740.0011 European War 1939/8–1944: Telegram
The Ambassador in the Soviet Union (Harrimam) to the Secretary of State
[Received August 20—3 p.m.]
3084. ReEmbtel 3079, August 19, 6 p.m.2 While Demidov’s argument seems most plausible to one not familiar with the background, it is at complete variance with the Soviet attitude to the Underground [Page 1383] resistance throughout the war. At the very outset, Stalin urged Soviet patriots in occupied territory to go underground and wage unremitting war against the Germans. Active resistance movements in occupied countries, such as Tito’s3 in Yugoslavia,4 have been encouraged and émigré governments have been constantly criticized for counseling a waiting policy. On August 16 in an article on White Russians Partisans, Izvestiya paid fulsome tribute to their activities, estimating that they had killed more than half a million German soldiers and officers and stating that on the eve of the July offensive, they controlled 60% of the occupied White Russia including twenty rayon5 centers. The same issue of Pravda in which Demidov’s article appears has laudatory articles concerning the assistance rendered the Allied Armies by French and Italian Partisans.
There was every reason for the Warsaw patriots to anticipate, even without instructions, that the time had come to arise and contribute to their liberation when the Red Army approached the city after its rapid victorious advance through White Russia. But the basic weakness in Demidov’s whole position is that as reported in my 3045, August 17, 6 p.m., such instructions were actually broadcast by the Union of Polish Patriots in Moscow. Had the Polish Government advocated a waiting policy to the population of Warsaw, it would doubtless have been excoriated in the Soviet press.
- Not printed; Ambassador Harriman outlined a vehement front page article in Pravda for August 19, written by Konstantin Demidov, who characterized the Warsaw uprising as a “failure”. Demidov agreed with the view that the Polish émigré government had resorted to a tricky maneuver in ordering the Polish Underground to begin the uprising, and that this premature order had been given to produce propaganda effect. He declared that neither the Red Army, nor the Soviet and British Governments had been warned of the planned uprising, and that cooperation with the insurgents had never been discussed. It was the Red Army which was really freeing Poland. (861.9111/8–1944)↩
- Josip Broz (Tito), leader of the Partisan guerrilla forces in Yugoslavia.↩
- For correspondence concerning the interest of the United States in the developments in Yugoslavia, see vol. iv , section on Yugoslavia.↩
- A district.↩