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Poland Soviet Liberation of Poland
Later in the war, the fate of Poland came to depend on
the
Soviet Union, which was initially the agent of deliverance
from
Nazi tyranny but later was the bearer of a new form of
oppression. Stalin responded to Polish indignation over
the Katy
Massacre by establishing an alternative Polish government
of
communists. The underground Polish Workers' Party (Polska
Partia
Robotnicza) had already been active in German-occupied
Poland for
over a year. In 1943 it established a small military arm,
the
People's Army (Armia Ludowa). The Home Army and the Polish
Workers' Party acted separately throughout the war.
As the tide of war turned in favor of the Allies, the
Soviet
shadow over Poland and Central Europe loomed larger. When
Soviet
forces neared Warsaw in the summer of 1944, the Home Army,
anticipating imminent Red Army assistance, launched a
rebellion
against the German garrisons in the capital. Instead, the
Soviets
halted their advance just short of Warsaw, isolating the
uprising
and enabling the Germans to crush it after two months of
intense
fighting. In retaliation against the Poles, the Germans
demolished Warsaw before retreating westward, leaving 90
percent
of the city in ruins.
Just before the Home Army uprising, the communist
factions
had formed the Polish Committee of National Liberation,
later
known as the Lublin Committee, as the official legal
authority in
liberated territory. In January 1945, the Lublin Committee
became
a provisional government, was recognized by the Soviet
Union, and
was installed in Warsaw. From that time, the Polish
communists
exerted primary influence on decisions about the
restoration of
Poland. Given this outcome, there is a strong suspicion
that the
Soviet failure to move on Warsaw in 1944 was an
intentional
strategy used by Stalin to eliminate the noncommunist
resistance
forces. The Red Army expelled the last German troops from
Poland
in March 1945, several weeks before the final Allied
victory in
Europe.
Data as of October 1992
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