The Warsaw Rising of 1944 (Cambridge Russian, Soviet and Post-Soviet Studies)
by Jan M. Ciechanowski
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Book Summary Information
Author: Jan M. CiechanowskiEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published)
Published: 2002-05-16
ISBN: 0521894417
Number of pages: 348
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Book Reviews of The Warsaw Rising of 1944 (Cambridge Russian, Soviet and Post-Soviet Studies)
Book Review: Political Events Up to and Including the Warsaw Uprising--With Dubious Contentions
Summary: 3 Stars
This book de-emphasizes military activity in favor of a focus on political activity. Emphasis is placed upon the behind-the-scenes dealings of the western powers, with the Soviet Union, over the future of Poland. Strengths of this book include its detailed documentation, including from seldom-cited sources, and its fine description of Operation Burza (Tempest) east of the so-called Curzon Line.
There was the usual Churchill-Stalin obsession with the need for Poland to have "ethnographic borders." Never mind the fact that the sun never set on the British Empire, most of which consisted of nations in which ethnic Britons were a decided minority, and the fact that the Soviet Union was itself a multi-ethnic state in which, ironically, ethnic Russians were a minority in most of the Soviet Republics!
Interestingly, Mikolajczyk had wanted British troops to be sent into Poland alongside the Red Army (p. 19). Mikolajczyk had been repeatedly pressured to give into Soviet demands to annex the eastern half of Poland. He steadfastly refused: "He feared that, if he accepted the Curzon Line or even smaller territorial changes in the east, the opposition abroad might brand him and his cabinet as traitors and stage a mutiny in the army." (p. 36)
Ciechanowski repeatedly faults Mikolajczyk for not accepting the Curzon Line. He suggests, without any evidence, that, had Mikolajczyk done so, the Soviets would have recognized the London Government (p. 68, 315, etc.)
Oddly, Ciechanowski seems to try to exonerate the Soviets. He discusses the Soviet reverses near Warsaw around August 1, 1944, and treats Stalin's refusal to follow Rokossovsky's suggestion to renew the drive to take Warsaw, after August 25, as something ambiguous (p. 251).
To be delayed up to three weeks is one thing; to be delayed by five and a half months is quite another. Does Ciechanowski seriously suppose that the Soviets, who had the Germans on the run over several hundred kilometers during the first half of 1944, now suddenly had become so weak that they needed until mid-January 1945 to re-establish their advance (in this case, merely across the Vistula)? And, considering such additional facts as the Soviets calling the Uprising a "criminal adventure", their disarming of AK units converging on Warsaw to assist the Uprising, and their refusal to allow western Allied planes to land on Soviet-held territory to refuel after their airdrops on Warsaw (except towards the very end, by which time the Uprising had been doomed)--how can there be any rational doubt that the Soviet failure to take Warsaw during the Uprising had been anything other than a cold, deliberate, perfidious act?
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