Historical truth is either there or not. In this regard, one and the same historical event can often be subject to heated discussions, and each time each of the parties discussing this event will put forward facts convenient for themselves. Perhaps this is the situation that continues to develop around the so-called Katyn case.
Let us recall that the investigation of the tragedy in Katyn (near Smolensk), where several thousand Polish officers and tens of thousands of Soviet citizens were shot, cannot come to an unambiguous conclusion about who committed this crime. More recently, the world was convinced that the execution was Stalin's idea, which was carried out with the help of the NKVD fighters. It was this version that emerged in the late 1980s, when Mikhail Gorbachev allowed himself to repent for the “crimes of Stalinism” against Poland. This version actually became official, and even subsequent heads of state (we are talking about the Russian Federation) have repeatedly stated that the shooting of Polish officers is a crime in which the Soviet authorities are directly involved. An additional "confirmation" of the guilt of the NKVD troops was the film by Polish director Andrzej Wajda "Katyn", which told the world that it was the "Soviets" who carried out the mass execution of the Polish military elite in the forest near Smolensk in the spring of 1940.
Based on this, some representatives of the families of the executed Polish officers filed a lawsuit with the European Court in order to receive financial compensation from Russia for that very heinous crime. But the ECHR in April 2012 unexpectedly rejected the Poles' demands to award them compensation for the shooting of their relatives in the Katyn Forest. Such a court decision became a kind of precedent for those who did not consider the indispensable guilt of the NKVD and Stalin personally in the execution of Polish servicemen near Smolensk as an objective reality.
Publications about the intricacy of the Katyn case have appeared before, but since the ECHR's judgment on the Katyn tragedy, many have looked at a completely different angle. A tendency began to emerge more clearly, which boiled down to the fact that the guilt of the NKVD troops in this case, at least, remained unproven.
In general, the situation demanded the following: either Poland, Russia and Germany, finally, abandon what is called tedding the dirty linen of history, and embark on the path of general reconciliation, or start new investigations of the Katyn issue.
Initially, everything went along the first path: in August of this year, Patriarch Kirill arrived in Poland on a visit that many called historic. The head of the Russian Orthodox Church met with the highest clerics of the Catholic Church in Poland. Here are the words of Patriarch Kirill, which he uttered at the airport:
“I would like to express my deep satisfaction and joy at the opportunity to set foot on Polish soil and pay a visit to the Polish Orthodox Church, as well as to meet with the Catholic Church in Poland represented by its hierarchs and clergy.
This is my first visit to a country with Western European culture after being elected Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia, and the first ever visit of a Patriarch of Moscow to Poland. This gives us the opportunity to reflect on our life: about the past, about the present and about the future when we meet both Orthodox and Catholics in Poland. The gospel is the common foundation for all of us. I am deeply convinced that on this basis it is possible to resolve any misunderstandings that arise in the human community.
It is remarkable that Christian culture is dominant in Poland and in Russia, which means that we have a common foundation and a common basis, including for solving issues that we inherited from the past."
The essence of the visit was to start a process of rapprochement between Russia and Poland, aiming at good-neighborliness and spiritual unity, which in recent years has been pretty lost with the help of political slogans. The Katyn problem has introduced and continues to make a painful dissonance in Russian-Polish relations.
Many called the visit of the Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia to Poland very productive and opening a new page in the history of the two states. It would seem that there is no way to reconciliation and common grief over the victims of historical regimes?
However, as usual, the rapprochement of Russia with anyone else is seen by some forces in this world as completely counterproductive for their personal interests. Less than a month after Patriarch Kirill's visit to the Republic of Poland, “thousands of pages of evidence” were published in the United States that Polish officers were shot by NKVD servicemen on Stalin's secret directive. And after all, indeed, where else could one expect "sensational revelations" if not from the United States. In this country, they certainly know who is right and who is to blame for the shooting of Polish officers … For obvious reasons, the American publication of "irrefutable evidence" caused a wide response and again led to friction over the possible reconciliation of the peoples of Russia and Poland. As the saying goes, “the Moor has done his job” … Oh, this Moor …
What kind of evidence was presented by representatives of the US National Archives, and should these publications be considered evidence of anything at all?
So, the American archivists quite unexpectedly became concerned with the problem of the execution near Katyn. At the same time, the report on the "evidence" of the guilt of the Soviet Union in the Katyn case was conducted not anywhere, but in the building of the American Congress. In addition to the congressmen, the stories about the "irrefutable guilt" of Stalin and his henchmen were heard by representatives of the families of the executed Polish officers, as well as representatives of Polish diplomacy.
As evidence that the NKVD fighters shot Polish soldiers in the forest near Smolensk in the spring of 1940, truly impressive materials were presented. Here are just a few of them:
1. Several aerial photographs of German reconnaissance aircraft of the 1942-1944 model.
2. CIA films about Katyn, including videos of the 1943 sample.
3. Documents of the US State Department on war crimes (1940-1944, 1945-1950)
4. Materials of the radio station "Voice of America", dated from the late 40s - early 50s.
5. Quotes from the ambassadorial messages of American diplomats.
6. The so-called Goering documents
and a number of other similar materials.
In general, as they say, American archivists threw in a "fresh" …
Of course, all those present at this "historical indictment" were imbued with the footage made by German military pilots and the messages of the Voice of America, which were made more than 70 years ago after the Nazi propaganda decided to extract political dividends from the shooting of Poles under Katyn. Apparently, only one American specialists from the National Archives can know how the photos of the Katyn Forest, taken by German pilots in 1943, can be evidence of the USSR's guilt in mass shootings … It is also unclear why all of a sudden everyone should believe the archival materials of the American State Department, all the more so that many documents of this organization of the 40s of the last century are based on the documents of the German commission that worked in the Katyn forest.
In general, the wheel of history spun with renewed vigor. To the "evidence", if I may say so, the American experts added a lot of German photographs showing the process of exhumation of the corpses of Polish soldiers. These photographs clearly show how representatives of the German commission are removing their documents from the half-rotted clothes of the executed Poles. In addition, samples of newspapers were included in many documents, the most recent of which is dated May 1940. This, according to American archivists, serves as irrefutable proof of the guilt of the Soviet Union in the mass shootings of prisoners of war.
However, here these same American specialists can be asked a quite reasonable question: is there not paragraph 10 of the "Instructions on the procedure for keeping prisoners of war in the NKVD camps" dated September 1939? According to this clause, all prisoners of war are thoroughly examined before being placed in the camp. Documents, weapons and other items prohibited for storage found with them are confiscated. So, did the NKVD representatives not see the documents proving their identity on several hundred prisoners of war?.. Or someone from the NKVD decided to sabotage the top secrecy of the operation being carried out … It is surprising that the photographs do not yet show samples of the personalized weapons of Polish officers.
Supporters of the theory of the guilt of the NKVD troops say that the "Soviets" simply did not have time to seize all the documents from the Poles during the retreat, and therefore the executions were carried out in a hurry. Well, yes … Well, yes … But what a hurry in the spring of 1940 can we talk about, because, as you know, then the Red Army was not going to retreat anywhere … Moreover, a hurry is good when there is time to shoot thousands of people exclusively from a pistol with a direct shot to the back of the head … Let's not forget that in June 1941, when the Red Army began its retreat inland, thousands of prisoners of Western Belarusian, Western Ukrainian and Baltic special camps were liquidated, but not one of the executed documents subsequently was not found …
If we talk about newspapers found literally on every third Polish soldier who was shot, then the appearance of these newspapers should be given special attention. The fact is that the clothes on some of the corpses in the Katyn graves are almost completely rotted, but the newspapers look as if they were thrown into the grave just a couple of days before the exhumation of the bodies began. Is the paper so strong that it just perfectly resisted soil moisture …
By the way, if the American "commission" considers those same newspapers "irrefutable proof" of the USSR's guilt in the execution of Polish officers in the spring of 1940 (according to Stalin's secret order issued as the original), then what about other, let's say, paper evidence? For example, in the clothes of some of the executed Poles, letters and postcards were found that were dated November 1940 and even June 1941. In addition, there are letters that reached the camp from Warsaw in October 1940. Some kind of inconsistency turns out. Did the "compassionate" NKVD soldiers deliver letters to the graves of the executed Polish officers, carrying out the exhumation long before the official exhumation … Or maybe they specially wrote letters to Poland on behalf of Polish officers to hide their crimes, and then they also put the envelopes in the grave … if we assume that this planning is a falsification of the NKVD, then why was it needed in 1940? Maybe some of the fighters foresaw the attack of Hitlerite Germany on the Soviet Union in the summer of 1941?..
The arguments that the twine, which tied the hands of prisoners of war and which was produced in the USSR, are also not clear, serves as clear evidence of Stalin's guilt in the execution of the Poles. Apparently, those who profess such an idea forget that as a result of numerous studies it has been established that the same twine found in the graves of the Katyn forest was produced by the USSR only in 1941, and before that time it was produced in Germany. Did the USSR authorities buy this twine from the Germans specifically for the execution of executions near Smolensk, anticipating that Hitler would attack the Soviet Union - once, at least he would reach Smolensk - two, lose the war - three, and Stalin would have the opportunity to declare crimes of fascism in the Katyn forest, demonstrated a German rope - four …
Moreover, American archivists strangely avoid the topic of the fact that, according to archival documents declassified by Russia, Polish officers who were captured by the Soviet Union were sentenced to a term of 3 to 8 years and placed in labor camps. At the same time, the prisoners of war ended up in three camps: Tishinsky No. 1-ON, Katyn No. 2-ON, Krasninsky No. 3-ON. All of them were places of accommodation of prisoners for work as part of the so-called ADB (asphalt-concrete areas) of the Vyazemsky camp. On the basis of these documents, Polish prisoners took part in the construction of the Moscow-Minsk highway. So, Soviet documents tell us that on June 26, 1941, there were about 8000 Polish prisoners of war in three camps, and because of the offensive of Hitler's troops, it was not possible to evacuate such a number of people … It obviously follows that those same 8000 Poles ended up in the territories occupied by the Germans … And where did they disappear later - a question for American archivists, the FBI and the Voice of America …
In general, such inconsistencies in the "evidence" published by the Americans are just a dime a dozen. But for congressmen, in principle, it does not matter whether the evidence presented is objective or not. Their main task was not at all in this, but in driving another wedge between Poland and Russia in order to prevent Moscow and Warsaw from really getting closer. Apparently, the topic of Katyn will be discussed by interested parties for a long time to keep Poland from Russia at an insurmountable distance.
