During a study trip to Poland in 1984 to collect material for my thesis on internal relations in General Sikorski's Polish Government in Exile 1939-43, I was given access to the Stanisław Kot Collection in the Peasant Movement History Institute Archives (AZHRL) which are kept at the United Peasant Party headquarters in Warsaw.

Professor Kot spent the last years of his life in exile, living in Paris and then London. Even before his death in 197 5, his large archival collection was broken up. Part of it was transferred to Poland and deposited in the Peasant Party archives in 1969. Another part remained in the possession of the second wife of Kot's close friend, Professor Jan Hulewicz, in Kraków. Unfortunately, there is no access to these documents. The rest is deposited in the archives of the General Sikorski Historical Institute (GSHI) in London. Kot's academic works were transferred to the Jagiellonian Library in Kraków in 1964.

The Kot Collection in Warsaw is an invaluable source for research into the activities of the Polish wartime émigré government. Although it contains documents spanning a period from 1919 to 1949, eighty per cent of the material concerns the Second World War. It includes, amongst other things: Kot's personal files; reports from German-occupied Poland; the situation of Poles in former Eastern Poland (restricted access); Poles in Rumania, Hungary, France, Britain and the Middle East; the reconstruction of the Polish Armed Forces; the organization and activity of the Polish Government in Exile; the functioning of ministries and diplomatic bases; political parties in Poland; studies concerning post-war Poland; the emigre opposition to General Sikorski; press and propaganda; the situation of Polish prisoners and forced labourers in Germany; the plight of Jews in Poland, the USSR and in exile; finally, the activities of Polish émigrés in the USA. The remainder of the archive concerns inter-war Poland.

Two of the three following published documents are taken from Professor Kot's Warsaw Collection. The first is an extract from a report prepared by Mieczysław Harusewicz for the Polish Government authorities on the National Radical Camp (ONR), its work in Poland and attitude to activities in exile (AZHRL Stanislaw Kot Collection File 82). The second is General Sikorski's reply to Harusewicz's request for admission to the National Council as ONR representative in exile (AZHRL Stanislaw Kot Collection File 195).