So I ended up writing a huge piece about the Warsaw uprising. I talk both about the history of resistance in Poland and a bit about its historiography. I am relatively comfortable on both, but moreso on the events that happened during the war.

So I'm not sure if this is what you mean exactly, but I wrote about the failures of the Polish resistance, and since a lot of this literature has been written since the end of the cold war I might be able to help. My primary sources will be "Rising '44" and "Gods Playground v.2" by Norman Davies, and "Poland: A history" by Adam Zamoyski.

The Polish resistance is notable for a huge variety of reasons, but probably most notably is it's size. Hundreds of thousands of insurgents operated under the umbrella of the AK, and these insurgents launched a massive campaign of resistance against the Germans. Ranging from large scale operations like the risings in Wilno and Warsaw, to smaller operations like intelligence gathering and, in an almost comical chain of events, stealing a German armoured staff car and only giving it back in exchange for prisoners. However, despite their unquestioned bravery, fighting skill and determination they were ultimately a largely failed organisation in all but the very longest terms. They failed almost all of their objectives (securing a free Poland, independent of both Soviet and Nazi tyranny.)

It is this independence that makes the study of them so recent. The AK never sided with the Nazis and actually worked with the Red Army on a tactical and operational level, most notably in Wilno. But they certainly were not a pro-soviet organisation by and large. This is made more complicated by the fact that, like almost all insurgencies, the AK was more a somewhat ordered coalition than true unified bloc. Some groups were fiercely nationalist, some were socialist. But very few were fully acceptable to the USSR. In fact, when the Soviets sent spies into Poland to assess how amenable the population was to Soviet ideals they returned shockingly weak results. The number of partisans who could be seen as aligning closely with the USSR in policy was under 1000. The resistance would work with the USSR where their interests aligned, but it was no puppet. And, with a force the size of an army group scattered across Poland, easily capable of going to ground and already organised into cells, it could have been a difficult opponent.

In fact the Germans did actually try to get some resistance groups to turn on the Soviets to help the Germans. The one group that did, the "Sword and Plow" group, saw an immediate mutiny in response and the execution of its leaders.

What is generally accepted is that on the 31st of July, an AK agent reported seeing Soviet tanks pushing into the suburbs on the east bank of the Vistula. This caused the AK to authorise the long planned rising, fearing that a Soviet push would cause a German retreat and the flooding of Warsaw with GErman forces. Once the orders were sent by courier, another officer, this time an intelligence agent, reported that he did not believe the tanks were indicative of an offensive (which indeed they weren't). The Soviets were close however, but they were overextended after the crushing success of Operation Bagration. In fact, Soviet radio was actively calling for the people of Warsaw to rise up.

Now this is where, as far as all of my research showed me, we start to get into conjecture. But for the topic of the historiography it's important conjecture. When the Soviets rolled up to the Vistula they saw ahead a city that was relatively lightly defended and very close. It was also bubbling with revolt. The Red Army itself was over extended at this point, but the AK was in place to rise. Norman Davies describes the city as having a very eerie feel by most accounts. Everyone, from German to Pole, knew something was about to happen. Even the Germans must have know at this point as well that, if the Soviets and Poles worked together, they would probably be able to handily defeat the occupying Germans. But given the circumstances, it would almost certainly be a largely Polish victory with Soviet support. In Wilno, the NKVD were able to quickly dissolve the AK forces the Red Army fought alongside. In Warsaw, with a huge army of insurgents entrenched in the city, broadcasting their success to the world, this would be much harder to achieve. Especially if forces from the west, such as the 1st Polish Airborne started to arrive.

The question therefore now becomes "is it in the Soviet interest to help the Poles, or is it better to let them fight the Germans and then deal with the weakened victor." What is certain is that the latter is what happened. What is less certain (but in my opinion probable) is that the Soviets enabled it through an intentional lack of support. This is supported by reports of Stalin's response to the rising, in which he basically says "wow, hope they win, but I cannot and will not sanction any effort beyond the front line." The Soviets did lend some support but it was often ineffective. In my opinion the smoking gun is a refusal of Stalin to allow the western allies to use Soviet airfields, which would have enabled much more airlift capacity at minimal cost for the Soviets. They allowed one American airdrop to land at a Ukrainian airfield, but by that point it was over. The Germans won, committing vile atrocities in the process. They dynamited the city to a degree seen barely anywhere else on earth in modern history (I think even the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki left more standing) and the Soviets easily rolled into the deserted city, and mopped up a broken AK across Poland.

Now, finally, we get to the historiography! You can probably guess that the Soviets didn't particularly like talking about the AK or the Warsaw Uprising. This led to a culture of repression that was quite bizarre. Everyone in Poland knew the uprising happened. Every survivor of the battle knew the Red Army watched as the city burned. But to discuss this was taboo. Instead the AK was blamed for being a reckless gang of bandits. Instead, the term "Warsaw Rising" was more closely affiliated with the Jewish Ghetto rising. Veterans were repressed and very few if any monuments were put up to the '44 uprising. In some ways, the Warsaw Uprising was put in the same "Embarrasing and politically damaging, but at the time useful actions committed by the Soviet Union in Poland" folder as things like Katyn and the '39 invasion.

When communism ended a flood of documentation came out along with long overdue memorials. The airing of such stories is a very very welcome thing, as if it had waited much longer thousands of crucial accounts may have been lost. But given that it was repressed for so long, it has become a bit of a cause celebre for the political right. That is not to say that Poles should not be immensely proud of the bravery of the insurgents. Far from it. But equally the rising should come under a fair criticism that it was hellishly, hellishly costly in blood and treasure and achieved no military or political gain other than being a crack in the façade of the Communist dictatorship.

As with a lot of history about ww2 in Poland it will be a topic of fierce debate for a long time. I have full confidence myself that it will emerge one day as a broad consensus, recognising the horrors inflicted on the Polish people, Jewish or Gentile, and the bravery of both in the face of it. There will always be sticking points. The question of "how much did Poles help in the holocaust" for example is obviously an explosive question with a megaton charge. But the historiography is still settling and is still heavily charged.