# Foreign Help

- URL: https://syn.by/en/history/archives/foreign-help/
- Published: 1924-05-18T19:55:00+00:00
- Updated: 2026-10-22T14:40:42+00:00
- Section: Archives
- Language: en
- BE edition: https://syn.by/historya/arkhivy/zamiezhnaja-dapamoha.md
- RU edition: https://syn.by/ru/istoriya/arhivy/zagranichnaya-pomoshch.md

> Leading article of the first issue. Poincaré's France regarded Poland as its military ally and supported the oppression of the "minorities", but after protests abroad and the victory of the French Left this support is wavering. The paper concludes that Belarusians have nothing to hope for from the Polish bourgeoisie.

![](https://syn.by/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/illustration-627-1024x585.webp)

Everyone knows what enormous influence France has over Poland.

This influence rests on the fact that France ensures the defence of Poland's independence. But this "favour" is not free: in return Poland is compelled to maintain a large army, ready in any emergency to stand side by side with the French one.

It is clear that France is interested in having Poland as strong as possible, so that she can send more troops to help her ally. But until now France has had its own French "Chjeno-Piast" in power: in its parliament the so-called "National Bloc" held the majority, that is, an alliance of deputies who defended the interests of capitalists, manufacturers and big landowners, saying that these were the support of the nation and the state. The National Bloc formed the government and put at its head a former President of France, Poincaré.

Poincaré's policy in France led to the same result as Witos and the endek government brought Poland to: terrible high prices, the impoverishment of the working people and the collapse of the value of money. Poincaré, a blood brother of the Polish nationalists, also supported in Poland the policy of oppressing the "national minorities", hoping that the Poles would soon manage to turn Belarusians, Ukrainians and others into Poles, and then Poland would become truly strong, since there would be only Poles in her.

Of course, such calculations are laughable in their naivety. They cannot be realized, because in our times one cannot simply slaughter "aliens", as the Germans once did, in ancient times, with the Slavic tribes when they seized their lands. And the policy that Poland, with Poincaré's blessing, pursues toward her "minorities" has achieved nothing, but has only harmed Poland in her foreign policy, having also weakened her at home. Here are a handful of facts.

"Dziennik Wileński" writes that the German newspaper "Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung", published in Berlin, has printed an article containing sharp attacks on Poland for the abuse of political prisoners, especially Belarusians.

The same "Dziennik Wil." reports that Belarusians abroad have appealed to the British prime minister MacDonald with a request to protect the oppressed Belarusians in Poland.

Chicherin, in a special note, also came out with a protest against Polish policy, in the name of the USSR.

Finally, as "Kurjer Poranny" writes, French socialists too have risen up against what is going on in Poland. On the eve of the Polish national holiday of 3 May a protest against the "white terror in Poland" appeared in the Paris newspapers. "The text of this document," writes "Kur. Por.", "after a short introduction about 'savage violence' in general, about the closing of newspapers, the shutting down of youth societies, the throwing of workers' organizations out onto the street, speaks out especially against the order, or rather, disorder, prevailing in the prisons. 'In the prisons of the Polish Republic there are now more than 3.000 political prisoners: workers for taking part in strikes, Ukrainian and Belarusian peasants who desire national independence, intellectuals whose guilt is that they organize education among the people. Suffering abuse from prison guards, cursed at, beaten with straps and sticks, fed exclusively on beets, in stench, sitting together with ordinary thieves, in clothes rotted with filth, in cold and damp cells, deprived of soap, linen, books, visits from relatives, these prisoners often choose suicide rather than slow dying, and not always slow, for in the case of Volha Biessarabava the investigation revealed that she died of beatings and loathsome wounds'… And this protest, as "Kur. Por." writes, was signed by people who once defended the Poles against Muscovite and German oppression. "The first two signatures, Painlevé and Herriot, are a sign that is certainly purely political, for they are former and future ministers, the most prominent representatives of the opposition."

We note the last point especially: for just a few days after this protest was published, elections to the new parliament took place in France, and in these elections the working masses of France showed how workers' France looks at the domestic and foreign policy of its nationalist bourgeoisie and its chief defender, Mr. Poincaré. The "Left" won the elections: the socialist and communist parties together, as the Vilnia "Słowo" has counted, gained 297 seats as deputies, while the National Bloc, led by Mr. Poincaré, got only 229. So the Left has achieved a brilliant victory: the new government will consist precisely of such political figures as those who signed the protest against the "white terror in Poland", with Painlevé and Herriot at their head. And it is already clear that Poland's old policy toward Belarusians, Ukrainians, Lithuanians, Germans and Jews will find no support whatever in France.

The Polish government, evidently, foresaw such results of the elections in France. As early as a month before them, Members of the Sejm of the Polish Sejm, the "Liberationist" Tugutt and the PPS man Mr. Niedziałkowski, were flying around the capitals of Europe "to save the Fatherland" in the eyes of European socialists, to whom they explained that although it had hitherto been bad for the "minorities" in Poland, this would soon change. And after this Mr. Grabski too began to call some secret conferences on the question of the "national minorities", only… without the participation of those very "minorities".

We understand very well that all this aims not at improving the position of the "minorities", but at saving the honour and respect of Poland in the eyes of the working masses of Europe, who everywhere are beginning to take power into their own hands. And this awareness gives us the possibility to look soberly at the matter and to avoid the mistakes that many Belarusians made in their time, trusting the sweet words of Mr. Piłsudski. The Polish bourgeoisie cannot change in one moment its views and aspirations toward the "minorities", and we can hope for nothing from it…