Author’s Note: The forces of Nazi Germany invaded West Poland on September 1st, 1939. The Soviet Red Army occupied East Poland on September 17th 1939. The reasons given for this move was for the Soviet Red Army to come to the aid of the Polish people and prevent the spread of Nazi German terror. This Red Army operation was very popular throughout the population of Soviet Russia – as it finally re-united the Soviet Motherland with parts of Russian ‘stolen’ by the (Fascist) Polish Forces in 1920! The Red Army’s loses had been considered light with 734 killed and In 1,862 wounded (when compared with the ‘48,000’ Soviet Red Army troops ‘killed’ in the Russo-Finnish War 1939-1940). The population of the Soviet Union had increased by thirteen million (seven million Ukrainians, three million Belorussians, one million Poles and one million Jews). Unlike the automatic reaction of ‘racism’ found nowadays as soon as ‘immigrants’ are mentioned – the Soviet population actively welcomed these ‘new’ Comrades in accordance with their Socialist principles. In 2014, President Barack Obama fully supported the neo-Nazi overthrow of the democratically elected Socialist government of the Ukraine. The overtly ’Hitlerite’ Maidan Junta took control of Western Ukraine, and whilst receiving political, financial and military aid from the US, UK and EU – went to war with the People’s Republic of Lugansk and the People’s Republic of Donetsk (both breakaway Republics situated in Eastern Ukraine). The People’s Republic of Odessa was attacked and brutally wiped-out by Maidan Fascist Forces – which committed War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity in the achieving of this (illegal) war aim. The US supported far-right political groupings as a means to deprive modern Russia of influence throughout the region of Eastern Europe. Fascism, by its very nature, is usually overtly anti-Russian due to the defeat German Nazism suffered at the hands of the Soviet Red Army in 1945. Obama’s policy of encouraging fascism, and neo-Nazism led to a wave of far-right governments seizing power across Eastern Europe and probably resulted in the election of the openly racist Donald Trump in the US! Today, Poland has a neo-Nazi government which embraces its fascist past as representing what it means to be ‘truly Polish’. Modern Poland now sees the invasion of its country by Nazi Germany in 1939 as ‘liberation’ and its ‘liberation’ by the Red Army in 1944 as an ‘invasion’. Nazi German mass murderers are now ‘venerated’ within modern Poland as ‘heroes’ worthy of respect and remembrance! History is certainly repeating itself! The Polish Officers the Soviet Red Army took prisoner in 1939 were fascist activists who had assisted the Nazi Germans in various ways. They were anti-Semitic and had probably participated in the Holocaust. Given all this information, why does anyone ‘care’ what happened to them during WWII? They were not allies of the West (but enemies), and were certainly not ‘innocent’ bystanders. No one in their right mind cares about the Nazi German Concentration Guards murdered by ‘liberating’ US soldiers (who were shot without trial) – and nobody continuously harasses the United States to ‘admit’ this crime – and associate it with their preferred political and economic system (i.e. ‘capitalism’) extant in the United States. The lie that the Katyn Massacre was carried-out by the Soviet Red Army originates with Nazi Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels – and was designed to cause fear, confusion and mistrust amongst the Western allies. The point was to ‘separate’ the capitalist West from the Communist East – and to suggest to the capitalist West that it had more in common with (capitalist) Nazi Germany than with (Communist) Soviet Russia. Although not directly successful at the time (1943), this idea of (imagined) Soviet brutality became the foundation for the US Cold War effort, as well as an excuse for modern States to take-on neo-Nazism as an ideology. Nazi German murdered 11 million in the Death Camps and between 27-40 million in the Soviet Union. Compared with these horrendous figures, the fate of a few thousand Polish fascists pales in significance. If the Polish are prepared to side with fascism – then they must also be prepared to pay the price associated with that choice. Just as Nazi Germany betrayed their Polish allies in 1939, the Hitlerites had no qualms whatsoever in executing around 11,000 in the forest at Katyn because they had become a logistical problem. This tragic event exemplifies the ‘shallowness’ of the ideology of fascism. ACW (29.10.2020)
From 1930-1939, the entirety of Poland was a highly aggressive (and indigenous) Fascist State. Following Poland’s annexation by Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia in 1939 – the area of West Poland under Hitlerite control continued to be a Fascist Puppet-State from 1939-1941. Following the Nazi German invasion of the Soviet Union in Summer, 1941, both West and East Poland were ‘united’ yet again and came under direct Hitlerite control as the Nazi German Forces entered and occupied East Poland. The Nazi German control of a united (Fascist) Poland lasted until the Soviet Red Army ‘Liberated’ the geographical entirety of Poland during the Summer of 1944. This means that all or part of Poland existed as a Fascist State between 1930-1944 (with East Poland being briefly ‘Socialist’ from 1939-1941). Needless to say, there is historically a heavy German influence and presence in West Poland, and an equally prevalent Russian influence and presence in East Prussia. This is because West Poland was originally ‘Prussia’, whilst East Poland – up until 1920 at least – was a territory in Soviet Russia. The Soviet Red Army suffered a reversal in 1920 whilst it was marching toward Warsaw to ‘Liberate’ the workers. It was halted on the borders and turned back by Polish reactionary forces who ‘seized’ and kept a large chunk of Russian land in retaliation (namely parts of West Belorussia and West Ukraine). When Hitler occupied West Poland in early September, 1939, he was ‘uniting’ with the German population already living there – whilst the Soviets simply occupied what they considered to be Russian territory and in so doing prevented the Nazi German Army from advancing any further at that time (late September, 1939). The Soviet Red Army presence in East Poland also prevented mass atrocities at the time, being carried-out by the Nazi Germans against ethnic Slavs.
Poland’s fascist tendencies evolved around Jozef Pilsudski (1867-1935). He was a battle-hardened and no-nonsense military man who held various dominant positions in the reactionary Polish Socialist Party (PPS), which pursued a left and right-wing Trotskyite trajectory. Trotsky himself planned to overthrow the Soviet System through his support of ‘National Socialism’ and any and all forms of fascism antagonistic toward the Scientific Socialism advocated through the ideology of Marxist-Leninism and practiced by the Soviet State. In-short, Trotsky supported both capitalism and its fascist variant and was prepared to betray the workers in the process. Jozef Pilsudski was naturally drawn toward the right-wing and was a natural born fascist. Like his heroes Mussolini and Hitler – Pilsudski appropriated the term ‘Socialism’ and distorted its meaning and intention. He did this to attract the majority of workers to his cause, without having to do anything tangible to relieve their suffering or improve their lives. For Pilsudski, ‘National Socialism’ was the perfect blend of fascistic violence and deception that could cause the most damage to the USSR with as little hesitation or fuss as possible. In 1930, Jozef Pilsudski assumed the post of ‘Prime Minister’ and his reign of terror began!
The Communist Party of Poland (KPP) was ‘banned’ and driven underground. Pilsudski had 7000 Communists imprisoned, whilst a further 7000 Communists were forced into exile. This ‘ban’ on Communism expanded into West Ukraine and Belorussia (which had previously possessed their own Parties). Within the USSR at this time, the ideologues behind the Communist Internationale categorised Poland in the same bracket as Italy – both ‘Fascist States’. Any regime that engaged Trotskyism and fabricated half-hearted welfare provisions or tepid political reforms were referred to as practicing ‘Social Fascism’ – and this appellation was aptly applied to Pilsudski’s Poland. Even within the KPP – the Soviets had been concerned with a minority faction that indulged the deficient thinking of Rosa Luxemburg (the so-called revisionism of ‘Luxemburgism’) pointed-out by Joseph Stalin in his letter to Proletarskaya Revolutsiya. Life for Jews, the disabled, homosexuals and Communists was becoming very difficult, and things got a lot worse when Hitler came to power in early 1933!
Copying the Hitlerite ideal that defined the Slavs as an inferior race ‘not worthy of life’, Pilsudski initiated one pogrom after another in an attempt to rid Poland of all Russian (and Soviet) influence, which inevitably led to the eradication of as many Jews as possible. Lurking behind the scenes throughout this entire affair was the Roman Catholic Church which had adopted a clear policy of supporting the forces of International Fascism (beginning with Mussolini in 1921) without any sense of shame. Quite often, the Catholic Church funded and armed various far-right paramilitary groups that the Vatican could directly control (in Austria, one such ‘Catholic’ group was the ‘Heimwehr’ or ‘Home-Front Protection’). This is why Poland signed a ten-year non-aggression and mutual aid pact (in Warsaw), on January 26th, 1934. An exiled Communist Party called for an immediate uprising in the name of the USSR against fascism! Although workers rose-up all over Poland – the Polish Army soon smashed aside their flimsy barricades and riddled their bodies with German-purchased bullets! Indeed, mass-killings of ordinary Polish people was a policy Pilsudski was perfectly willing to pursue in the name of fascism.
So fast and efficient was Poland’s fascist reforms, that Goebbels visited the country during June, 1934 and personally congratulated Jozef Pilsudski for all his hard-work in re-structuring of Polish society along definite and discernible Hitlerite lines. A Polish equivalent to the ‘SS’, ‘Gestapo’ and ‘Hitler Youth’ had been formed – the so called ‘Oboz Narodowo-Radykalny’ (ONR), or ‘National Radical Camp’ – an ultra-far-right paramilitary formation supported at the time by the Polish government, the Nazi German government and the Catholic Church. This fanatical organisation routinely raped, pillaged and murdered its way through ‘undesirable’ populations throughout Poland. Men, women and children were sexually abused in orgies of extreme violence, before victims were forced to dig their own graves and kneel ready to receive a shot to the head. A historical fact that many are unaware of is that Pilsudski had built a network of Concentration Camps constructed in the Bereza area of East Poland (initially holding at least 16,000 prisoners). These Death Camps were constructed amongst the Slavic and Jewish populations the Fascist Polish government wanted to ‘eradicate’. This ‘Extermination Camps’ were conceived by ethnic Poles, designed by ethnic Poles and built by ethnic Poles. These ‘Centres of Death’ were then Staffed by ethnic Poles and used to murder, torture and confine hundreds of thousands of formerly ‘Polish Citizens’ long before WWII started, or the Nazi Germans officially entered Poland.
Although Pilsudski died in 1935 – this event did not alter the trajectory of Polish political policy – if anything, it only ‘strengthened’ Poland’s dependency upon the developing military might of Nazi Germany. After the UK and France gave away Czechoslovakia for annexation by Adolf Hitler in 1938 – Fascist Poland also sent the Polish Army into the Cieszyn region, (where about 80 thousand Poles and 120 thousand Czechs lived side by side). To coincide with this military invasion of another State, the Fascist Polish government passed a Law forbidding the ‘return’ to Poland of anyone holding a Polish Passport who had left Poland during the previous five years. This move was calculated to prevent the return of any ‘Jews’ who had left Poland since 1933 to escape the developing pogrom in that country. Now that Nazi Germany was expelling Jews en masse from Germany, Austria and Czechoslovakia – none of the surrounding countries wanted to become a place of ‘safety’ for these people. Poland, particularly, possessed a thoroughly despicable population whose level of anti-Semitism rivalled that of Nazi Germany! An important historical reality is that Fascist Poland was a close and enthusiastic ‘ally’ of Nazi Germany long before WWII began. As a consequence, the Fascist Polish State was invariably ‘anti-USSR’ and openly persecuted anyone considered a ‘Communist’ or a ‘Bolshevik’. This oppression only increased in 1938 when Leon Trotsky issued his public call for all his followers to support the forces of International Fascism in any intended (military) attack upon the Soviet Union! Trotsky also advised the Citizens of the USSR to ‘rise-up’ and carry-out acts of sabotage against the Soviet State – and to ‘murder’ prominent members of the Soviet government! The UK knew all this embarrassing information about Fascist Poland, but did not want these facts generally well-known in Britain. Instead, the UK government propagated the false-view that Poland was a ‘weak’ and ‘vulnerable’ country populated by a timid population that meekly awaited the military intervention of the ‘mighty’ UK nation to ‘save them’. These lies prepared the UK population for any subsequent military action that might be needed to support this fictious narrative. As for the highly aggressive and fascistic Polish population – this UK fiction possessed no meaning whatsoever – with the UK viewed as an ‘enemy’ of Nazi Germany and therefore of Fascist Poland! All that concerned the UK was the possibility that Nazi Germany would physically occupy and annex the territory of Poland and grant Hitler a very important strategic position for further land-grabs in the Soviet Union. The control of territory and the imperialistic increase in prestige was all the UK government concerned itself about – as it had no interest in genuine the well-being of the Polish or Soviet Citizens.
As matters transpired, the USSR cleverly negotiated a Non-Aggression Pact with Nazi Germany –following which Hitler decreed that Nazi German Forces would annex West Poland. The USSR countered this military aggression by stating that the Soviet Red Army would in return ‘occupy’ (the ‘Russian’ area) of East Poland. Indeed, the first Concentration Camps ‘Liberated’ just prior to Great Britain declaring war on Nazi Germany in late 1939 – were those Death Camps founded and operated by the Fascist Polish State since 1934! This inconvenient fact does not appear in any Western European or US historical textbook, as it would paint the USSR in a favourable light – a point denied by the forces of US anti-intellectualism which underlies and informs US Cold War disinformation. Furthermore, the Soviet Red Army served to hold the Nazi Germany military ‘in-place’ for around two-years whilst protecting ethnic Russians and other vulnerable groups from Nazi persecution. These ‘two years’ were crucial in buying the USSR time to re-build and re-structure the Red Army, Navy and Airforce, as well as the Soviet population and the Border Guard Units, etc. Neither Nazi Germany nor the USSR officially ‘Declared War’ upon Poland as each country viewed the military action as simply the re-occupation of German and Russian sovereign territory that had been historically (and ‘illegally’) annexed by ethnic Polish forces. What is peculiar is that the Nazi Germans appeared to ‘betray’ a very loyal ally in Fascist Poland. The Nazi Germans even fabricated a Polish attack upon German territory – dressing Nazi German troops in Polish uniforms and ‘pretending’ to invade Nazi Germany. The Hitlerites even distributed ‘dead’ Concentration Camp victims around the German-Polish border also wearing Polish uniforms – giving the false impression that the Polish Forces had suffered casualties during their failed attempt at military aggression. Nevertheless, regardless of these strange tactics, evidence suggests that various elements within Polish society ‘knew’ about the intended Nazi German invasion – and actually ‘supported’ it! The Soviet Press stated:
‘Why is the Polish Army not offering the Germans any resistance to speak of? It is because Poland is not a homogeneous country. Only sixty percent of the population are Poles, the rest are Ukrainians, Belarusians and Jews… The eleven million Ukrainians and Belarusians are living in a state of national oppression… The administration is Polish, and no other language is recognised. There are practically no non-Polish schools or other cultural establishments. The Polish Constitutions does not give non-Poles the right to be taught in their own language. Instead, the Polish Government has been pursuing a policy of forced Polonisation… Pravda Editorial (14.9.1939)
Alexander Werth: Russia at War (1941-1945), Barrie Books Ltd, (1964), Pages 56-57
In the UK, the myth has been concocted that Fascist Poland valiantly put-up a noble and valiant fight of resistance against Nazi Germany, (such as that relayed in the documentary series the ‘World at War’ and elsewhere), when in fact the situation appears to be one of ‘co-operation’ and ‘collusion’. Yes – small Polish military units did conflict with the invading Nazi Germans, but this appears to be the product of far-right internecine conflicts between fascist groups jockeying for power and positions of influence within the new Hitlerite political and social order. Historical facts about this time are quietly neglected in the UK and the US, as a simultaneously ‘false’ and in many ways ‘anti-intellectual’ replacement is presented for consumption by the masses. There is no real evidence that Poland ‘resisted’ the Nazi German invasion of 1939, but there is ample evidence that the population of West Poland welcomed the Nazi Germans as allies. In East Poland, by way of contrast, ethnic Russians welcomed the presence of the Soviet Red Army, whilst a small number of military units manned by ethnic Poles carried-out attacks against Red Army targets. The Fascist Polish military had to be careful, however, as it could easily be wiped-out by concerted Soviet and Nazi German retaliation. This is why Fascist Polish military activity was limited to short-lived ‘face-saving’ opposition. Some of the Fascist Polish violence might have been as fabricated as the events surrounding the Nazi German invasion, and ‘put-on’ for the news cameras. Great Britain had no interest in the lives of ordinary Polish people, or any intention of saving the Jews. Instead, the UK was only interesting in the power-politics of imperialism and the control of populations through the ‘owning’ of territory. The British government did not want Adolf Hitler to ‘control’ Polish territory and therefore possess an effective springboard for a military invasion into the vast hinterlands of Soviet Russia – and area the British would contemplate annexing (via Norway and Finland) in late 1939. The British government sold a lie to its own population as a means to prepare them for war. What would develop into a war against International Fascism (more or less by accident) – began life as an imperial war for control of territory.
Whilst all this was going on, the USSR accepted hundreds of thousands of ethnic Poles and Polish Jews as refugees, together with untold other numbers of persecuted peoples attempting to escape fascistic persecution. After receiving a friendly welcome within Soviet Russia, the Soviet Welfare System provided these Stateless people with housing, clothing food, medical care and finance. Many quietly integrated into Soviet society and found a job, whilst many others volunteered for service in the Soviet Red Army. Tens of thousands of Poles (both Jewish and non-Jewish) joined the Red Army and trained for a chance to militarily ‘hit-back’ at the fascist ideology that had destroyed their lives and nearly took their lives. By this time, news had spread to the USSR that mass killings had begun. As the Soviet Union was motivated by the ideology of Marxist-Leninism – it countered hate-filled ‘Fascism’ with compassionate-Socialism and ‘Internationalism’. Whereas the fascists were excluding races and killing minorities, the Soviet Union was welcoming these same people with open arms and taking care of all their needs. In return, many of these grateful refugees willingly gave their ‘labour’ in all kinds of capacities to assist the USSR in its resistance to fascism.
In many ways, the events surrounding the so-called ‘Katyn Massacre’ mirror exactly how the US pursued its anti-intellectual campaign of disinformation against the USSR during the Cold War. Many years later, after an event is supposed to have happened, damning ‘new’ evidence of Soviet barbarism and depravity was brought to light. During the 1950s, for instance, the US ideologues continuously fabricated ‘incidents’ that supposedly happened in the 1930s in the USSR. The odd thing about this type of retroactive history is that no one who lived through these times in the USSR ever remembered these events happening, and were unaware of any reliable or tangible evidence that these events happened in actuality. The US ideologues were not interested in historical accuracy (obviously), but were motivated only in turning the opinion of the American working-class against the ‘Soviet menace’. The US, through the use of blatant propaganda, wanted to ensure that the American working-class stayed a) disunited, and b) separated from the Russian working-class. This is a model of relating to the West and the USSR that the US enforced upon Western Europe after 1945, and upon Eastern Europe after 1991.
Throughout 1940, 1942, and the first half of 1943 there was no mention, rumour or indication that anything had happened within the forested area known as ‘Katyn’ (situated to the Southwest of ‘Smolensk’, Western Russia). Katyn is situated 417.8 km Southwest of Moscow and was occupied by the Nazi German Army as it advanced upon Moscow during late 1941. By 1943, things were looking bleak for the Nazi German troops as the Soviet Red Army started to push the frontlines ever further Westward – and started to re-take substantial tracts of Soviet territory. Goebbel’s – Hitler’s propaganda minister – understood the power of disinformation, and through its skilful application, sought to drive a wedge between the Western allies. If this worked, the Americans and the British could be forced to ‘abandon’ their Soviet allies, and perhaps start to perceive them as the ‘enemy’ – joining with the Nazi Germans in a common battle against the evils of Communism! In such an alliance, Nazi Germany could be saved from Soviet invasion by the presence of British and US troops on the frontlines of Eastern Germany. The problem Goebbels had was that the Soviet Union had done nothing wrong, and the Soviet Red Army had only assisted every victim of fascism it had encountered. It was also a concrete fact that the Nazi German Forces (and their allies) in the USSR had behaved despicably – following an official policy (‘blessed’ by the Catholic Church) of ‘eradicating the Slavic’ race! This had led to the murder of millions of Soviet men, women and children through a racist grudge. Whole populations were wiped-out by the Nazi Germans, with their communities destroyed, livestock pointlessly slaughtered, and water supplies poisoned. This ‘scorched earth’ policy left whole areas of the Western USSR as ‘deserts’ bereft of life and life-supporting resources. Although Goebbels knew all this was going on in the USSR – he also knew that very few people in Western Europe (or the US) were aware of the brutal nature of the fighting on the Eastern Front. Goebbels could work with this ignorance and (in his mind) hopefully turn the tide of the war against the USSR. Goebbels, in his zeal to gain a quick victory against the Soviet Union, he invertedly generated an anti-Communist policy that the US would adopt as the mainstay of its Cold War strategy – a strategy of routine ‘lying’ now enthused with Eurocentric racism and still used against Communist China today.
After masterminding the death of millions in the USSR, Goebbels – during mid-April, 1943 – suddenly announced to the world that Nazi German troops had stumbled upon a terrible ‘crime’ committed by the Soviet Red Army against 11,000 Polish POW. These Polish Cavalry Officers had been taken to a clearing in a local forest at Katyn, and whilst having their hands tied behind their back, were made to kneel down on the edge of a long trench that was to serve as their ‘grave’. Whether they were forced to ‘dig’ their own graves is unknown – but is suspected. Each man was shot once using a pistol – with one bullet in the top of neck-back of the head area. Once shot, each body fell into the grave. This Nazi German ‘Report’ just happened to coincide with very (increased) strained relations between Moscow and London – where Churchill had ensconced the Fascist Polish government in exile to live in the lap of luxury – whilst millions of Poles suffered at the hands of the Nazi Germans! Within the USSR, however, Fascist Polish Forces had taken refuge from the untrustworthy Nazi Germans once the Poles and the British had become unlikely war allies! Even in the midst of terrible fighting and confusion in the USSR, the London Poles ‘demanded’ to know exactly where key Polish military were. Whilst the Soviet Authorities scrambled to locate various ‘disarmed’ Polish military groups that were allowed to roam freely around the vast hinterlands of the USSR – Goebbels made his move. Goebbels claimed that the Soviet Russians had executed these Polish Officers in 1940 – when the Soviet Red Army (and NKVD) still occupied the area. These Polish Officers were supposedly taken prisoner when the Soviet Red Army occupied East Poland in 1939. The implication of Goebbels assertion is that the Soviet Red Army ‘executed’ these men because they were fascist – but this does not fit-in with the known facts. There were hundreds of thousands of Jews and ethnic Poles wandering about in the USSR – all being protected and looked after by the Soviet State. This also included thousands of Polish military units now ‘disarmed’ – who once fought for the Fascist Polish State. None of these ‘Polish’ people reported any mistreatment or arbitrary executions during their stay in the USSR. Goebbels did not stop with mere allegations – but gave great publicity to a Nazi German ‘Committee of Inquiry’ – which seems incredible concerning the millions upon millions of innocent men, women and children the Hitlerites (and their allies) had deliberately ‘murdered’ during the ‘Holocaust’! In retaliation, the Soviet government communicated with the Soviet people via an official communique dated the 16.4.1943 which reads:
‘Goebbel’s gang of liars have, in the last two or three days been spreading revolting and slanderous fabrications about the alleged mass shootings by Soviet organs of authority in the Smolensk area, in the spring of 1940. The German statement leaves no doubt about the tragic fate of the former Polish war prisoners who, in 1941, were in areas west of Smolensk, engaged on building, and who, together with many Soviet people, inhabitants of the Smolensk Province, fell into the hands of the German hangman, after the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Smolensk… In this clumsy fabrication about numerous graves which the Germans are supposed to have discovered near Smolensk, Goebbels’s lists mention the village of Gnezdovaya; but they deliberately omit to mention the fact that it was precisely here, near Gnezdovaya, that archaeological excavations were in progress on the so-called Gnezdovaya Tumulus… With this faking of facts, and these stories of Soviet atrocities in the spring of 1940, the Germans… are trying to shift on to the Russians the blame for their own monstrous crime…These professional German murderers, who have butchered hundreds of thousands of Polish citizens in Poland, will deceive no one with such lies and slander…’
As the ramifications of this Nazi German propaganda offensive rolled-on, the Soviet government stated that Goebbels was deliberately implying that archaeological digs were being deliberately construed as ‘mass graves’ – and that many people suffered (died) whilst the Katyn area was under Nazi German control during 1941! It was in 1941 – according to the Soviet government – that Nazi German Forces had entered the area of Katyn and committed all kinds of terrible atrocities against the people living there, or who were relocated into the region for ‘processing’. The Soviet government continued to issue statements in the press whilst trying to stabilise the situation. It was clear, for instance, that the press of occupied Poland was collaborating with Nazi Germany, as both countries had printed identical stories about a supposed Soviet massacre at ‘Katyn’ simultaneously! The Fascist Polish government called upon the International Red Cross to ‘investigate’ the allegation. As there were millions of people being murdered in the USSR by the Nazi Germans as this argument was unfolding – the Soviet government thought this request to be ‘absurd’ and ultimately supportive of Hitler! The USSR was an ally of the West and an enemy of fascism – the Soviet government reminded the world.
Disarmed former fascists were welcomed in the USSR for re-education. This involved a de-Nazification process of remembering how to be kind and considerate to all people regardless of ethnic origin, whilst studying the ideology of Marxist-Leninism. All this reformation of the character also involved the use of ‘labour’ to assist the Soviet Union in some way. Unarmed Polish Officers posed no direct threat to the USSR – and if they did – they would have been either individually tried in a Court of Law, or expelled as a group from the USSR. It was not until the Soviet Red Army ‘liberated’ the Smolensk (and ‘Katyn’) area and this matter could be investigated by the Soviet Russians. On January 15th, 1944, the Russian Commission of Inquiry gathered around Katyn. This involved a large number of Westen Correspondents and was led by Kathie Harriman – the daughter of Averell Harriman – the Ambassador of the United States. This Russian Inquiry possessed a definite ‘international’ structure despite its name. Its processes were open to scrutiny and available for all to see. The press coverage was unlimited both inside and outside the USSR. This investigation was not an ‘all’ Russian affair and did not happen behind ‘closed’ doors. The analysis was transparent and far from stage-managed in any way. There was some evidence (in the form of newspapers and postcards) that suggested the date of the killing was in 1941. This was collected from the bodies themselves. The structure and method of the execution was overtly and distinctly ‘Nazi German’. Victims of SS, Gestapo or the dreaded ‘Einsatzgruppen’, etc, were often made to dig their own graves, they were then made to kneel at the edge of the graves, (where the hands may or may not be tied behind their backs), whilst they were ‘shot’ in the back of the head (usually) once. It made no difference to the Nazi Germans whether they were fully dead or not, as the mass graves were soon covered with tonnes of soil. The bullets used were German-made, and the calibre of the bullets were identical to those used by Nazi German Armed Forces.
The exiled Fascist Polish government in London was of the opinion that there were only 4,000 Poles buried at Katyn (near Smolensk), and that at least two other Polish mass graves existed in the USSR as of yet undiscovered. As these graves have never been found, it is probable that they never existed. Professor Bazilevsky (an astronomer), was forced to work for the occupying Nazi Germans in 1941. He was informed by his German boss that the captured Polish were to be liquidated. A young Russian girl was forced to work for the occupying Gestapo in a local villa during 1941 – when she heard the lorries arrive in the Katyn forest and the shooting began. A railwayman explained how the Soviet trains were destroyed during the fighting of July, 1941, and how the Polish Officers could not be evacuated by train. Instead, the Nazi Germans decided to evacuate them by truck to the Katyn forest – where the problem was ‘dealt with’. Another witness discovered Nazi German military lorries hidden in the forest and covered in tarpaulins. The stink from these lorries suggested that not all the Polish Officers were killed at Katyn – but were murdered elsewhere before being moved.
Goebbels relied heavily upon a general anti-Russian prejudice that he knew existed in the West, together with a fear of the Communist ideology. All he had to do was ‘stoke’ these flames to make the fire burn more brightly, and this is exactly what he did. He managed to replace the certainty of material facts with something akin to ‘religious faith’ regarding ‘Katyn’. For many people, all the evidence obviously pointing toward the Nazi Germans is ‘negated’ by the fact that the ‘Russians’ are involved! Nothing else matters as long as Goebbels makes the allegations and all the facts point the other way. Goebbels chose a relatively ‘localised’ Nazi German massacre that happened to have occurred (by coincidence) in exactly the right location that Goebbels needed to make his point. Attempting to try and ‘force’ the contrary evidence to apply to the Soviets ends up with ludicrous assumptions, contradictions, fabrications and paradoxes which many people are simply not willing to ‘look beyond’ or openly criticise for their anti-intellectual content. This has resulted in endless books that talk of Stalin doing this, or Stalin doing that, but never of the crimes of Hitler or how the evidence of Katyn points logically toward Nazi Germany and away from the Soviets. When all the evidence was weighed-up and analysed, Kathie Harriman – speaking as the international representative of the 1944 Russian Commission of Inquiry – firmly stated that it was her opinion (and that of everyone in attendance) that the Soviet version of events was correct. Later, during the 1945-1946 Nuremberg Trial, the Soviet representatives produced a Bulgarian doctor who testified under oath that in 1943 he was ‘forced’ by the Nazi Germans to falsely conclude that the Polish Officers had been killed in 1940. He said this was wrong as it was clear to everyone that they had died in 1941, and that (according to locals) the mass grave had not existed in 1940 when the Red Army occupied the area. Indeed, in 1940 local people were still using the area for picnics and family outings, etc.
English Language References:
Alexander Werth: Russia at War (1941-1945), Barrie Books Ltd, (1964)
EH Carr: The Twilight of Comintern 1930-1935, MacMillan, (1978)
Robert Gerwarth: Hitler’s Hangman – The Life of Heydrich Tantor Audio, (2016)
Gerald Posner & John Ware: Mengele – The Complete Story, Tantor Audio, (2020)
John Tusa & Tusa: The Nuremberg Trial, Audible Studios, (2013)
Patracia Posner: The Pharmacist of Auschwitz: Tantor Audio, (2017)
THE SANGHA KOMMUNE (SSR) 
First-class yet again
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