ABSTRACT
The concept of Poland's foreign policy elaborated by the pro-Soviet Poles differed from the London perspective in two essential points. First of all, the Polish Communists and their followers assumed that the future Polish state must be firmly pro-Soviet if only as a means of protecting against absorption of Poland into the U.S.S.R. as a constituent Soviet republic, a course of action advocated by Lenin in 1920. Secondly, the reorientation of Poland's foreign policy from pro-Western to pro-Soviet could be achieved only through a re-examination of the territorial, political, and ethnic framework of the Polish state. While the eastern border of Poland was established through bilateral Polish-Soviet negotiations, the Soviets deliberately left open the question of Poland's western border. Despite initial resistance, Poland gradually accepted most of the political conditions imposed by the Soviets. A common ideology and similar security needs in Europe encouraged cooperation between the Warsaw regime and the Soviets.
