| Nearly a quarter of a million soldiers of the Polish Armed Forces remained alive after WW11. After Demobilization: 105,000 returned to Poland; 114,000 formed the POLISH RESETTLEMENT CORP. General Sikorski’s warriors were going home or finding new ones. In 1945 Churchill lost the election and a new Labor Government perpetrated many British foreign policy problems. The government had the task of balancing the Moscow backed regime in Warsaw and the exiled Polish government in London. But there was widespread British Government disinformation about the true state of affairs in Poland. And, it was state of affairs that pitted the soldiers of the Polish Resettlement Corp against the Labor Government. The Shocking omission of the Polish Armed Forces from the British Victory Parade signified the great injustice and sadness that the Polish Soldiers had to forever endure.
Moreover, British policy was often carried out without the Exiled Polish Government’s consent. This influenced the public debate regarding resettlement of Poles. As Lucyna Artymiuk states: “The Labor Government front benches battled against Conservative censure that they were betraying the Poles, while at the same clashing with their own back benches who accused the Government of endangering relations with the Soviet Union for the sake of the ‘fascist’ Poles.”
Quite wrongly, Polish Armed Forces were being linked to so called reactionary officers headed by General Anders’s terrorist gangs in Poland. Lucyna Artymiuk further explains: They were accused of murdering Trade Unionists, workers and peasant leaders, supported by the arms and manpower of General Anders. In this way the union movement in Britain explained the rationale behind the repression of anti-communist opposition forces in Poland. Moreover, the Polish Armed Forces were accused of being dominated by Polish ‘ fascist ‘ generals and officers making them dangerous focal points of fascism in the world, which threatened peaceful relations and was the center of imperialist propaganda for a third war. The attitude of the British government influenced the future political leanings of the Polish exiles, which would hold a deep-rooted mistrust of left-wing politicians and quite frequently equated the Labor Party with communism.”
When The Polish Soldiers came to Australia aboard the Asturias and Stathnaver, some of the ill-informed knowledge of the real situation within the countries under the Soviet sphere of influence persisted. Once again they were worried that the Polish Soldier migrants could menace Unions. But, as we know the Poles in many of the future decades of building Australia, were very involved in the Trade Union Movements of the Electrical and Transport sectors, to name a few.
As we also know religion was very important in continuing Polish migrant traditions. In the 1950’s, sectarianism was one of the hallmarks of the Australian society, and it was particularly visiblep in the Catholic/ Protestant split. A large percentage of the Polish migrants joined the new- Democratic Labor Party. Archbishop Mannix, worried about the perils of Communism, created this party out of the Labor Party.
My contention in this article has been to show that THEN, as is NOW, it’s no longer good enough to look at political issues through the narrow prism of LEFT or RIGHT. Today, many young people have NO party allegiance. Today Democracy itself is analyzed in terms of states of Constitutional Tribunals, and is placed in the broader context of rapid economic development, new social divisions, and the polarization within political elite. Moreover, we see the transition to populist leader democracy, pluralism, weak autocrats and the rise of competitive politics.
I enclose a picture of the Polish Ex-Servicemen Intelligentsia taken in the 1950’s .
What did these men make of the Politics of WW11. What would these men make of Contemporary Politics?
Julie Ankiewicz
P.A. SPK Koła Nr 1
| 
