[last revised December 18, 2007 *]
Dear XXX:
You say you know the Soviets killed the Polish officers who are buried at Katyn.
But you do not know that. You believe that.
Belief is not the same thing as knowledge.
I've looked into this a good deal. In my view, nobody knows.
There is, in fact, widespread disagreement with the thesis that the Soviets killed the Polish officers buried at Katyn
Take a look at this New York Times article from June 29, 1945. It states that Walter Schellenberg, head of Hitler's SS intelligence service, told Allied interrogators that the Nazis had fabricated the whole issue, and that this account was independently corroborated by a Norwegian prisoner.
According to the study by Reinhard Doerries, a specialist in the Schellenberg interviews (Hitler's last chief of foreign intelligence: Allied interrogations of Walter Schellenberg. London: F.Cass, 2003) records of this interrogation of Schellenberg have disappeared from the National Archives. Interesting!
After this, the Cold War obscures everything.
In 1992 Eltsin finally turned over to the Poles some documents that, if genuine, would prove Soviet guilt beyond reasonable doubt.
However, the genuineness of these documents is in serious dispute.
I have studied the documents in question. There is a very good argument to be made that they are forgeries. (I'm being very, very brief here). But it is not certain that they were -- again, IMO.
It's actually fascinating! The "Soviets-did-it" camp simply ignore all the evidence that the Soviets did NOT do it, plus the evidence that the "smoking gun" Eltsin-era "documents" may be faked.
* * * * *
Because of the irrationality that goes with the Cold-War, anti-communist side, many people automatically assume that, if you do not "accept" -- or better, "believe," that's the word -- the "Soviets-did-it" evidence "valid", then you are denying that the Soviets did it.
That is nonsense, of course. Even if these documents turn out to have been forgeries, that would not mean the Soviets didn't do it. It would simply mean that the evidence doesn't prove they did.
Maybe the Soviets did it! After all, either the Soviets killed the Polish officers, or the Nazis did.
Or -- as I am increasingly inclined to think -- the Soviets shot some of the Polish officers, and then later the Nazis shot the rest, for different reasons.
So, maybe the Soviets did shoot them all. But the evidence is not there.
Here is the bottom line problem with the Eltsin "documents" -- there is no "chain of custody" of the evidence.
For example the markings on the envelope containing these documents suggest they were shown to all First Secretaries of the Communist Party. But there are no markings to indicate they were ever shown to Gorbachev, and Gorbachev never referred to them.
Supposedly they were "discovered" in 1989. But Gorbachev denies having seen them, or knowing about them at all, at all until December 23, 1991, two days before he left office. (On these points see New York Times articles of October 15, 1992, p. A1 and October 16, 1992, p.A6, available from the Historical New York Times database).
Is it possible that they really existed, yet were never shown to Gorbachev? Who would have dared keep them from him?
There are a lot of internal problems with the documents that suggest they may have been forged. They've been thoroughly discussed in a number of books (all are in Russian).
Put the "chain of custody" issue -- the fact that these documents were not made public until 1992 but marks on the envelope show that they were "discovered" in 1989 -- with the internal problems, and you have a set of documents of doubtful validity.
Furthermore, the central document was supposedly signed by Lavrentiy Beria. But other forged "Beria" documents have been published in post-Soviet Russia, including some that were "inserted" into the Archives after they were forged. So "Beria" documents are suspicious.
Also, any documents that suddenly "emerge" and purport to "solve" long-standing historical controversies are to be regarded with suspicion ipso facto.
However, I'm not convinced the documents are forged either.
In his recent book Stalin's Wars British historian Geoffrey Roberts makes what I take to be some equivocal remarks about Katyn. Here's my take on them.
Roberts summarizes the canonical, "the Soviets did it" view of Katyn, but in his footnote (n.27, p. 399) says that his accounts are based "mainly on two collections of documents from the Russian/Soviet archives: Katyn': Plenniki Neob'yavlennoi Voiny, Moscow 1997 and Katyn': Mart 1940g.-Sentyabr' 2000 g, Moscow 2001."
Why tell us this? I assume the purpose is to say: "I'm just summarizing these authoritative accounts." That is, "I'm not taking an independent position on this."
THEN Roberts goes out of his way to quote Averill Harriman's account from the still-private Harriman papers. He quotes Kathleen Harriman twice -- she was invited by the Soviets to view Katyn' while the Burdenko (Soviet) commission was there in January 1944.
In the footnote (n.29, p. 400) Roberts records Harriman's summarizing his daughter's conclusion that "from the general evidence and the testimony Kathleen and the Embassy staff member believe that in all probability the massacre was perpetrated by the Germans."
In the TEXT (pp. 171-2) -- not everybody reads all the footnotes, of course -- there's a much longer quotation from Kathleen Harriman.
First, she remarks on how "fresh" the bodies looked. This was a big issue with Burdenko. The Germans said the Soviets had shot the Polish officers in the Spring of 1940, which would have meant they'd have been in the ground during three whole summers, when the earth is warm and decomposition would be rapid.
The Soviets contended that the Germans had shot the Poles in the Fall of 1941, so they'd have been in the ground during only two summers (1942 and 1943). Logically, therefore, better preserved bodies would point towards German guilt.
Problem is: what's the standard of comparison for the "freshness" of corpses buried in that soil and that climate? There isn't one; so "freshness" is not a reliable indication of anything.
But Roberts then includes the following sentence from Kathleen Harriman's account:
"Though the Germans had ripped open the Poles' pockets, they'd missed some written documents. While I was watching, they found one letter dated the summer of '41, which is damned good evidence."
Well, THAT'S useful information! Roberts simply does not comment on it further.
Question is: Why did Roberts put this in at all? There can be only one reason: to signal to the attentive reader that he is not taking a position of his own on Katyn'. He's just putting the evidence down, leaving the reader to infer that it is contradictory while not explicitly saying so himself -- that would get him into trouble with the "right-thinking" anticommunists -- and moving on.
That's the way I read Roberts' remarks, anyway.
Perhaps this paper was "planted" by the Soviets, to dupe Ms Harriman? Sure -- and perhaps all the similar papers found by the Germans were planted by them, to fool the Polish Red Cross and other observers in 1943.
Or, maybe none of these documents were "planted" -- which would mean that the Soviets had shot some of the officers, and the Germans shot others. But nobody wants to hear that! Certainly not the Polish nationalists and anticommunists, because it would ruin a perfectly good "communist atrocity story."
There is lots of other tantalizing stuff. For example, the German Report itself, Amtliches Material zum Massenmord von Katyn (Berlin: Zentralverlag der NSDAP, Franz Eher Nachf. G.m.b.H., 1943) reproduces on p. 330 a very poorly-preserved document from a body at Katyn.
You can't read the date on the reproduction, but the caption says the document is from "October 20, 1941." I've put a PDF copy of this page on line here. Check it out! (The underlining of the date on this page is by me).
A mistake? Sure, any way you look at it, the Nazis would not have wanted a date after Spring 1940 in their report!
But is this a "misprint"? Or is it a German clerk back in Berlin reading the original document and simply putting down the date he saw, which then gets through some German proofreader?
In general, all the "Soviets-Did-It" accounts rely heavily on this German, i.e. Nazi, report. It is amazing that "scholars" are so ready to believe this Goebbels propaganda report.
And there are lots of other problems with the report too. For one thing, the Captain (Hauptmann) named in the above document is not on the list of bodies given in the German report. So where did this document come from?
The major attempt to prove that the Soviets did not do it is IUrii Mukhin, Antirossiiskaia Podlost' (Moscow: Krymskii Most 9-D, 2003). It's a fascinating work! And, at 762 pages in Russian, not a "popular" work. I've read it four times, cover to cover. (An earlier work by Mukhin, Katynskii Detektiv, is very briefly summarized here).
Mukhin's later, large work is completely ignored by those who claim the "Soviets Did It." Why? Your guess is as good as mine!
No, let me correct that. Mukhin's larger work is ignored BECAUSE it questions the "official version", the "canonical" anticommunist and Polish nationalist story.
By "ignored", I mean -- completely omitted. For example, see the latest volume in the Yale University Press 'Annals of Communism' series, Katyn. A Crime Without Punishment (Yale U.P., 2007.
This 558-page work does not even mention that there is a controversy over the Eltsin documents and the Katyn massacre! Yes this is what "scholarly" works are supposed to do, right -- discuss historical controversies, analyze the evidence, and so on?
After all, why ruin a perfectly good anticommunist account by dealing honestly with the controversy and evidence that exists?
There is a huge amount of DENIAL going on about this and other issues in Soviet history during the Stalin period.
OK, So where does that leave the question? Here is what I think:
NOBODY CARES what happened to the Polish officers! Nobody, including the Poles.
Furthermore, nobody EVER cared, even at the time!
The Polish government-in-exile, during the war, while the Nazis were slaughtering Poles in huge numbers, chose to believe the Nazi account!
They never interrogated this Nazi story. They just accepted it. If they really cared about these men, why would they do this?
IMO, they did it because they were far more hostile to the Soviets than they ever were to the Germans. The Polish government were fascists themselves.
And since then, the "Katyn massacre" has been a bully stick to beat the Soviets with. It still is -- more "evidence" that "communism is bad."
So the "consensus" historians have never troubled to look at the evidence in an objective fashion. And they are not going to do so.
That's why we don't know.
Meanwhile, there are some very good books -- in Russian, of course -- arguing the case that the Nazis, not the Russians, did it.
I spent part of my vacation in the summer of 2005 summer going over a translation into English of one of them, by a Swedish guy (in Sweden). A valiant attempt (I had read the book in Russian many times). Let's hope he finishes it, but he hasn't yet. His knowledge of English is very good, though far from perfect, and his knowledge of Russian is less good, but he has me to help him.
Still, it's not out yet, and this Russian book is already more than a decade old (1995). Meanwhile, there's lots more, newer, better stuff.
* * * * *
For you Russian-readers out there, here are the two main sites, each with a ton of documents:
"The Soviets Did It, Those Dirty Commies" -- http://katyn.codis.ru
"We Doubt That the Soviets Did It -- We Search for Truth" - http://www.katyn.ru/
That'll keep you busy for awhile, even if you speed-read Russian!
Of these two sites, only the second one includes evidence and testimony supporting both accounts. The first one includes only material that tends to support the theory of Soviet guilt.
That is to say, only the site that questions Soviet guilt makes any pretense at objectivity.
There are some interesting books, too, of BOTH schools. Again, if you want to know, email me. I've got, and have read, all of 'em.
I have been asked to get into this -- that is, to write about it. After all, it's a 'great mystery' -- right?
But I have refused, and am going to refuse forever. Here's why: NOBODY is really interested in the truth (almost, virtually no one).
Therefore, you simply cannot have an intelligent, calm, academic conversation about this.
No matter how objective you try to be, how long and hard you work, you will be called a lousy, dishonest propagandist WHATEVER you conclude, by those whose preconceived opinions you have failed to support.
April 2007 - This is exactly what Mr Romanov did! When I refused to just accept his conclusions, he called me names and put our whole exchange on his "Holocaust Denial" page even though (a) he had asked me my permission to do this, and I refused him my permission; (b) I do not deny that somebody killed the Polish officers, and it isn't a "holocaust" anyway!
Of course, you'll also be praised -- by the others, whose preconceived opinions you DO happen to support.
But who wants that kind of praise? Not me!
I am already called a dirty Stalin lover because I insist on evidence, not on bowing at the shrine of dishonest anti-communist historians whose works are a disgrace to the historical profession.
Well, I'm already in that soup, and have no choice but to swim in it! But I don't have to jump into ANOTHER soup just as bad or worse!
IMO the evidence suggests that both the Soviets and, later, the Germans shot Polish officers, for different reasons. This explanation has the advantage over others in that it does not entail "dismissing" lots of the evidence we have, or "assuming" the evidence against one side is true while that against the other side is false.
Recently one of the scholars of the "Soviets-are-guilty" school wrote me to convince me I'm wrong. We had an exchange, thanks to which I corrected an error on an earlier version of this web page. Mr Romanov put that exchange on the Internet (without my permission, by the way). If you want, you can read it here.
The anticommunist "Soviets-did-it" school make Katyn out to have been a great crime. And so it was -- no matter who did it, Soviets, Nazis, or both.
So how about the Western Allies? Frankly, their atrocities are greater than those of killing the Polish officers.
The British fire-bombing of Dresden in February 1945 killed at least 25,000 civilian noncombatants!
And this was only one incident! "Overall, Anglo-American bombing of German cities claimed between 305,000 and 600,000 civilian lives." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Dresden_in_World_War_II )
These atrocities are not stressed enough. Why not? See below.
Finally, for now, there's the issue of the Polish "mistreatment" -- "murder" would be a better word -- of Russian POWs from the 1919-1920 war against Polish aggression.
After Poland declared its independence from Russia in 1918, with the assent of the new revolutionary Russian government (there was no USSR until 1923) a Polish army under the command of Marshal Pilsudski and with Allied, mainly French generals, advising it, invaded Russia. The battle lines went back and forth. Ultimately Lenin and the Bolsheviks had to sign the Treaty of Riga in 1920, as they had had to sign the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk in 1918 to stop the war with Germany. Under the Treaty of Riga Russia lost large parts of Belorussia and Ukraine. There were relatively few Poles living in these areas. This was Polish imperialism.
The official Russian study of Russian - Soviet losses in war during the 20th century is the following book:
Rossiia i SSSR v Voinakh XX Veka. Poteri Vooruzhennykh Sil. Statisticheskoe issledovanie. Ed. G.F. Krivosheev. Moscow: "OLMA-PRESS", 2001. ("Russia and the USSR in the Wars of the 20th Century. Military Casualties. A Statistical Inquiry.")
This is a very scholarly book, not in the least "pro-communist". It calculates only military casualties. Civilian casualties, which were also immense, are not included.
It's a good read! Russia's and the USSR's military casualties during the 20th century are staggering! This book is available online (in Russian of course).
According to this study, during the war against the Polish invasion
So what happened to 89,851 soldiers?
No doubt some deserted to the Poles. Some escaped. Some died of wounds -- deaths that can't be directly attributed to Polish criminal activity.
Here's a translation (mine) of the relevant portion of the book above. It's in a footnote (number 246), by the way, not "featured" as some kind of "horrible Polish crime" at all, though that's what it is.
According to the best evidence, during the Polish-Soviet War of 1919-1920 the total number of Soviet military personnel who were taken prisoner was 165,500 (see Novaia i Noveishaia Istoriia, No. 3, 1995, p. 66). The exact number of Red Army soldiers and officers who died in Polish captivity is as yet unknown. However the mortality was extremely high, due to the inhuman conditions in which Soviet POWs were kept, the barbarous treatment accorded them by the camp administration, which included shootings of POWs at will.
Informal estimates in Russian-language discussion of this subject are that about 60,000 Red Army men died in Polish captivity between 1919 and 1921.
A good guess (mine, but others suggest it too) is that some of the Polish officers shot by the Soviets -- yes, I think the evidence is that some were -- were implicated in the Polish war crimes against Soviet POWs during 1919-1921.
So why do I raise the two cases above? Namely,
I do so to illustrate a point, and here it is:
There is very, very little attempt at objectivity in the study of Soviet history.
This serious -- and, by the way, very interesting -- historical controversy is simply ignored, "denied", in the service of Polish nationalism and anticommunist indoctrination.
In short, if you think you know something about the "Katyn Massacre" -- or, for that matter, about Soviet history during the Stalin period -- think again. You don't!
So here is my last thought, for now: SO WHAT?
I'm serious. I do not think it matters to very many people, and maybe to nobody.
For the most part "the Katyn Massacre" is not an historical question -- it is a WEAPON, a CUDGEL. You use it to make war on "the other side", and that's it.
Those who say "the Soviets did it" are NEVER going to accept that they did not, no matter what the evidence.
Those who say and / or hope: "The Soviets did NOT do it" are NEVER going to shed their respect and admiration for the USSR, EVEN IF you managed to convince them that the Soviets did it. And I do not think that's going to happen either!
It's like convincing a Christian that Jesus never existed. That is, it's no longer history, it's religion.
Good luck!
So it is interesting. But at this point I confine myself to (a) reading about it; and (b) reminding those who "know" (= are sure they know, and do not want to hear otherwise) of their bad faith.
You can imagine how popular THAT makes me! But being unpopular in this way is something I'm very content to be.
I hope this has been interesting, maybe even helpful. Believe me, there is so much more to say that you do not even want to know!
Sincerely,
Grover Furr, English Dept.
[* NOTE: My thanks to Sergei Romanov, who pointed out some errors in an earlier version of this page.
Mr Romanov strongly supports the "Soviets-did-it" theory and asserts that the "Eltsin" documents first published in 1992 are genuine. I don't agree! And it's impossible to discuss anything with Mr Romanov because he is so abusive. If you disagree with him, you are either stupid or a liar -- so he says!
But his is the most widely held view. Furthermore, he has done the only study I know of that attempts to disprove the arguments of those who contend the documents are forgeries. Let's hope he continues his work by responding to the latest of these studies, Iuri Mukhin's Antirossiiskaia Podlost'. - GF]