The uneasy partnership: Sikorski, Anders and Stalin

In spite of the conclusion of the Soviet–Polish pact acute problems bedevilled co-operation. Serious arguments arose connected with the size, equipment and deployment of the Polish army in Russia under General Władysław Anders, which led finally to its withdrawal to the Middle East in the summer of 1942 in an atmosphere of mutual recrimination. The evacuation of the Polish army was a severe blow to the alliance. Sikorski originally intended that Anders' troops should eventually enter Poland together with the Red Army. Indeed it would have been a political asset of great importance if the former were to occupy Poland and re-establish the organs of the civil administration in the name of the Polish state and owing allegiance to the government-in-exile in London, but now this advantage was thrown away. A second cause of conflict was the question of about 8,000 officers captured by the Soviet forces in 1939, whose disappearance Stalin could not explain. To this problem was added dispute about the citizenship of all persons of Polish nationality domiciled in the territories annexed by the USSR in 1939. The main bone of contention, however, was the unresolved frontier dispute. Sikorski visited Moscow in December 1941, when Stalin suggested to him that an agreement might be reached, but Sikorski declined to discuss the matter. The conversation with Stalin on 3 December of Sikorski, Anders and the ambassador, Stanisław Kot, was soured by Sikorski's proposal to remove the Polish army to the Middle East.