The Manning of Polish Troops in the USSR and the First Polish Army: Problems of Ethnicity and Nationality, 1943–1945

Abstract

The author analyses the intricate process of recruitment of privates and non-commissioned (sub-officer) personnel for the Polish troops, transformed into the First Polish Army in July 1944, in the USSR in May 1943. The re-establishment of the Polish Army in the Soviet Union was linked not only to the tasks of expanding the anti-Hitler front, but also to a broader strategy of restructuring the Polish statehood on the principles of mutually beneficial military-political cooperation with the Soviet Union. The new Polish army was being built under constantly changing military-strategic and international political circumstances, which had a direct impact on its personnel composition and manning conditions. Mobilisations for the Polish army went through three very different stages, from conscription among the Polish population repressed in the pre-war period, to mobilisations in the liberated territories of western Belarus and Ukraine, and finally to mobilisations in the liberated territories of Poland itself. As it evolved, organisationally and numerically, the Polish Army's personnel became progressively more multi-ethnic and of less defined civilian status. The resolution of these problems required joint solutions with the newly emerging left-wing political forces and the Polish military command. The article draws on published sources and materials from Russian archives, primarily the Central Archive of the Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation, which have not previously been used in the study of Soviet-Polish military cooperation during the Second World War.