Soviet alliance, the so-called Sikorski∼Maisky pact of 30 July 1941. The majority of my research work occurred at Stanford University in California where the Hoover Institution Archives are located. Some primary research also took place in Warsaw and to a small degree in Moscow and Central Asia.; By placing Russo-Polish relations in their historical context, I was able to proceed with an examination of Polish-Soviet relations beginning with the 1917 Bolshevik revolution. In examining these early years it became clear that both sides were very suspicious of each another. This hostility appears to have been ideologically and culturally motivated.; After the fall of Warsaw in the autumn of 1939, an independent Polish government re-established itself in exile in France under the leadership of General Wladyslaw Sikorski who had been appointed Prime Minister and Commander-in-Chief. The Soviet Union refused to recognize Sikorski's government so long as the Nazi-Soviet pact was in effect. However, with the Nazi invasion of the USSR on 22 June 1941 the international situation changed. The Polish-Soviet Agreement of 30 July 1941 re-established diplomatic ties between the Polish and Soviet governments, permitted the formation of a Polish army on Soviet soil and declared an amnesty for deported Polish citizens. These key points tested old Polish-Soviet antagonisms and suspicions quickly reappeared. Furthermore, it would trigger controversy within the Polish government-inexile as well.; General Sikorski offered a 'third-way'-alternative to Polish Soviet-relations as opposed to complete subservience advocated by the extreme Polish Left or Russophobia prevalent within more conservative Polish political circles. In examining Polish-Soviet relations and the 1941 Sikorski-Maisky pact along with the immediate reactions to Sikorski's Soviet policy by members of his own government-in-exile, I have looked at a topic largely neglected at a scholarly level in the English language but one that forms an important link in our understanding of international relations during World War II.