7. The Political Economy of Full Employment

On 22 June 1941, the German army invaded the Soviet Union. The invasion transformed the political atmosphere in the community of Polish émigrés in Britain. The Soviet Union had been regarded by the Polish Government-in-Exile as a co-perpetrator, on equal terms with Germany, of the downfall of Poland in 1939. This had contributed to the isolation of Polish politicians (but not Sikorski, who was close to Churchill) in London, where Churchill from 1940 was planning for Soviet entry into the anti-German alliance. Within the Polish community it further isolated the few socialists in exile, who were torn between the official decision of the Polish Socialist Party to forego political activity until after pre-war Poland had been reconstituted, and their left-wing who argued that the war must be about more than just the restoration of the status quo of 1939. The resumption of diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union under the Sikorski-Mayski Agreement of July 1941 did little to reduce the suspicion among the émigré politicians of Soviet intentions and the role of the Polish left in those intentions.