While democracy appears on the skids in Russia as Putin expands his power, there is one sliver of good news coming out of Moscow. The Duma has finally acknowledged that it was Josef Stalin himself who ordered the murder of roughly 20,000 Polish officers, intellectuals, and leaders in the forests of Katyn.
The Russians long denied the allegation and insisted that it was the Nazis who massacred the Poles. The Duma, however, agreed to release documents showing the massacre occurred on the direct order of Stalin and was carried out by the People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs, or NKVD.
In addition to the soldiers, lawyers were the largest group designated for execution — bringing new meaning to the statement from Henry VI that “the first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers.” Hundreds of lawyers were shot. The Russians also killed 20 university professors and 300 physicians as well as poets, teachers, and other intellectuals. They were all executed as “nationalists and counterrevolutionaries.”
Hopefully, this latest atrocity to come to light will dampen efforts by some in Russia to rehabilitate this ruthless dictator. This includes a recent preposterous defamation lawsuit, here. Not only can you not defame the dead in the United States, but we recognize a narrow category of “libel-proof” individuals whose reputations are so bad that they cannot be harmed by defamation. A mass murdering psychopath like Stalin would appear a natural fit.
Source: Moscow Times
Jonathan Turley
Over a meal with Stalin and FDR at a summit during WW2, Churchill asked Stalin about the fate of the Polish Officers.
Stalin replied simply “We killed them”.
Churchill was speechless and left the table immediately.
Those of us in the UK who have an interest still feel a little guilty about the fate of Poland. You see, we entered the war to help Poland, but at the end we could not. We saved them from the nazis only to deliver them to Stalin and at that stage (or any other) would have been no match for the red army.
Particularly saddening due to the fact that it was the RAF’s two Polish Spitfire squadrons that made all the difference in the Battle of Britain 70 years ago – 26% of all downed enemy aircraft were shot down by those 2 squadrons.
An excellent book is Katyn: The Untold Story of Stalin’s Polish Massacre by Allen Paul. It was published in 1991.