[3] In order to de-Polonize all newly acquired territories, the Soviet NKVD rounded up and deported between 320,000 and 1 million Polish nationals to the eastern parts of the USSR, the Urals, and Siberia in the atmosphere of terror.

The second wave of deportations by the Soviet occupational forces across Kresy (Polish eastern borderlands), affected 300,000 to 330,000 Poles, sent primarily to Kazakh SSR.

Dr. Józef Retinger — of whom Anthony Eden had said that after Sikorski was the most important person in the negotiations — states that the blame for using the word amnesty rather than release was entirely on the Polish side and not the Russians.

In his memoirs Retinger writes; "I am afraid that the responsibility for this lies on the shoulders of a good Polish diplomat, Mr Potulicki, who drafted this document.".

According to Retinger, Potulicki had erroneously used the word amnesty and not release in the text of the treaty and there was no time to change the document before the signing took place.

Stalin effectively revoked the Amnesty on 16 January 1943 [27] when all Polish citizens including Ethnic Poles were once again declared part of the population of the Soviet Union.