This challenging new work uses archival research to examine Poland's government in exile during the Second World War as it sought both to fight against the advances of Germany and the Soviet Union, and to prepare for the moment when it would once more be possible to establish a national Polish government. The author suggests that the Poles were as much at war with themselves throughout the war and in the years immediately following the end of hostilities as they were with the German and Soviet forces. Civil War in Poland, 1942-1948 contributes to the debate on the fate of Poland in this...

British-Polish relations during the Second World War were dogged by the fact that Polish demands on the Soviet Union threatened Soviet relations with Britain and the United States, and Soviet participation in the war. In this book Anita Prazmowska relates British policies and war-time strategy to Polish expectations and policies. She describes a tragic situation where Polish soldiers were trapped between the unrealistic plans of their government and the harsh realities of a war that they fought for Britain with no prospect of a satisfactory outcome for them or their country.

A revisionist account, questioning Britain's determination to defend Poland and oppose German expansion eastwards.

Wladyslaw Gomulka was a key player within Polish politics for over four decades and one of the most influential of the East European Communist Party leaders. As the architect of the 'Polish road to socialism', he claimed for Poland the right to define its own model of economic and political development, yet he was nevertheless committed to Poland's membership of the Soviet bloc. Anita Prazmowska here traces Gomulka's progression from a poorly educated worker in the Krosno district of Poland, to his election as First Party Secretary in 1956 and finally to his forced resignation in 1970. She...