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security components and the police) acted in a relatively restrained manner. Whether this restraint, which was subsequently highly publicized within the framework of the military's loyalty to the precepts of the party, was spontaneous and fortuitous, or whether it was the result of timely knowledge of the Soviet position, is still not clear. The fact remains, however, that Moscow reportedly counseled compromise and restraint - advice that Gomulka either did not heed or received too late. In any event, the military's posture was, or appeared to be, fully in a accord with that of the Soviet Union and of the new regime in Poland. Soviet troops stationed in Poland played no direct role in the events of December 1970, apart from presumably monitoring developments.
The presence of two Soviet divisions in Poland, constituting the Northern Group of Forces (NGF), has been justified over the years by the need of the USSR to maintain lines of communication with its military establishment in East Germany and by the general East-West military balance in Europe. The Polish-Soviet Status of Forces Agreement of December 1956 provides the legal basis for the "temporary" stationing of Soviet troops in Poland. Approved government plenipotentiaries theoretically are in charge of conducting formal relations and resolving potential disputes. Only once, in a Soviet declaration of 30 October 1956, were Soviet forces said to be in Poland under Warsaw Pact auspices. The Status of Forces Agreement refers neither to the Warsaw Pact nor to any other treaties as forming the basis for the Soviet military presence. A preliminary joint communique of 18 November 1956, however, cited the following reason for the Soviet presence: 1) the existence of West German "militarism"; 2) West German claims to Polish territory; and 3) support of Soviet troops in East Germany. Whether the conclusion of the Soviet and Polish treaties with West Germany and the general spirit of detente in Europe negate the first two points of this rationale is a moot question since the third point remains operative. Moreover, since the Potsdam Conference also justified a Soviet military presence in Poland because of the need to maintain lines of communication with Soviet troops in East Germany, the stationing of Soviet troops in Poland retains four-power sanction so long as the USSR maintains a military establishment in East Germany.
Just as Poland has been a strong supporter of the Warsaw Pact for political and military reasons, it has also sought, for economic reasons, to improve the effectiveness of the Council for Economic Mutual Assistance (CEMA), an organization which was designed to stimulate Eastern European-Soviet economic cooperation and interdependence. Despite CEMA's sluggishness and failings, Poland's membership in the organization underscores the continuing dependence of its economy on the USSR and other Communist countries for raw materials, markets, and economic assistance. This has remained true throughout the postwar period, despite the post-1956 cessation of the outright economic exploitation by the Soviet Union that had been prevalent during the Stalin era, the inability over the years to satisfy the technological requirements of Polish industry either bilaterally or through CEMA, and the more recent trend toward expansion of Poland's trade - mainly for technological reasons - with the developed non-Communist countries.
Until the signing of the Polish-West German treaty in December 1970 and its ratification in May 1972 there was also operative in the Polish-Soviet relationship another major factor, which cut across political, economic, and military lines, but, because its essential element was psychological, was even more pervasive. This was the realization of all postwar Communist regimes, as well as of the population, that the territorial integrity of the Polish state was totally dependent on Soviet guarantees and good will. Having lost some 70,000 square miles of territory to the USSR in the East, Poland was compensated in 1945 with about 40,000 square miles of potentially more valuable German territory in the west and north, which the Potsdam Conference placed under provisional Polish administration pending a final peace settlement (Figure 12). This wholesale westward
FIGURE 12. Prewar and 1972 boundaries of Poland (U/OU) (Map/picture)
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