Authors

Discussion

The aftermath of World War II is often interpreted as an interlude between the destruction of the prewar order and the onset of the Cold War, which shaped international affairs for the next four decades. During these years, perceptions of the Soviet Union fluctuated between viewing it as the victorious liberator that defeated Nazi Germany and as a “Red Empire” expanding an ideology capable of undermining Europe’s fragile postwar societies.

The position of Polish socialists—particularly those forced into exile after their country was seized by the USSR—was especially complex. On one hand, they advocated radical transformation of the prewar order, a stance that overlapped rhetorically with communist messaging; on the other, they harboured deep distrust toward the Soviet Union.

This paper uses archival and primary documents to reconsider how Polish socialists in exile (primarily in France, the United Kingdom, and the United States) perceived the Soviet Union, how that discourse evolved, and what factors shaped these shifts. These debates were strongly conditioned by the policies of socialist parties in Western Europe and of the Socialist International toward socialist and communist movements in East-Central Europe. The situation was further complicated by the fact that socialist parties within the Soviet sphere—often created or controlled by communists—claimed to represent true socialism, thereby influencing international attitudes toward the USSR and its socio-political system. As a result, the ability of independent socialist parties to articulate anti-Soviet positions was constrained, and maintaining a critical discourse about the Soviet Union proved increasingly challenging in the immediate postwar years.