Moscow Embassy Files, Lot F96: Telegram
The Chairman of the Council of People’s Commissars of the Soviet Union (Stalin) to the British Prime Minister (Churchill) and President Roosevelt
I have received the message from you and Mr. Roosevelt about Warsaw. I wish to express my opinions.
Sooner or later the truth about the group of criminals, who have embarked on the Warsaw adventure in order to seize power, will become known to everybody. These people have exploited the good faith of the citizens of Warsaw, throwing many almost unarmed people against the German guns, tanks and aircraft. A situation has arisen in which each new day serves not the Poles for the liberation of Warsaw but the Hitlerites who are inhumanly shooting down the inhabitants of Warsaw.
From the military point of view, the situation which has arisen, by increasingly directing the attention of the Germans to Warsaw, is just as unprofitable for the Red Army as for the Poles. Meanwhile the Soviet troops who have recently encountered new and notable efforts by the Germans to go over to the counter attack, are doing everything possible to smash these counter attacks of the Hitlerites [Page 1386] and to go over to a new wide-scale attack in the region of Warsaw. There can (be?) no doubt that the Red Army is not sparing its efforts to break the Germans round Warsaw and to free Warsaw for the Poles. That will be the best and most effective help for the Poles who are anti-Nazis.