GalleryText of Soviet Note to Polish Government
On April 25, 1943, V. M, Molotov, People's Commissar of Foreign Affairs of the U.S.S.R., handed to T. Romer, Polish Ambassador, the following note of the Soviet Government:
On behalf of the Government of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, I have the honor to notify the Polish Government of the following:
The Soviet Government considers the recent behavior of the Polish Government with regard to the USSR as entirely abnormal, violating all regulations and standards of relations between two allied States. The slanderous campaign, hostile to the Soviet Union, launched by the German fascists in connection with the murder of Polish officers which they themselves committed in the Smolensk area on territory occupied by German troops, was at once taken up by the Polish Government and is being fanned in every way by the Polish official press.1
Far from offering a rebuff to the vile fascist slander of the USSR, the Polish Government did not even find it necessary to address the Soviet Government with any inquiry or explanation on this subject.
Having committed a monstrous crime against the Polish officers, the Hitlerite authorities now stage a farcical investigation, and for this staging they made use of certain Polish pro-fascist elements whom they themselves picked in occupied Poland where everything is under Hitler's heel and where an honest Pole cannot openly have his say. For the "investigation" both the Polish Government and the Hitlerite Government invited the International Red Cross, which is compelled, in conditions of a terroristic regime with its gallows and mass extermination of the peaceful population, to take part in this investigation farce staged by Hitler. Clearly such an "investigation," conducted behind the back of the Soviet Government at that, cannot evoke the confidence of people possessing am amount of honesty.
The fact that the hostile campaign against the Soviet Union commenced simultaneously in the German and Polish press and is conducted along the same lines—this fact leaves no doubt as to the existence of contact and accord in carrying out this hostile campaign between the enemy of the Allies—Hitler, and the Polish Government.
While the peoples of the Soviet Union are bleeding profusely in the hard struggle against Hitlerite Germany and' strain every effort for the defeat of the common enemy of the Russian and Polish peoples and all freedom-loving, democratic countries, the Polish Government, to please Hitler's tyranny, deals a treacherous blow to the Soviet Union.
The Soviet Government is aware that this hostile campaign against the Soviet Union was undertaken by the Polish Government in order to exert pressure upon the Soviet Government by making use of the Hitlerite slanderous fake for the purpose of wresting from it territorial concessions at the expense of the interests of the Soviet Ukraine, Soviet Byelorussia and Soviet Lithuania.
All these circumstances compel the Soviet Government to recognize that the present Government of Poland, having slid to the path of accord with Hitler's government, has actually discontinued allied relations with the USSR and has adopted a hostile attitude toward the Soviet Union.
On the strength of all the above, the Soviet Government has decided to sever relations with the Polish Government.
Please accept, Mr. Ambassador, assurances of my very high esteem.
| 1 | As we now know, the murders were a premeditated slaughter by the Soviets of the entire Polish officer corps. |
