5 - The ‘Tempest’ Plan

Summary

The Changes in London and Warsaw

In July 1943 the President of Poland appointed Stanislaw Mikolajczyk as the new Prime Minister of Poland, and General Kazimierz Sosnkowski as Commander-in-Chief.

Mikolajczyk was one of the leaders of the Peasant Party, and during the period 1941–3 served in Sikorski's Cabinet as Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of the Interior. In this capacity he was responsible for the political side of the resistance movement in Poland. It was expected that the new Premier would follow his predecessor's policy towards Moscow.

Mikolajczyk was anxious to reach a compromise with Russia which would allow our Government and Army to return to Polish soil … He … believed that he could play the part of a leader inside Poland with the support of the peasant masses … He believed that Poland's policy could be established on the basis of solidarity between the Eastern and Western Allies …

Sosnkowski, whose nomination was opposed by Mikolajczyk and accepted by the British Government with some reluctance because of his anti-Russian views, was unlike the Premier in both personality and opinions. For many years he was intimately linked with Pilsudski and his ideology, which tended to make him persona non grata in the eyes of Polish left-wing political parties. In July 1941 he resigned from Sikorski's Cabinet, in which he had held the post of Secretary of State responsible for Home military affairs, in protest against the signing of the pact with Russia, which he regarded as detrimental to Polish interest in that it failed to commit the Russians to recognition of the Riga Line as their post-war frontier with Poland.