Polish-Soviet Relations 1944-1989: the Limits of a Utonomy

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Any attempt at presenting the relations between two neighboring countries over the course of almost half a century in a brief paper is a highly hazardous undertaking, and could even be recognized as blatant impudence. In this case, however, the titular relations between Poland the USSR were highly composite, remaining under the extremely strong impact of a centuriesold tradition of animosity and armed conflict. In contrast to the extensive studies of the interwar period and World War II, the postwar years have rarely been the subject of thorough research in Polish historiography, as only pre1989 propaganda and quasi-scientific literature provided accounts of this period until this time. Indeed, not a single monographic study has dealt with the period as a whole, and those works which pertain to particular fragments of time or components of Polish-Soviet relations for all practical purposes limit their scope to the years before 1956. Naturally, the authors of numerous monographs or publications that focused on other problems either presented select facts or formulated opinions, sometimes outrightly categorical in nature. They could not have based their arguments on detailed research. The same can be said about the state of investigations into Soviet policy towards the region, since the only reliable monographic study by Henryk Bartoszewicz deals with a short stretch of time.