Katyn tragedy: historical lessons
16 April 2012 The European Court of Human Rights will deliver the final verdict on the so-called Katyn case. One of the Polish radio stations referring to the lawyers of the claimants, Mr. Kaminski, reports that the ECHR meeting will be held in an open form, and therefore the whole world will finally know about the true truth regarding Katyn. In principle, one can especially not even guess what the verdict of the court will be. One can only guess what kind of a mine it is laying under the further development of the Russian Federation and its attitude to it from the international community. Russia, by the way, recognizes at the state level that the shooting of Polish officers was the work of NKVD servicemen who acted on the orders of Stalin and Beria, as even President Medvedev stated at the time.
The crux of the matter is to accuse the Soviet authorities of the 40 model of the fact that, according to their orders, on the territory of the Smolensk region alone, according to one data, about 4,5 thousands, and under another - 20 thousands of Polish soldiers. At the same time, if such a verdict is accepted (which is already beyond doubt), then, as often happens, the fault will automatically be transferred to modern Russia.
Recall that the first talk about the tragedy in the Katyn Forest, was instituted in 1943 by the Nazi occupation forces. Then the German servicemen discovered (this word could, in principle, be written in quotes) near Smolensk in the Katyn area and at the Gnezdovo station mass grave of Polish (precisely Polish) officers. This news it was immediately presented as a fact of mass extermination of Polish prisoners by representatives of the NKVD. At the same time, the Germans stated that they had conducted a thorough investigation and established that the shooting took place in the spring of 1940, which once again proves the “Stalinist trace” in this matter. The NKVD allegedly used the “Walter” and “Browning” pistols with German “Geko” bullets to produce mass executions in order to cast a shadow on the “most humane” German fascist army in the world. The Soviet Union, for obvious reasons, subjected all the conclusions of the German commission to complete obstruction.
However, in the 1944 year, when Soviet troops drove the Nazis from the territory of the Smolensk region, and an investigation into this fact was already conducted by Moscow. According to the findings of the Moscow commission, which included public figures, military experts, doctors of medical sciences and even representatives of the clergy, it turned out that, together with the Poles, the bodies of several hundred Soviet soldiers and officers rest in the huge graves of the Katyn forest. The Soviet commission pointed out that the killings of thousands of prisoners of war were committed by the Nazis in the autumn of 1941. Of course, the conclusions of the Soviet commission 1944 of the year also cannot be taken unequivocally, but our task is to approach the consideration of the so-called Katyn issue from an objective point of view, based on facts, and not unsubstantiated accusations. Have this stories too many pitfalls, but trying not to pay attention to them means trying to dissociate oneself from Russian history.
The point of view of the commission of the 1944 model of the year on the Katyn tragedy in the Soviet Union persisted for several decades, while in 1990, Mikhail Gorbachev never handed over to the Polish President Wojciech Jaruzelski the so-called “new materials” on the Katyn case, after which the whole world spoke about the crimes of Stalinism against Polish officers. What were these "new materials"? They were based on secret documents that were allegedly signed by I.V. Stalin, L.P. Beria and other high-ranking statesmen of the Soviet state. Even during the transfer of these documents into the hands of Mikhail Gorbachev, experts said that he should not be in a hurry to draw conclusions from these materials, because these documents do not give direct evidence of the shootings of the Poles by the NKVD units and need to be checked for authenticity. However, Mr. Gorbachev did not wait for the end of the examination of the documents and the further conclusions of the commission on this difficult matter, and decided to disclose a “terrible secret” about the atrocities of the Soviet regime.
In this connection, the first discrepancy arises, which indicates that it is too early to put an end to the Katyn question. Why were these secret documents surfaced in February 1990? But they, and before that, at least twice could give publicity.
The first publicity of the execution of Polish officers by the hands of Soviet security officers could appear even during the celebrated 20th Congress of the Central Committee of the CPSU, when the personality cult of J.V. Stalin was dethroned by N.S. Khrushchev. In principle, in 1956 the year Khrushchev could not only condemn Stalin’s crimes on the territory of the USSR, but also receive simply tremendous foreign policy dividends on the “disclosure of the Katyn secret”, because shortly before this, the US Congress commission also dealt with the Katyn case. But Khrushchev did not take advantage of this opportunity. Yes, and could use? Did you have these “documents” at the time? And to say that he did not know anything about the real situation at the beginning of 40's with Polish prisoners of war was naive ...
The publicity could have taken place in the initial period of Gorbachev’s power in power, but for some reason did not take place. Why did it take place in February 1990 of the year? Perhaps the secret lies in the fact that all these “new materials”, about which, strangely, nothing was known before 1990, were merely fabricated, and such systematic falsification was carried out at the end of 80, when the Soviet Union already headed for rapprochement with the West. The real “historical bombs” were needed.
By the way, this point of view can be questioned as much as you like, but there are the results of the documentation examination of the very “new materials” of the Katyn case. It turned out that the documents bearing the signatures of Stalin and other persons demanding to consider the cases of Polish prisoners of war in a special order were printed on one typewriter, and the sheets with the final signature of Beria on another. In addition, on one of the extracts of the final decision taken at the meeting of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the CPSU (b) of March 1940, the seal with the attributes and name of the CPSU appeared in a strange way. Strange, because the Communist Party of the Soviet Union itself appeared only in 1952 year. Such inconsistencies were also announced during the so-called Round Table on the Katyn issue, organized in the State Duma in 2010.
But this is also where inconsistencies in the Katyn tragedy, in which they have recently seen only evidence of the guilt of the NKVD officers, do not end. In the materials of the cases that have already been transferred to the Polish side, and this is more than fifty volumes, there are several documents that cast doubt on the date of the mass execution near Katyn - April-May 1940 of the year. These documents are letters from Polish servicemen, which were dated in the summer and autumn of 1941, the time when Hitler's troops were already in charge of Smolensk land.
If you believe that the NKVD decided to specifically shoot the Poles from German weapons and German bullets, then why did it even need to be done? Indeed, in Moscow, at that time, they still could not have known that in a year or so, fascist Germany would attack the Soviet Union ...
The German commission, which worked at the site of the tragedy, found that the hands of the shot were tied with special cotton laces made in Germany. All this, again, suggests that the shrewd NKVD-shniki already knew that Germany would attack the USSR and, apparently, ordered not only Browns in Berlin, but also these strings to cast a shadow on Germany.
The same commission found a large amount of foliage in the fraternal (spontaneous) graves near Katyn, which obviously could not crumble from trees in April, but this indirectly confirms that the massacres of Polish and Soviet prisoners of war could have been committed in the fall of 1941.
It turns out that in the Katyn case there are a large number of questions that still do not find unequivocal answers, to be firmly convinced that shooting is the work of the NKVD. In fact, the entire evidence base, declaring the Soviet Union guilty, is built on the very documents whose authenticity is clearly in doubt. The appearance of these documents precisely in 1990, says only that the Katyn case was actually being prepared as another blow to the integrity of the USSR, which at that time was already experiencing enormous difficulties.
Now it is worth referring to the so-called eyewitness accounts. At the end of 30-x - the beginning of 40 — x, in the territory located at 400-500 meters from the place where mass shootings were subsequently carried out, the so-called government dacha was located. According to the testimony of the employees of this dacha, famous people like Voroshilov, Kaganovich and Shvernik liked to come here to rest. The documents that “declassified” in 90 explicitly state that these visits took place when there were mass executions of Polish officers in the forest under the Kozi Gory Mountains (the former name of Katyn). It turns out that high-ranking officials went to rest at the place of a giant cemetery ... They could simply not know about its existence - an argument that is difficult to take seriously. If the executions took place exactly in April-May 1940, in the immediate vicinity of the very government dacha, then it turns out that the NKVD decided to violate the unshakable instructions on the order of executions. This instruction clearly states that mass executions should be carried out in places located no closer than 10 km from cities - at night. And here - in 400 m and not even from the city, but from the place where the political elite came to fish and breathe in the fresh air. It is hard to imagine how Klim Voroshilov fished when several bulldozers worked several hundred meters from him, burying thousands of corpses in the ground. At the same time they were buried lightly. It was established that the bodies of some of the executed were barely covered with sand, and therefore the hellish smell of numerous corpses was supposed to spread through the forest. This is how the government dacha ... It all looks somehow unintelligible, taking into account the thoroughness of the NKVD’s approach to such matters.
In 1991, the former head of the NKVD, P.Soprunenko, stated that in March, 1940 had in his hands a paper with a Politburo resolution signed by Joseph Stalin about the execution of Polish officers. This is another reason to doubt the materials of the case, since it is known for certain that Comrade Soprunenko could in no way hold such a document in his hands, so his powers did not extend so far. It is difficult to suppose that this document was “given to hold” by L. Beria himself in March 1940 of the year, because just a month before Nikolay Yezhov, arrested by the ex-People's Commissar of the Interior, was shot on charges of attempting to carry out a coup d'etat. Did Beria really feel so free that he could walk around the cabinets with the secret decisions of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and give them "hold in their hands" to anyone they wish ... Naive thoughts ...
As Vyacheslav Shved says in the comments to his book The Secret of Katyn, the falsification of historical materials took place at different times and in different countries. One of the clearest examples of falsification in the United States is the accusation of Oswald that he single-handedly decided to kill President Kennedy. It was only after more than 40 years that it turned out that a multi-stage plot was plotted against a large number of characters against John Kennedy.
It is possible that the Katyn tragedy is also being tried to present in a way that benefits certain political circles. Instead of conducting a truly objective investigation and complete declassification of documentary data, the information war continues around the massacre of Polish and Soviet servicemen, which causes another blow to Russia's authority.
In this regard, it is interesting to draw attention to the recent decision of the Tverskoy Court on the suit of E.Ya. Dzhugashvili defending the honor and dignity of his grandfather I. Dzhugashvili (Stalin), accused of shooting Polish prisoners of war. Stalin's grandson requires the State Duma to remove the phrase from the parliamentary statement that the Katyn massacre took place on the direct instructions of Joseph Stalin. I note that this is the second such lawsuit to the State Duma by the grandson of Stalin (the first was dismissed by the court).
Despite the fact that the Tverskoy court dismissed the second lawsuit, its decision cannot be called unequivocal. In her final ruling, Judge Fedosova stated that “Stalin was one of the leaders of the USSR during the Katyn tragedy in September 1941 years". By these words alone, the Tverskoy court, obviously unwillingly, managed to emphasize that all the documents in the case of the executed Polish officers are possibly a crude forger, which has yet to be seriously studied, and then draw real independent conclusions on its basis. This once again suggests that whatever decision the ECHR may take, it obviously will not rely on all the historical facts of the tragedy that still causes conflicting feelings.
Of course, the shooting of thousands of Polish officers is a huge national tragedy in Poland, and this tragedy in Russia is understood by most people and share the Polish grief. And at the same time, we must not forget that in addition to Polish officers, tens of millions of other people disappeared in that big war, whose descendants also dream of a decent attitude to the memory of their fallen ancestors from the state and the public. One may exaggerate the Katyn tragedy as much as necessary, but it does not need to deliberately keep silent about thousands and thousands of other victims of the Second World War, about how today nationalist movements are actively raising their heads in the Baltic countries, to which for some reason Poland has a very warm attitude. History, as is known, does not know the subjunctive mood, so history must be treated objectively. At each historical stage of development of any state, a very controversial period can be found, and if all these historical disputes are used to escalate new conflicts, this will lead to a grandiose catastrophe that will simply crush civilization.
The crux of the matter is to accuse the Soviet authorities of the 40 model of the fact that, according to their orders, on the territory of the Smolensk region alone, according to one data, about 4,5 thousands, and under another - 20 thousands of Polish soldiers. At the same time, if such a verdict is accepted (which is already beyond doubt), then, as often happens, the fault will automatically be transferred to modern Russia.
Recall that the first talk about the tragedy in the Katyn Forest, was instituted in 1943 by the Nazi occupation forces. Then the German servicemen discovered (this word could, in principle, be written in quotes) near Smolensk in the Katyn area and at the Gnezdovo station mass grave of Polish (precisely Polish) officers. This news it was immediately presented as a fact of mass extermination of Polish prisoners by representatives of the NKVD. At the same time, the Germans stated that they had conducted a thorough investigation and established that the shooting took place in the spring of 1940, which once again proves the “Stalinist trace” in this matter. The NKVD allegedly used the “Walter” and “Browning” pistols with German “Geko” bullets to produce mass executions in order to cast a shadow on the “most humane” German fascist army in the world. The Soviet Union, for obvious reasons, subjected all the conclusions of the German commission to complete obstruction.
However, in the 1944 year, when Soviet troops drove the Nazis from the territory of the Smolensk region, and an investigation into this fact was already conducted by Moscow. According to the findings of the Moscow commission, which included public figures, military experts, doctors of medical sciences and even representatives of the clergy, it turned out that, together with the Poles, the bodies of several hundred Soviet soldiers and officers rest in the huge graves of the Katyn forest. The Soviet commission pointed out that the killings of thousands of prisoners of war were committed by the Nazis in the autumn of 1941. Of course, the conclusions of the Soviet commission 1944 of the year also cannot be taken unequivocally, but our task is to approach the consideration of the so-called Katyn issue from an objective point of view, based on facts, and not unsubstantiated accusations. Have this stories too many pitfalls, but trying not to pay attention to them means trying to dissociate oneself from Russian history.
The point of view of the commission of the 1944 model of the year on the Katyn tragedy in the Soviet Union persisted for several decades, while in 1990, Mikhail Gorbachev never handed over to the Polish President Wojciech Jaruzelski the so-called “new materials” on the Katyn case, after which the whole world spoke about the crimes of Stalinism against Polish officers. What were these "new materials"? They were based on secret documents that were allegedly signed by I.V. Stalin, L.P. Beria and other high-ranking statesmen of the Soviet state. Even during the transfer of these documents into the hands of Mikhail Gorbachev, experts said that he should not be in a hurry to draw conclusions from these materials, because these documents do not give direct evidence of the shootings of the Poles by the NKVD units and need to be checked for authenticity. However, Mr. Gorbachev did not wait for the end of the examination of the documents and the further conclusions of the commission on this difficult matter, and decided to disclose a “terrible secret” about the atrocities of the Soviet regime.
In this connection, the first discrepancy arises, which indicates that it is too early to put an end to the Katyn question. Why were these secret documents surfaced in February 1990? But they, and before that, at least twice could give publicity.
The first publicity of the execution of Polish officers by the hands of Soviet security officers could appear even during the celebrated 20th Congress of the Central Committee of the CPSU, when the personality cult of J.V. Stalin was dethroned by N.S. Khrushchev. In principle, in 1956 the year Khrushchev could not only condemn Stalin’s crimes on the territory of the USSR, but also receive simply tremendous foreign policy dividends on the “disclosure of the Katyn secret”, because shortly before this, the US Congress commission also dealt with the Katyn case. But Khrushchev did not take advantage of this opportunity. Yes, and could use? Did you have these “documents” at the time? And to say that he did not know anything about the real situation at the beginning of 40's with Polish prisoners of war was naive ...
The publicity could have taken place in the initial period of Gorbachev’s power in power, but for some reason did not take place. Why did it take place in February 1990 of the year? Perhaps the secret lies in the fact that all these “new materials”, about which, strangely, nothing was known before 1990, were merely fabricated, and such systematic falsification was carried out at the end of 80, when the Soviet Union already headed for rapprochement with the West. The real “historical bombs” were needed.
By the way, this point of view can be questioned as much as you like, but there are the results of the documentation examination of the very “new materials” of the Katyn case. It turned out that the documents bearing the signatures of Stalin and other persons demanding to consider the cases of Polish prisoners of war in a special order were printed on one typewriter, and the sheets with the final signature of Beria on another. In addition, on one of the extracts of the final decision taken at the meeting of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the CPSU (b) of March 1940, the seal with the attributes and name of the CPSU appeared in a strange way. Strange, because the Communist Party of the Soviet Union itself appeared only in 1952 year. Such inconsistencies were also announced during the so-called Round Table on the Katyn issue, organized in the State Duma in 2010.
But this is also where inconsistencies in the Katyn tragedy, in which they have recently seen only evidence of the guilt of the NKVD officers, do not end. In the materials of the cases that have already been transferred to the Polish side, and this is more than fifty volumes, there are several documents that cast doubt on the date of the mass execution near Katyn - April-May 1940 of the year. These documents are letters from Polish servicemen, which were dated in the summer and autumn of 1941, the time when Hitler's troops were already in charge of Smolensk land.
If you believe that the NKVD decided to specifically shoot the Poles from German weapons and German bullets, then why did it even need to be done? Indeed, in Moscow, at that time, they still could not have known that in a year or so, fascist Germany would attack the Soviet Union ...
The German commission, which worked at the site of the tragedy, found that the hands of the shot were tied with special cotton laces made in Germany. All this, again, suggests that the shrewd NKVD-shniki already knew that Germany would attack the USSR and, apparently, ordered not only Browns in Berlin, but also these strings to cast a shadow on Germany.
The same commission found a large amount of foliage in the fraternal (spontaneous) graves near Katyn, which obviously could not crumble from trees in April, but this indirectly confirms that the massacres of Polish and Soviet prisoners of war could have been committed in the fall of 1941.
It turns out that in the Katyn case there are a large number of questions that still do not find unequivocal answers, to be firmly convinced that shooting is the work of the NKVD. In fact, the entire evidence base, declaring the Soviet Union guilty, is built on the very documents whose authenticity is clearly in doubt. The appearance of these documents precisely in 1990, says only that the Katyn case was actually being prepared as another blow to the integrity of the USSR, which at that time was already experiencing enormous difficulties.
Now it is worth referring to the so-called eyewitness accounts. At the end of 30-x - the beginning of 40 — x, in the territory located at 400-500 meters from the place where mass shootings were subsequently carried out, the so-called government dacha was located. According to the testimony of the employees of this dacha, famous people like Voroshilov, Kaganovich and Shvernik liked to come here to rest. The documents that “declassified” in 90 explicitly state that these visits took place when there were mass executions of Polish officers in the forest under the Kozi Gory Mountains (the former name of Katyn). It turns out that high-ranking officials went to rest at the place of a giant cemetery ... They could simply not know about its existence - an argument that is difficult to take seriously. If the executions took place exactly in April-May 1940, in the immediate vicinity of the very government dacha, then it turns out that the NKVD decided to violate the unshakable instructions on the order of executions. This instruction clearly states that mass executions should be carried out in places located no closer than 10 km from cities - at night. And here - in 400 m and not even from the city, but from the place where the political elite came to fish and breathe in the fresh air. It is hard to imagine how Klim Voroshilov fished when several bulldozers worked several hundred meters from him, burying thousands of corpses in the ground. At the same time they were buried lightly. It was established that the bodies of some of the executed were barely covered with sand, and therefore the hellish smell of numerous corpses was supposed to spread through the forest. This is how the government dacha ... It all looks somehow unintelligible, taking into account the thoroughness of the NKVD’s approach to such matters.
In 1991, the former head of the NKVD, P.Soprunenko, stated that in March, 1940 had in his hands a paper with a Politburo resolution signed by Joseph Stalin about the execution of Polish officers. This is another reason to doubt the materials of the case, since it is known for certain that Comrade Soprunenko could in no way hold such a document in his hands, so his powers did not extend so far. It is difficult to suppose that this document was “given to hold” by L. Beria himself in March 1940 of the year, because just a month before Nikolay Yezhov, arrested by the ex-People's Commissar of the Interior, was shot on charges of attempting to carry out a coup d'etat. Did Beria really feel so free that he could walk around the cabinets with the secret decisions of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and give them "hold in their hands" to anyone they wish ... Naive thoughts ...
As Vyacheslav Shved says in the comments to his book The Secret of Katyn, the falsification of historical materials took place at different times and in different countries. One of the clearest examples of falsification in the United States is the accusation of Oswald that he single-handedly decided to kill President Kennedy. It was only after more than 40 years that it turned out that a multi-stage plot was plotted against a large number of characters against John Kennedy.
It is possible that the Katyn tragedy is also being tried to present in a way that benefits certain political circles. Instead of conducting a truly objective investigation and complete declassification of documentary data, the information war continues around the massacre of Polish and Soviet servicemen, which causes another blow to Russia's authority.
In this regard, it is interesting to draw attention to the recent decision of the Tverskoy Court on the suit of E.Ya. Dzhugashvili defending the honor and dignity of his grandfather I. Dzhugashvili (Stalin), accused of shooting Polish prisoners of war. Stalin's grandson requires the State Duma to remove the phrase from the parliamentary statement that the Katyn massacre took place on the direct instructions of Joseph Stalin. I note that this is the second such lawsuit to the State Duma by the grandson of Stalin (the first was dismissed by the court).
Despite the fact that the Tverskoy court dismissed the second lawsuit, its decision cannot be called unequivocal. In her final ruling, Judge Fedosova stated that “Stalin was one of the leaders of the USSR during the Katyn tragedy in September 1941 years". By these words alone, the Tverskoy court, obviously unwillingly, managed to emphasize that all the documents in the case of the executed Polish officers are possibly a crude forger, which has yet to be seriously studied, and then draw real independent conclusions on its basis. This once again suggests that whatever decision the ECHR may take, it obviously will not rely on all the historical facts of the tragedy that still causes conflicting feelings.
Of course, the shooting of thousands of Polish officers is a huge national tragedy in Poland, and this tragedy in Russia is understood by most people and share the Polish grief. And at the same time, we must not forget that in addition to Polish officers, tens of millions of other people disappeared in that big war, whose descendants also dream of a decent attitude to the memory of their fallen ancestors from the state and the public. One may exaggerate the Katyn tragedy as much as necessary, but it does not need to deliberately keep silent about thousands and thousands of other victims of the Second World War, about how today nationalist movements are actively raising their heads in the Baltic countries, to which for some reason Poland has a very warm attitude. History, as is known, does not know the subjunctive mood, so history must be treated objectively. At each historical stage of development of any state, a very controversial period can be found, and if all these historical disputes are used to escalate new conflicts, this will lead to a grandiose catastrophe that will simply crush civilization.
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