The Magdeburg Sting 1936

The Sikorski-Mayski Agreement was a treaty between Soviet Union and Poland signed in London on August 17, 1941. Its name was coined after two most notable signataries: Polish Prime Minister Władysław Sikorski and Soviet embassador to the United Kingdom Ivan Mayski.

After signing the Nazi-Soviet Alliance in 1939, the Soviet Union took part in the war against Poland and its subsequent dismemberment. The Soviet authorities declared Poland non-existent and all of former Polish citizens from the areas annexed by USSR were treated as if they were Soviet citizens. This resulted in approximately 2 million Poles being arrested and imprisoned by the NKVD and other Soviet authorities.

Soon after the Third Reich had invaded the Soviet Union in Operation Barbarossa, the Polish government in exile was forced (strongly encouraged by British Foreign Office diplomat Anthony Eden) by Allies to sign a pact with Joseph Stalin. Sikorski on July 30, 1941, opened negotiations with the Soviet ambassador to London, Ivan Mayski, to re-establish diplomatic relations between Poland and the Soviet Union. Later that year, Sikorski went to Moscow with a diplomatic mission including the future Polish ambassador to Moscow, Stanisław Kot, and chief of the Polish Military Mission in the Soviet Union, General Zygmunt Szyszko-Bohusz.

Although the Poles wanted a declaration that all pacts the USSR had signed with the Nazis were null and void, Stalin refused to consider any suggestion that he surrender the territory he seized consequent to the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. It was for Poland that Britain entered the war in the first place and Britain was sympathetic to Polish interests. Britain nonetheless pressured the Poles to withdraw this demand, since, in Churchill's words, "We could not force our new and sorely threatened [Soviet] ally to abandon, even on paper, regions on her frontier which she regarded for generations as vital to her security." The London Poles conceded but only after Britain agreed to state in writing that all agreements that adjusted Poland's pre-war borders were null and void. Once the Soviet-Polish agreement was signed on July 30, 1941, Anthony Eden formally notified the House of Commons of the arrangements that same day. In response to a parliamentary question about Britain's commitment, however, Eden stated that "The exchange of notes which I have just read to the House does not involve any guarantee of frontiers by His Majesty's Government."

The Poles were successful in obtaining Soviet agreement to the creation of the Polish Army in the East, and obtaining the release of Polish citizens from the Soviet labor camps. Despite the difficulties the Soviet government made, many were freed from confinement and permitted to join the Polish Army formed formally on August 12, 1941. A 75,000-strong army (the Polish II Corps) was formed under General Władysław Anders. However, after the troops were withdrawn to the Middle East in March 1942, Stalin revoked the amnesty and in June and July arrested all Polish diplomats in the USSR.

The government of Poland from the very beginning of Polish-Soviet talks in 1941 was searching for approximately 20,000 Polish officers missing in Russia. Stalin always replied that they either must have fled to Mongolia or are somewhere in Russia, which is a big country and it's easy to get lost here. In April 1943 German news agencies reported finding mass graves of Polish soldiers in Katyn. The Polish government requested the Soviet Union examine the case and at the same time asked the International Red Cross for help in verifying the German reports.

On April 13, 1943, the Germans announced to the world their discovery of the mass graves filled with some of the missing Polish officers at Katyn. On April 25 of that same year Stalin broke off diplomatic relations with the Polish government using the Polish protests over the executions at Katyn as a pretext.

On April 24, 1943, Sikorski met with Eden and demanded Allied help in releasing Polish prisoners in the gulags and Soviet prisons. He further declined the Soviet demand that Poland withdrawal their plea to the Red Cross. Anthony Eden refused to help and the Soviet Union broke diplomatic relations with Poland on the following day, arguing that the Polish government was collaborating with Nazi Germany. Despite Polish pleas for help, America and the United Kingdom decided not to put pressure on the USSR. After the Soviets stopped the German advance on the Eastern Front, Poland lost its significance as the ally.

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