The Polish Underground Resistance During the Second World War: A Study in Political Disunity During Occupation

Historiography

The generally prevailing view in English language writing is that the AK was an impressive and efficient military organization. An example of this can be seen in Jonathan Walker’s recent book on British support for the Polish wartime resistance. The author suggests that ‘The AK had become the largest and most powerful resistance organization in occupied Europe with a formidable strength and a High Command split into several separate areas of responsibility’. ³ No mention is made of the divisions, conflicts or even of dilemmas within the ranks of the AK or of other resistance groups. Furthermore Walker states ‘The Home Army detachments were made up of all social classes, ranging from poor peasants and forest dwellers through to professionals such as doctors and lawyers’. ⁴ The subject of the book is the Special Operation Executive’s activities in support of the Polish war effort, so to some extent its conclusions are understandable. Nevertheless it is notable that his only sources on the Polish resistance are published volumes of AK documents and memoirs of the commanders of the AK.

This characterization of the AK is not unusual, in fact it is the norm in English-language writing. Authors of general books on Polish history, even though they frequently have the linguistic ability to consult Polish language publications on the resistance, have perpetuated the myth of national unity in the face of German atrocities. In an otherwise very good general history of Poland published by Cambridge University Press, the authors state:

By mid 1944, when it reached its maximum size of 400,000 men, the so called Home Army formed the largest underground organization in the whole of occupied Europe; it embraced within its structure all Polish resistance groups with the notable exception of the small communist-led People’s Army and the ultra nationalist National Armed Force. … Although officers of the pre-war army who had evaded capture provided much of its cadres, the Home Army drew on all sections of the Polish population and represented a veritable citizen army on a scale hitherto unknown in Polish history. ⁵

The portrayal of the AK as united or disunited seems to depend on the reason why this particular subject is brought up. Thus Tadeusz Piotrowski when discussing the Holocaust in Poland concludes his statement on the existence of various partisan units with a summary that ‘Many of these groups fought not only the Germans but even each other as well.’ ⁸ A more sophisticated analysis of the resistance is offered by Jan Gross. He nevertheless specifically suggests that the underground resistance represented the polity of the inter-war period responding to occupation. He thus wrote: ‘In the guise of the underground state it was actually the old system (I say system, rather than establishment, because it was not the continuation of Sanacja but of Polish statehood) that was defending itself against an attempted revolution imposed from abroad’. ⁹ Gross further suggests that the underground was in effect ‘an illegal Polish state’ and thus able to accommodate a variety of organizations with conflicting agendas. ¹⁰ While accepting the plurality of organizations which made up the AK, he dismisses the importance of the peasant movement by stating that ‘It was in the process of elaborating a doctrine of agrarianism but had not yet completed it’. ¹¹ Thus neither the peasant movement nor its aspirations warrant a debate. A similar view is expressed more generally by Józef Garliński in his book Poland in the Second World War. Basing his analysis of the published volumes of AK documents he concludes that indeed some underground organizations would not submit themselves to the AK as it was controlled by those who had before the war belonged to the ruling military regime. ¹² According to Garliński the breakthrough came when in February 1942 Władysław Sikorski changed the name of the underground army from the previous Związek Walki Zbrojnej (Union of Armed Struggle – ZWZ) to Armia Krajowa, a name by which it is was generally remembered after the war. According to this author, the change of name ‘had a psychological effect on those who were reluctant to accept the command and authority of General Rowecki (the commander of the AK)’. ¹³

An author who offers both a complex and nuanced picture of the Polish underground resistance is Richard Lukas, who recognizes that ‘Throughout the evolution of the civilian-political and military components of the Polish underground there was a great deal of ambiguity as to where the real locus of authority in Poland was located’. ¹⁴ Lukas points out that within the government in exile the Stronnictwo Ludowe (Peasant Party – SL) occupied a very important position. ¹⁵ Nevertheless in occupied Poland the SL was of less relevance, as the organization of the military units was nearly entirely dominated by ex-army officers. This had led to open conflicts with the governments in exile which was determined to subordinate the underground to its authority. The result was that while in London the exile leadership of the SL supported the government in exile, in Poland the peasant leaders had very little authority within the quasi governmental organizations, the so called Delegatura, and virtually none in the AK.

Thus we can see that the history of the underground resistance movement in Poland is essentially that of the AK, to the exclusion of the peasants’ contribution to the organized fight against the occupation. At the same time the SL’s plans and hopes for post-war reforms are little known and are rarely acknowledged in the English language historiography of the Second World War. Students of the resistance in Poland are offered a picture of a well-organized quasi-governmental structure with a disciplined army at its disposal, one which united the community in the single objective of liberating Poland. In that picture the only force which is portrayed as being outside the structure are the Communists. The wartime Communist Party, which took the name of the Polska Partia Robotnicza (Polish Workers’ Party – PPR), had organized the Armia Ludowa (People’s Army – AL). Both are always described as agents of the Soviet Union. The focus on the AK as representing the interests of the Polish state on the one hand, and the PPR/AL as subordinated to Communists and through that to the Soviet Union on the other hand, is in fact a very much simplified version of what happened during the occupation. The narrowing down of conflicts within the underground resistance to that of the AK confronting the AL could be, in essence, chapter 1 of the history of the subjugation of Poland to Soviet domination. This teleological presentation of conflicts within the resistance is based on the assumption that disunity within Polish society, which had been evident throughout the inter-war period, subsided with the German occupation and when it resurfaced this was only due to the Soviet entry into Polish territories in 1944.

On the contrary, the analysis of any resistance movement has to start with an understanding of pre-war social and political divisions. This article will put forward a hypothesis that divisions between the leadership of the AK and the SL and its military wing the BCh, were due to the prevailing view that the AK represented the interests of the pre-war military regime. Throughout the war the SL’s view of the AK was strongly coloured by the fact that during the 1930s the Piłudski and the post-Piłsudski military regimes undermined the democratic institutions which the SL had sought to defend. It will be suggested that even though the brutality of German occupation brought Polish society together, the perception that the military leaders would seek once more to capture power and would block all attempts to implement radical reforms after the war created distrust and divisions between the AK and the BCh which persisted throughout the war.

The Peasant Party Before the War

During the inter-war period the peasant movement became a force of considerable political significance. Its effectiveness was nevertheless reduced by lack of unity. After the Piłsudski coup in May 1926 the movement experienced an internal crisis caused by dilemmas about how to respond to the military regime. Many peasant leaders felt that they had been wrong in hoping that the regime would implement radical reforms. After the general elections of 1928 the peasant parties’ representation in the national assembly fell. The peasant parties then decided to ally themselves with the Christian Democrats thus forming an electoral alliance which took the name Centrolew. Piłsudski’s response was to authorize the arrest and detention of the opposition. In September 1930 the peasant parties united to form the Stronnictwo Ludowe (SL). Organizational unity did not resolve political dilemmas. While the wealthy peasants generally had benefited from the increase in the prices of agricultural products, poorer and landless peasants felt that the village communities had been neglected by successive governments and were the victims of exploitation by the capitalist system. The agrarianist programmes which were widely debated during the 1930s addressed the dilemma of how best to tackle rural backwardness. Of these the most radical solutions were put forward by Wici, the youth section of SL, which called for the ‘transformation of the rural system’ by which it meant consolidation of land ownership, enclosures of common lands, land drainage and, most importantly, the break up of landed estates. The latter was particularly controversial because Wici declared that the landowners were not to be compensated for the loss of their estates. ¹⁶ In 1935 SL incorporated most of these radical demands into the party’s programme. The consequences of the economic crisis, which had hit rural communities particularly hard, help to explain the anti-capitalist tone of the party’s programme. ¹⁷ In spite of references to the socialization of production and to local self-management assuming control over enterprises, the programme was far from clear on how land reform would be implemented and on the organization of industrial production. Peasant party leaders put forward new economic ideas in which producers’ cooperatives were to replace private ownership of enterprises. The SL did not confine its debates to economic matters but also discussed how the state should function. The SL’s programme referred to local authorities which were to be strengthened so they could act as a counterbalance to the power of the state. In 1937 SL called a peasant strike to draw attention to rural underfunding and indebtedness. This was a telling example of the peasants’ organizational skills and unity.

The German attack on Poland did not cut short these debates. On the contrary, any debates on the critical question of the role of the underground resistance brought to the fore the question of what would happen after the end of hostilities. It was a foregone conclusion that the three main parties, namely the SL, the Socialists and the National Democrats, would want to ensure that the reconstruction of the Polish state after the war would be followed by major reforms which would strengthen parliamentary democracy. Debates on the party’s post-war programme took place in exile as SL supported the formation of the government in exile, in occupied Poland and in the local party organizations. ¹⁸ These should not be seen as being disconnected from those which had taken place before September 1939, but as a continuation of the search for a means of securing economic and political stability.

The Peasant Party During the War

After the German and Soviet occupation of Polish territories in September 1939 armed resistance emerged spontaneously and initially without guidance from the government in exile which was formed in France in October 1939. ¹⁹ Although the Polish constitution provided for an emergency situation which made possible the appointment of a government outside Poland’s borders, no similar provisions were made for the transfer of authority from the military leadership to an underground resistance leadership. As a result various army commanders decided that, rather than allowing incoming German and Soviet armies to capture equipment, they would hide armaments and then attempt to build up some form of underground organization. In the circumstances it was inevitable that the initiative was taken by the officers of the defeated Polish army.

The government in exile which emerged in France was headed by General Władysław Sikorski, an opponent of the pre-war military regime which had ruled Poland since 1926. The government in exile was supported by representatives of the Socialist Party (PPS), the Peasant Party (SL), the National Alliance (SN) and the Labour Alliance (SP). ²⁰ Sikorski in addition to being the Prime Minister of the government in exile claimed the posts of Minister for War and Commander in Chief of Polish Forces Abroad. Relations between the government, the President who had strong links with the pre-war regime, and the leadership of the army which was established in exile, were fraught. They were characterized by distrust and conflicts relating to the pre-war period. The limits of Sikorski’s authority were made obvious when he felt compelled to appoint General Kazimierz Sosnkowski to the post of deputy Prime Minister. In that role he was given responsibility for organizing the underground resistance in occupied territories. ²¹ The SL leadership in occupied territories and in exile never trusted Sosnkowski who, they believed, had close links with representatives of the pre-war military regime. In November 1940 the SL openly accused Sosnkowski of turning a blind eye to members of the pre-war regime monopolizing key posts in the underground military and political structures. ²² The SL leaders in exile, in particular Stanisław Mikołajczyk and Stanisław Kot, echoed those sentiments. The former on two occasions resigned from the government because he felt that Sikorski tolerated the Piłsudski group in exile. This distrust persisted, even though, from the outset, Sikorski made it clear that he did not intend the resistance in Poland to have any say on political matters. ²³

In occupied Polish territories, acting on Sosnkowski’s instructions, the military resistance unified under the name of the Union of Armed Struggle (Związek Walki Zbrojnej – ZWZ). The leadership of most resistance groups accepted the authority of the government in exile. In February 1940 the three main political parties in principle agreed to support the formation of a unified military structure in occupied Poland. ²⁴ In February 1942 ZWZ assumed a new name of the Home Army (Armia Krajowa – AK) which was to mark the culmination of the process of unification of all underground military units. AK was to be a non-political military organization fully subordinated to the government in exile and its delegates in occupied Poland. It is generally assumed that through these processes a formidable resistance organization had been created, one which stood poised to throw its full weight behind the Western war effort. In reality the picture was complex precisely because the peasant parties, the nationalists, and the socialists who had been the victims of the pre-war military regimes’ repressive policies, did not trust the army commanders who dominated the resistance in occupied Poland. There is no conclusive evidence that the leadership of the AK actively planned to take over power at the end of the war. Nevertheless it would be reasonable to assume that many officers still thought in terms of the army once more assuming control over the state after the war. On a local level relations between the commanders of the AK and the peasant military units varied, sometimes leading to co-operation and in other cases to open hostility.

After the German occupation of Poland, Wincenty Witos was arrested. He had been the dominant ideologue of the peasant movement and the leader of the moderate section of the SL. When he rejected the German proposal to form a collaborationist administration Witos was first imprisoned in Berlin and then returned to the Polish territories where he was kept under house arrest. This, and his poor state of health, prevented him from playing a significant role in the political life of the underground. Nevertheless he and Maciej Rataj, the leader of the radical section of the peasant movement, authorized the formation of a peasant underground organization. It was inevitable that relations between the SL leadership in exile which put stress on the party remaining a loyal and thus influential member of the government in exile and leaders in occupied Poland who thought in terms of the practicalities of forming an underground opposition, would be difficult.

Contacts between the SL in London and party leaders in occupied Poland were maintained sporadically through emissaries and couriers who moved between territories under German control through neutral countries, to Britain. At the same time radio contact was kept up throughout the war between the organizations in exile and those in Poland. In assessing the course of relations between the AK and the BCh it is important to bear in mind that the London-based leadership had only limited means of enforcing party discipline.

Discussions on how the underground was to be organized took place in parallel with the ongoing debates, which predated the outbreak of the war, on whether the peasant movement was to collaborate with the Socialist Party, the nationalists, or both. These discussions were nevertheless characterized by extreme distrust of representatives of the pre-war government and a constant anxiety that the army leaders would use their dominant role in the newly emerging armed underground resistance to maintain their grip on power after the war. ²⁵

During the spring of 1941 the Socialist Party in Poland opened the debate on post-war reforms. Their initial discussion papers advocated land reform without compensation. In June SL disseminated an outline of the party’s programme. It contained an explicit warning that the party would seek to ensure that mistakes made in the past would not be repeated. The party stated that the only way of ensuring that the political situation of the inter-war period did not repeat itself was to establish a properly functioning democracy. SL expected land reform to be implemented, though it remained ambiguous as to whether this was to be with or without compensation to landowners. ²⁶ In the autumn, SL in Poland established a special Commission with the aim of agreeing a post-war programme. The party, understandably, tried to define a form of land ownership which would be conducive to the development of a successful rural economy and which would reduce exploitation of the peasants. ²⁷

SL was initially in agreement with decisions made by leaders in exile, and supported the government in exile and its policy of approving the creation of an underground army subordinated to that government. While it is difficult to be precise as to when and why this changed, historians have suggested that several factors led to SL forming its own military units. ²⁸ Rataj was arrested in December 1940 and executed on 21 June 1941. After his arrest surviving leaders in Poland established a Central Leadership of the Peasant Alliance (Centralne Kierownictwo Ruchu Ludowego – CKRL) which confirmed the importance of the unity of peasant organizations which had been forged before the war. Rataj’s arrest and death occurred at a time when the leadership of the SL had started becoming critical of the government in exile for its lack of consultation with the party leaders in Poland and for sanctioning the appointment to the underground structures of people with strong links to the pre-war government. ²⁹ In their assessment the peasant leaders were swayed by their growing distrust of the commanders and officers of the ZWZ and of the ex-officer corps which controlled all military decision-making in Poland and in exile. The CKRL articulated these sentiments forcefully in a report sent to the émigré leaders and which covered the period 15 June to 15 September 1940. This and most subsequent communications expressed the fear that ex-army officers had not learned anything from the September disaster and that they were planning to establish a military dictatorship after the war. ³⁰ A month later the CKRL explained further that while supporting the government in exile in its aim of building up the ZWZ into a national underground army, it was felt that the ZWZ harboured its own political aspirations. Critically, the report recommended that civilian matters in occupied territories should be decided either by the government delegates or by the head of the government, but not by the military leaders either in exile or in Poland. ³¹ SL had hoped that the officer caste’s stranglehold on the ZWZ would be broken, thus ensuring that it would represent all parties and sections of society equally. A message sent by CKRL in December 1940 signalled further problems, namely the fact that ZWZ was failing to bring all armed units into the ZWZ, which was due to lack of trust in the leadership of the ZWZ. The CKRL suggested that the ZWZ was controlling radio contact between occupied territories and the government in London. ³²

The degree of distrust between the peasant leaders and the leadership of the ZWZ should not be underestimated. It had manifested itself from the outset and continued to be articulated in messages between London and the occupied territories. Whereas Rataj had hoped that national unity could be forged at a time of occupation, others disagreed. Józef Niećko, who assumed a key role in the leadership after Rataj’s arrest, consistently cautioned against putting too much trust in the military leaders. Niećko is interesting, as, in 1928 together with a group of young peasant activists, he had spearheaded the creation of Wici, the peasant youth movement. Writing in 1947, Niećko recalled that he had always been distrustful of those peasant leaders who claimed that the peasants should support the formation of a national armed resistance movement. He had no confidence in the officers’ assurances that they would focus on military matters only, as from bitter experience he knew that after the Piłsudski coup the army had got rid of those officers who had any commitment to upholding democracy and instead had focused on establishing a military dictatorship. ³³

Kazimierz Banach, a key activist of Wici and subsequently the Commander in Chief of the BCh, recalled after the war that the decision made in September 1940 to establish peasant armed units came about as a result of profound doubts about the military leaders’ long-term objectives. It was in effect the CKRL’s decision, taken without the exile party leaders’ directives. The youth sections of the peasant movement had earlier started forming armed partisan units in the countryside. ³⁴ These units were first called the Peasant Guards, but since this implied passivity, the name was changed to Peasant Battalions. Banach asserts that from the outset peasant activists wanted to make it clear that the village community had wider interests at heart than simply land reform and agrarian concerns. He claims that:

What played an important role in the making of this decision was the peasants’ sense of dignified class awareness, a sense of co-responsibility for the country and the nation’s fate as well as the growing realization, that for the reconstructed army the most ideological and patriotic peasant force is necessary and that [this force] will only be led into battle by its own military organization. ³⁵

To the peasant movement in the occupied territories, the government in exile’s approval of the creation of the BCh was a very important political stage in its long-term objectives. A report from the SL, carried by a courier to London where it was delivered to Stanisław Kot, a leader of the SL in exile and minister of interior in the Sikorski government, outlined the advantages and disadvantages of forming peasant military units. The most important was the question of how an underground army, built up during the war to fight against occupation, would be deployed at the end of the war. As the authors of the report pointed out, it could be used against Polish interests and with that against the peasants’ interests. If, on the other hand, it was possible to build up the peasant units so that they become a force of some consequence, representatives of the SL in the exile government would be able to support Sikorski in his effort to assert a larger degree of authority over the ZWZ. ³⁷ The report stated that the command structure had been put in place in the five main administrative districts of occupied Poland with the exception of Kraków, where the local leadership planned not to engage in any armed action until the war was won. It was admitted that the whole project was very much at a planning stage, as the peasant community had few men with military experience and, most importantly, it lacked funds. Nevertheless it had a radio transmitter which enabled the leaders to communicate with the London leaders from whom they hoped to get support. ³⁸ It is impossible to state conclusively what were Kot and Mikołajczyk’s responses to messages from Poland. In London the SL leaders supported Sikorski in his conflicts with Władysław Raczkiewicz, the Polish President in exile who was perceived to be an old Piłsudskiite. ³⁹

ZWZ responded negatively to information that the SL had decided to form its own military units. After first assuming that the project would fail, at the beginning of 1941 ZWZ opened talks with SL by offering to incorporate the units into the command structure of the ZWZ, while at the same time conceding that they could exist separately from the ZWZ units. SL refused to negotiate on these bases. It also expressed its disagreement with ZWZ’s policy of not taking action against the occupying forces, which they interpreted as a policy of conserving resources for the final stages of the war. ⁴⁰

A summary report from occupied Poland dated 1 October 1941 warned the government in London that SL was moving away from the original idea of locally based militias which were supposed to protect local resources to organizing its own military units. This was seen as a particularly dangerous development, as the BCh did not accept the authority of the military leaders of the ZWZ. What was in effect happening was that SL was building up its own army, something which the nationalists were also doing. The paragraph dealing with the BCh ended with the ominous warning; ‘in the countryside conflicts are already taking place between units of the ZWZ and those of the Peasant Party’. ⁴¹

This assessment was in fact correct, as was shown by the fact that in December the leadership of SL sent a confidential instruction to all commanders of the BCh ordering them to form and train special units for a number of future tasks. The reason for this decision was the realization that the ZWZ was not training the peasants to participate in military action but was merely focusing on preparing the officer cadre. This reinforced the suspicions that political rather than military objectives determined the process of recruitment into the ZWZ. As a result SL decided to train soldiers for the following roles: (1) tactical units for direct military action on the front; (2) territorial units which would be deployed to take care of public safety, protection of communication routes and to fight against saboteurs; and (3) special units which would protect the party organization. ⁴² Niećko, the author of the instruction, made it quite clear that the battle which was thus being fought was for the peasants to determine Poland’s future, by which he clearly meant the political institutions of post-war Poland. ⁴³ This formulation more that any other statement makes it clear that the purpose behind the formation of the BCh was to prevent the pre-war military regime from re-establishing its grip on power after the war. The ZWZ was to the peasant leaders too much of a continuation of the pre-war officer coteries which were directly involved in outrages in the national assembly, in attacking leaders of the opposition parties and in the imposition and implementation of the emergency laws in September 1930. The decision to form a military wing of the wartime peasant movement was in essence driven by a deep and consistently maintained distrust of the officer corps which was accused of having destroyed democracy in Poland. The peasant movement was in effect positioning itself to fight those who might seek to set the clock back to the 1930s.

In the meantime Sikorski attempted to persuade Churchill that support for Poland, rather than collaboration with the Soviet Union, was a guarantee of a successful continental campaign. For that argument to succeed it was necessary to convince the allied military leaders that they should assume responsibility for arming and equipping the Polish Home Army. In that objective the Polish government in exile failed when in May 1942 the Imperial Chiefs of Staff made it clear that it would be neither feasible nor desirable to take on this task. ⁴⁴ At the same time Sikorski fought hard to persuade the British military leaders to create an Allied General Staff which would coordinate plans for the liberation of the continent with the Polish resistance playing a crucial role in the East. These plans were rejected and so were all subsequent efforts to ensure that the Home Army would be treated as a continental army and not just a local resistance movement. The high point of Sikorski’s efforts to persuade Churchill and the British Chiefs of Staff to consider the Home Army as part of the allied forces came during the period May–August 1942. ⁴⁵ Although he failed, neither Sikorski, nor his successor Stanisław Mikołajczyk, abandoned the hope that the allies would come round to idea that the Home Army could still be of use to the allied war effort. This explains why Sikorski sought to unify the armed resistance movements into an army which could, if the equipment was available and as the need arose, undertake full-scale military action. Furthermore it was not in his interest to air his anxieties about disunity within the occupied territories. The result was strong pressure on the parties which supported the government in exile to subordinate their military units to the discipline of the ZWZ leadership, while at the same time ensuring that decisions about liberation and the war effort should be made only by the government in exile.

Throughout the war the government in exile tried to establish closer control over the ZWZ through the appointment of government delegates who acted as links to the government in London where, it was hoped, all matters of state would be decided. The conflict was an ongoing one, and not one in which at any point the government felt it was winning. In that context the need to keep a close watch over the leadership of the ZWZ went hand in hand with calls that it should become a genuinely national underground army.

In February 1942 in an effort to get away from the image that the ZWZ represented the interests of the pre-war regime, Sikorski had decided that henceforth it should be known as the Home Army (Armia Krajowa – AK). The change of name did little to change the realities on the ground. Nevertheless AK and the BCh felt compelled to comply with the government’s instructions. The leadership of both tried to address the state of mutual distrust. as is shown in a message which the command of the BCh despatched to all units in February 1942. The communication reveals that the issue of the hostility which had arisen between the BCh and the ZWZ had been extensively discussed during meetings between the two. BCh explained that it remained loyal to the government in exile and that it supported the creation of a national army. As a result the Command of the BCh declared:

The central authorities of the ZWZ assumed a positive attitude towards these explanations and gave orders to sections under its command to cease in their negative attitude towards Chłostra (the cryptonym for BCh) … On their part the Roch (SL) leadership order as follows: all signs of hostilities towards the ZWZ which might be germinating in the ranks of Chłostra should be liquidated if these arise for whatever reason, as they might cause mutual distrust. All efforts should be made to clarify and resolve misunderstandings. ⁴⁶

Nevertheless already in October 1942 the leadership of SL and the command of BCh signalled that in spite of attempts made in February to establish good working relations with the AK, and even though the BCh tried to comply with Sikorski’s instructions, matters had developed differently. The general picture was that of local AK commanders remaining hostile towards members of the BCh. The disagreements cut deep. Members of the BCh who volunteered for the AK reported instances of ‘moral and physical terror’. They were accused by AK members of having belonged to a communist organization and were exposed to propaganda which was hostile to the peasant movement. ⁵⁰ Such incidents tended to be most marked in areas where before the war supporters of the Bezpartyjny Blok Współpracy z Rządem (Non Party Bloc of Cooperation with the Government – BBWR), a party which had been formed in 1928 to represent the ruling military regime, had retained a grip on local organizations. The prevalence of these attitudes in the AK fanned anxiety about the future.

It is impossible to reconstruct the course of relations between the AK and the BCh in occupied territories; nevertheless, fragmentary evidence points to consistent and lasting difficulties. The archives of the Peasant Alliance contain a document dated October 1942 which is a summary of talks which had been conducted by the leadership of AK and SL. It would appear that both sides agreed that relations had been strained and that neither party had been entirely correct in its behaviour. SL admitted that having initially agreed that members of the peasant movement should join the AK they then tried to attract them back so they could remain in the BCh. AK conceded that it had not been correct in its handling of the peasants, and, in particular, members of the youth wing of the peasant movement. The key issue addressed during the meeting related to members of SL who had joined AK units but subsequently wanted to leave. AK insisted that having been sworn in they could not be released, and that those who did would be treated as deserters. They had the right to appeal, although since the BCh were being incorporated into the structure of the AK such requests were unlikely to be granted. ⁵¹

The new spirit of cooperation found expression in an instruction prepared by SL summing up the ‘principles of collaboration between the BCh and AK’. Members of the active units of the BCh were to be considered as being members of a national army. In that capacity they had the right to retain their links with sections of the community from which they came, in this case with the village. In addition to the tactical units which were in due course to be incorporated into the AK, local militia units were to remain at the peasant movement’s disposal. It was understood that the BCh units which were being incorporated into the AK would not be dispersed and that their commanders would not be replaced with new ones. BCh units were to receive training and equipment in the same way as AK units would. ⁵² In spite of the above it soon became apparent that this valiant attempt to overcome problems did not work. It was clearly one thing to speak of unity in principle and an entirely different one to start discussions on how and when the BCh would become part of the AK. On 4 December 1942 Grot Rowecki, Commander of the AK wrote a letter to the commanders of the BCh outlining the full extent of misunderstandings between the two. In the opening paragraph he stated ‘… in its organizational work concerning the Armed Forces in Poland of which I am the commander, we occasionally see Chłostra (the BCh) as an obstacle’. ⁵³ He then went on to point out that initially BCh was supposed to have an educational and ideological purpose, whereas in reality it had become a paramilitary organization, and as such had to subordinate itself to the commander of the Armed Forces. Grot Rowecki complained that while other political organizations accepted the authority of the AK and its commander, the peasant movement had not given a binding commitment to support him in his efforts to form an army. Grot Rowecki posed several clear questions; ‘Do you intend to form some sort of army, different from a Polish Army, at the helm of which I presently stand? Do you not trust me?’ While he denied that he harboured any political ambitions, he asked the peasant leaders in what direction they would influence and lead their supporters. ⁵⁴ In the midst of this strongly worded letter, Grot Rowecki made a tacit admission that without the peasants’ support no military effort could be successful.

The leaders of SL responded with an extensive letter. ⁵⁵ In the first place they challenged the Commander in Chief of the AK’s assertion that they only represented the interests of the peasant and rural communities. After making references to the first years of the new Polish state, they then stated unequivocally: ‘The history of the (recent) period of Poland’s independence bears witness to the fact that the peasant movement, first disunited, and later already united, put the interest of the state in the forefront and in the second place put the social and economic interests of the peasants’. ⁵⁶ As to the accusation that the BCh were supposed to have been only an auxiliary force, the peasant leaders stated that they had been willing to collaborate with the underground military leaders and that they had given proof of that by distancing themselves from the nationalist movement, but that this did not lead to organizational unity because the AK military leaders did not want to work with the peasant organizations. The letter concluded with a statement that they trusted Grot Rowecki, and as a proof of that were willing to enter into the next stage of his plan which was the integration of the peasant units into the underground national army, an army which was to belong to the nation. ⁵⁷

During the first half of 1943 discussions on the future of Poland were becoming more urgent. The SL in occupied Poland took the lead in pushing for a programme of rural transformation, though in London Kot and Mikołajczyk, the two key SL politicians, had to contend with strong opposition from the national democrats to any suggestions that land reform would take place without compensation. ⁵⁸ It would appear that the London-based leadership of the SL was focused on establishing for the party a position of pre-eminence within the exile community, and on the whole accepted that the party in occupied territories should have the freedom to respond to the problems confronting them. One of the government emissaries who travelled from London to Poland in the spring of 1943 described Mikołajczyk as lacking Witos’ leadership qualities. The other SL leaders in London likewise lacked political determination and were preoccupied with internal government intrigues. ⁵⁹ When the same emissary arrived in Poland and met the SL leaders there he noted the difference between the two communities. Those based in Poland seemed focused on how to oppose occupation and how to build up fighting units. ⁶⁰ Jan Karski, an emissary who had carried information from Poland to London a few months earlier, had conveyed the same picture in his report dated 30 November 1942. He warned of the lack of political unity in Poland, which had an impact on the government’s plans to build up an underground national army. Karski conveyed to London Grot Rowecki’s mildly optimistic conviction that the unification of the various armed units was progressing well, though he admitted that old attitudes prevailed, inhibiting the development of common objectives. ⁶¹

In the meantime, various agencies focused on discussing proposals for post-war reforms. In the occupied territories the SL led with a radical plan which clearly reflected the pre-war programme of socialization of the means of production and land reform without compensation. Within the quasi-governmental structures subordinated to the government in exile, SL conducted talks with other parties. In London a special Commission had been established to put together a common programme of the four parties which made up the government in exile. When this was published in December 1943 it turned out to be a compromise. The London based SL abandoned its commitment for land reform without compensation. ⁶² This formulation suggests that the party leadership in the occupied territories had lost the political initiative which in turn might have increased conflicts and suspicions between leaders of the BCh and the AK.

The order for the final integration of the peasant units into the AK was given by the command of the BCh on 13 May 1943. The actual merger of the BCh units with local AK units, as distinct from the previous understanding that they would subordinate themselves to the orders of the local AK commanders, was to start on 1 June and be completed by 31 August. ⁶³ Lack of political unity between the local peasant leaders and commanders of the peasant units, and the representatives of the government and the AK, account for the difficult course ahead.

In spite of the decisiveness of the official order to integrate BCh units into the AK, it is important to consider a number of internal documents which suggest that while SL leaders stated that the peasant units would become part of the AK, in reality they did not intend this to happen. One such document contains an outline of oral instructions which were to be conveyed by the central command of the BCh to the district commanders. ⁶⁴ These stated that those units which were to be integrated into the AK excluded some who would remain under the command of the peasant movement. These were to be those ‘who are most closely ideologically connected with the movement, who have been tested in their loyalty, are morally irreproachable and determined to fight with all and whenever necessary for the movement to retain a dominant role in the establishment of a people’s Poland’. ⁶⁵ The content of these instructions shows that the peasant party leaders believed that it was necessary to give the impression that the units of the BCh were going to merge with the AK, but still wished to hold back a loyal cadre for later action. The most reliable cadre were to be used to form special units which would operate on a local level. All arms, in particular hand guns, were not to be retained by units incorporated into the AK but were to be kept for those special units. Finally a hope was expressed that as the war came to an end, members of the BCh would position themselves so that they could form the post-war police force. This was described as necessary in order that the peasant movement take control of internal security.

Another instruction sent by the command of BCh reassured members of the peasant organizations that the BCh and the Commander of the AK had agreed that the national army thus formed would not be used for internal pacification. ⁶⁶ This was a direct reference to the use of the army in quelling peasant strikes during 1937. In spite of the fact that the commanders of the BCh and AK agreed that the unification of the two military organizations should be completed within two months, this proved too difficult and the end was never achieved. Clearly implementing this controversial decision was going to be difficult, while at the same time local commanders had their own views on what should happen both during the war and after the end of hostilities. The commanders of the local AK units had the upper hand, as AK had the equipment and a higher proportion of men with extensive military training. The BCh men responded to the order for their units to be incorporated into the AK variously, depending on at least three factors; firstly, their own political experiences before the war which coloured their attitude towards the AK and towards those who had had strong links with the military regime. Secondly, the attitude of members of the BCh was defined by local circumstances, namely relations with local landowners and the Catholic Church. Finally the presence of the Communist-led units of the People’s Army (Armia Ludowa – AL) had an impact on relations between the BCh and the AK. This was due to the AL’s policy of reaching out to the units of the BCh. At the same time the leaderships of all three military organizations were only too well aware of dramatic changes which had occurred within the government in exile. On 4 July 1943 Sikorski died in an air crash in Gibraltar. Stanisław Mikołajczyk, leader of the SL in exile, succeeded him. This appointment did not strengthen the SL, as the military leadership, more forcefully than had been the case during Sikorski’s lifetime, asserted its authority. The result was that the government became more divided, increasingly insecure and anxious as to how a post-war government would be formed. In the meantime in occupied Poland the AK experienced a setback when on 30 June 1943 Grot Rowecki was arrested and taken to Berlin where he was first tortured and then executed.

Before his capture Rowecki optimistically informed Sikorski that the unification of all underground fighting forces had been completed without undue difficulties. ⁶⁷ His successor Bór-Komorowski, in his memoirs published in 1950, asserted that during 1943–44 good progress had been made and that only units loyal to the National Democratic movement and those loyal to the Communists remained outside the AK. ⁶⁸ This was a opinion shaped by hindsight, and in 1943 he had expressed a very different view. In a message which he sent to the government on 15 November 1943 Bór-Komorowski described the situation as considerably more complex. Although he professed himself pleased with the ongoing process of consolidation of all military units, Bór-Komorowski admitted that this had not resulted in the degree of national cohesiveness which would be essential if the AK was to act as a national army at the time of liberation. He went on state ‘Layers of distrust and objections have not been removed and this makes appropriate work in the outlying districts impossible’. ⁶⁹ Leaders of the peasant movement always maintained that the unification was never completed and archival evidence would support that assertion. Banach claims that in spite of several meetings between the leadership of both organizations, mutual distrust continued. The order to complete the unification was so unpopular among the members of the BCh that even the command of the BCh tacitly colluded with local commanders who opposed it. ⁷⁰ According to Banach’s account the last meeting between the commands of the two military organizations took place on 22 July 1944 and as a result an order was issued, giving a final instruction to local commanders of the BCh to merge the tactical units of the BCh with the AK. He believed that because of the outbreak of the Warsaw Uprising on 1 August this order was never implemented.

Reports from the local BCh inspectors explain more fully why unity remained an impossible objective. The key problem for the peasant activists was that the attitude of the AK towards peasant units was one of contempt. Distrust, due to unresolved conflicts predating the war persisted. Leaders of the BCh maintained their conviction that ex-army officers, in spite of official statements to the contrary, harboured political aspirations. A summary of an inspection of the Kraków area conducted by the SL for the period October 1943–July 1944 recorded the BCh’s belief that the local AK leaders were not fit to conduct clandestine organizations as they lacked discipline. The inspectors reported that the AK had too much money which led to their commanders conducting themselves ‘inappropriately’. All of which meant that the clandestine organization’s security was being compromised. A grievance which was reported after the inspection of the Kraków area – one which is repeated elsewhere – was the AK’s failure to give BCh commanders positions of responsibility. ⁷¹

Similar grievances were recorded by inspectors in the Rzeszów district on 10 April 1943. On a general level it was stated that the pre-war supporters of the BBWR, and of OZN, a political organization which had been formed by one of Piłsudski’s closest collaborators in 1936, ⁷² dominated local organizations and that these men occupied all administrative posts. The AK associated closely with the local landowners and the church hierarchy. The often repeated accusation was that they frequented the country houses and the presbytery. The result was that people with links with the peasant movement whom the local landowners and the priests disliked, were intimidated and attacked. Hostile propaganda was being disseminated and the priests used the pulpit to castigate young people for their association with Wici, the youth section of the pre-war peasant party. ⁷³ Not surprisingly, a report written from the same area dated 15 March 1944 gave a very negative picture of the unification process. Units of the BCh, instead of being retained in their original form, had been broken up and their commanders replaced with new ones, those who had been part of the original ZWZ organization. Members of the BCh had been accused of either being communists or of harbouring sympathies for the communist movement. ⁷⁴ This was an accusation which had been levelled against the peasant units in the past, and persisted at a time when in principle both should have cooperated. Accusations were undoubtedly fanned by the knowledge that the reconstructed Communist movement was indeed reaching out to the peasant parties. Similarly, a regional commander of the BCh informed the national command that on 22 May 1944 the process of unification would be halted in his region because the AK did not comply with the conditions of the agreement on unification. He quoted examples of members of the BCh being beaten up by the AK and their arms being requisitioned, instances which were far from isolated. ⁷⁵

As late as the beginning of August 1944 it was still reported that unification had not been achieved. In a joint communication from the leader of SL and the command of the BCh to local leaders of the peasant movement it was admitted that unification was not completed, and in some areas had not even begun. ⁷⁶ The main reason was the fact that the AK had been taken over by members of the pre-war regime and that had influenced their attitude towards the peasant party and its military units. This document raised another obstacle to cooperation between the AK and the BCh: the fact that some commanders of the AK spoke of the need for a war between Poland and the Soviet Union, which was a policy the peasant movement did not favour. ⁷⁷ On hearing that AK units in areas liberated by the Red Army made contact with the Soviet military leaders and were jointly fighting the Germans, the SL leadership expressed approval and authorized the completion of the process of unification.

The extent of difficulties which were apparent in the process of bringing the BCh into the AK was indicative of the general state of flux and distrust, at a time when all parties started thinking of how to position themselves in order to have a maximum say at the time when the first government would be established after the war. Although the SL had agreed to the incorporation of the BCh into the AK it had at the same time planned to retain some forces for its own use during that crucial transitional period. In an instruction sent by the SL to all commanders of the BCh in August 1943, the leaders of the peasant party reiterated their sense of unease about what might happen at the end of the war. In the first place they declared that the peasants will seek to implement fundamental reforms which the government of National Unity might not wish to implement. In those circumstances the peasant movement would need to be involved in the building of the state and military structures but should also be prepared ‘to oppose all those who would seek to impose themselves upon the country through the use of force’. ⁷⁸ This formulation can only be interpreted as a warning to those associated with the pre-war military regime and not to the Communist movement, to which the peasant leaders made very few references. It was further stated that in order that the peasant movement should be prepared to defend democracy it would have to assume control over the internal security apparatus and to form special guard units in the countryside. ⁷⁹ The proposal that the peasants should form local militias is a continuation of the ideas which lay at the root of the formation of the BCh, and which manifested themselves in the earlier warnings that not all resources should be handed over to the AK. Although there is only fragmentary evidence on this subject, what is known makes it quite clear that integration of the BCh into the AK did not mean that the peasant movement would genuinely accept the latter’s control over military matters.

Disappointment with the way the AK was treating the peasant units meant that in March 1944 the SL decided to once more establish a military wing, which was given the name of the Peasant Security Guard (Ludowa Straż Bezpieczeństwa – LSB). ⁸⁰ Its purpose was the defence of the peasant movement for the duration of the war, the fight with the enemies of the movement, and finally the defence of peasant interests. During the critical period after the occupation it was to defend the government in its discharge of legal duties and protection of public property. The LSB was to bring together members of the BCh who chose not to remain in the tactical units which had been incorporated into the AK. They were supposed to represent the most loyal and ideologically committed sections of the movement.

Not surprisingly, members of the LSB were most vocal in their criticism of the fact that the BCh had been handed over to the AK. On 2 March 1944, the commander of the Iłżecki district penned a vitriolic report to the command of the BCh. In the opening paragraph he stated ‘unification is not happening, and as long as things are as they are presently, it will not happen’. ⁸¹ He went on to accuse the commanders of the AK of revealing to the Germans the names of those who were members of the BCh. He was convinced that the AK was conducting a deliberate policy of wasting the peasant movement. ‘You are pressuring us from above to merge, but here terrible things are happening’ was the LSB commander’s reproach. ⁸²

In some cases the problems were very specific, though they indicated the AK’s continuing lack of sensitivity in dealing with the peasant units. Writing on 9 April 1944, a local BCh commander complained to the command of the BCh about the fact that the AK had decided to remove the previous commander of the battalion and replace him with a pre-war sergeant, one who had belonged to OZN before the war. The insult was compounded by the fact that the commander of the battalion had military experience and had been promoted to the rank of sergeant in 1938, whereas the new one had only recently been promoted. His final warning was ‘we will not hand over the battalion into OZN’s hands’. ⁸³ A similar complaint was made by a BCh commander in July. Writing from the district of Jastrzębiec he complained that when unification had taken place he had been assured that, in accordance with the agreement, he was to become the deputy commander of the district. Although his battalion was incorporated into the AK in December 1943 he was left without any position. ⁸⁴ Complaints about pre-war officers removing commanders of the BCh from positions of responsibility touched a raw point, as it not only reminded the peasant leaders of the army’s direct involvement in politics during the 1930s, but also underlined the fact that the peasant community lacked military experience. Since the AK was supposed to be a national army, commanders of the BCh knew that they had not much to offer in terms of military training. There is little evidence on that subject, though what is known would suggest that the BCh was only too well aware that were the AK genuinely to become an underground Polish army which would after the war be transformed into a standing army, the peasant movement’s contribution to the liberation could be overlooked. One indication of the peasant units’ strength is revealed in a BCh report dated 20 May 1943 and covering the Kielce district. This described the stockpile owned by the BCh unit as three rifles with 75 rounds of ammunition, four handguns with 50 rounds and four grenades. ⁸⁵ Of equal interest is the state of military training which the peasant community had. A report dated 15 December 1941, covering the Kielce district, stated that the local BCh had incorporated in its ranks 3665 people of whom 2265 had done military service before the war. The majority had been at the rank of privates, 156 had been non-commissioned officers, and 24 commissioned officers. ⁸⁶ If this picture was replicated in other districts, it is possible to assume that local commanders of the BCh harboured the same anxieties as the leadership of the peasant movement as a whole. It is not difficult to understand why the peasant movement felt distrustful and anxious about the practical implications of the merger. The peasants would once more be the foot soldiers, while the officers, on account of their military expertise, would be given positions of responsibility. But the question of how they would use that power was one that no one could answer decisively. It would appear that too many AK commanders felt no need to try and convince members of the BCh that they were committed to the establishment of a well-functioning democratic system after the war.

The issue of collaboration between the Communist AL and the BCh falls outside the scope of this article; nevertheless it is important to remember that local commanders tended to respond to problems encountered in their operational areas. The result was that in some cases the BCh and the AL collaborated and agreed on some form of unity, in others they did not. In some cases the real question was not one of whether the units chose to collaborate, but which units had established themselves and what was their base in the community, on whose support their survival depended? The BCh generally distrusted the NSZ units loyal to the nationalist movement but were inclined to at least discuss joint action and sharing of resources with AL units. Nevertheless, since the leadership of the peasant movement in London supported the government in exile, leaders in Poland in principle tried to comply with policies agreed at the highest level. As has been shown, in reality the results were far from uniform, and in general the peasant resistance units remained aloof and suspicious of the idea of the formation of a national underground army. There was nothing to suggest that the peasant resistance units were integrated into the AK. The sense of separateness remained very strong until the end of the war.

The liberation of Poland was not achieved in the way the government in exile and the military commanders in London had planned. The allied leaders showed no interest in the planned national uprising. The Soviet Union’s contribution to the defeat of Germany was something the Polish government in exile always tried to play down. Neither Churchill nor Roosevelt paid attention to Polish plans, as they realized that the aim of these plans was to stop the Red Army on the Russian border. When the AK leaders in Warsaw staged an uprising this was a modified version of the original plan for a national uprising. In spite of extensive wartime preparations, the AK’s contribution to the liberation of Poland was sidelined by the Red Army’s entry into Polish territories. Thus it is impossible to test how the relationship between the pre-war officers who formed the bulk of the AK command and the BCh would have developed. Nor can it be ascertained conclusively whether the pre-war officers who had formed the structure of the AK would have tried to reclaim for the army the position it occupied before the German attack in September 1939. It is however clear that the distrust that existed between the two belied the post-war claims that the AK had succeeded in transforming itself into an underground national army. In the circumstances it is reasonable to speculate that without the Soviet entry into Poland, the end of the war would have been followed by a prolonged and possibly even violent struggle for power between competing wartime military organizations.

At the end of the war the BCh emerged from underground as a result of efforts made by Mikołajczyk who returned to Poland to participate in the establishment of the provisional government in June 1945. The reconstruction of the Peasant Alliance in liberated Poland created a framework for discussions with Marian Spychalski, the deputy commander of the Polish Army. Unlike the AK, the BCh units did not remain in opposition, nor did they continue to fight actively against the Communist sponsored government. The BCh command issued its last order on 21 September 1945, instructing all remaining soldiers of the BCh to take advantage of the recently declared amnesty, abandon clandestine work and assume their role in Poland’s reconstruction. ⁸⁷