Stalin Digital Archive

Table of Contents

Beria Memorandum to Joseph Stalin Proposing the Execution of the Polish Officers, Gendarmes, Police, Military Settlers, and Others in the Three Special POW Camps, Along with Those Held in the Priso...

- Export Citation
- Export Annotation

View:

By Beria, Lavrenty Pavlovich

Katyn: A Crime Without Punishment

Image view

Print
Save
Share
Cite

Translation Transcription

Translation

Document 47

5 March 1940, Moscow

The date “5.111.40” is written in by hand. KD1/216 gives the date as “earlier than 5 March 1940,” but KDZ1/216 gives “5 March 1940” (facsimile of document in both). Natalia Lebedeva sees Beria's request for lists of prisoners, resulting in the reports on the nationality of Polish POW officers in the Starobelsk and Kozelsk camps (28 February 1940, doc. 43) and the number of Polish police and gendarmes held in NKVD POW camps (2 March 1940, doc. 44), as preparation for his resolution to have them shot. She therefore dates the Politburo approval of the resolution earlier than 5 March 1940; see N. S. [Natalia Sergeevna] Lebedeva, “Proces Podejmo-wania Decyzji Katyńskiej” [The Decision-Making Process on Katyn], in Krzysztof Jasiewicz, ed., Europa Nie Prowincjonalna / Non-Provincial Europe (Warsaw, 2000), p. 1169. The date of 5 March 1940 is generally accepted, however, because the resolution was summarized in an extract from Protocol no. 13 of the Politburo sessions dated 5 March 1940; KD 1/217; KDZ 1/217.

No. 794/B

Top Secret Central Committee of the All Union Communist Party (b)

To Comrade Stalin

In the USSR NKVD prisoner-of-war camps and prisons of the western regions of Ukraine and Belorussia, there are at present a large number of former officers of the Polish Army, former workers in the Polish police and intelligence organs, members of Polish nationalist c-r parties, participants in exposed c-r insurgent organizations, refugees, and others. They are all sworn enemies of Soviet power, filled with hatred for the Soviet system of government.

Prisoner-of-war officers and police in the camps are attempting to continue their c-r work and are conducting anti-Soviet agitation. Each one of them is just waiting to be released in order to be able to enter actively into the battle against Soviet power.

The NKVD organs in the western oblasts of Ukraine and Belorussia have exposed several c-r insurgent organizations. In all these c-r organizations, an active guiding role is played by former officers of the former Polish Army and former police and gendarmes.

For NKVD interrogations of Polish officers and civilians arrested for underground resistance to Soviet authorities in eastern Poland (then, and since 1944, western Belorussia/Belarus and western Ukraine), see the bilingual Polish-Russian documentary publication Polskie Podziemie na Terenach Zachodniej Ukrainy i Zachodniej Białorusi w Latach 1939-1941 / Polskoe Podpolie na Territorii Zapadnoi Ukrainy i Zapadnoi Belorussii 1939-1941 gg. [The Polish Underground in the Territories of Western Ukraine and Western Belorussia, 1939-1941], 3 vols., ed. Wiktor Komogorow et al. (Warsaw and Moscow, 2001-2004). Volume 2 contains the interrogations and sometimes also personal depositions by several high-ranking Polish officers, including Generals Władysław Anders, Marian Januszajtis-Zegota, and Mieczysław Boruta-Spiechowicz; the first became the commander of the Polish Army, USSR, 1941-1942 (doc. 95), later the Polish 2nd Corps, and the last two were interrogated by Beria and Merkulov in late October 1940 for participation in creating a Polish division in the Red Army (doc. 91). There is also a Polish-Ukrainian publication on the Polish underground in eastern Poland in 1939-1941, but it contains a different set of documents: Polskie Podziemie, 1939-1941/Polske Pidpillia, 1939-1941, 3 vols., ed. Zuzanna Gajowniczek, Grzegorz Jakubowski et al. (Warsaw and Kiev, 1998-2004). The NKVD quickly infiltrated the resistance groups and liquidated all of them by spring 1941.

Page 119

Among the detained refugees and those who have violated the state border, a significant number of individuals who are participants in c-r espionage and insurgent organizations have also been uncovered.

It seems that these prisoners were selected by the NKVD for execution at the same time as the POWs. Nonpolitical refugees and illegal border-crossers were deported to the Northeastern labor camps (doc. 45).

The prisoner-of-war camps are holding a total (not counting the soldiers and the NCOs) of 14,736 former officers, officials, landowners, police, gendarmes, prison guards, [military] settlers, and intelligence agents, who are more than 97 percent Polish by nationality.

Among them are:

generals, colonels, and lieutenant colonels	295
majors and captains	2,080
lieutenants, 2nd lieutenants, and ensigns	6,049
police officers, junior officers, border guards, and gendarmerie	1,030
rank-and-file police, gendarmes, prison guards, and intelligence agents	5,138
officials, landowners, priests, and [military] settlers	144

In the prisons of the western oblasts of Ukraine and Belorussia a total of 18,632 arrested people (including 10,685 Poles)

According to a note dated 9 March 1959, written by Aleksandr Shelepin, then head of the KGB, for Nikita Khrushchev, head of the CPSU, 7,306 people were shot in the prisons of western Ukraine and western Belorussia (doc. 110).

are being held, including:

former officers	1,207
former police, intelligence agents, and gendarmes	5,141
spies and saboteurs	347
former landowners, factory owners, and officials	465
members of various c-r and insurgent organizations and of various c-r elements	5,345
refugees	6,127

Based on the fact that they are all hardened, irremediable enemies of Soviet power, the NKVD USSR believes it is essential:

1. To direct the NKVD USSR to:

The phrase in italics was underlined by hand. Parts I-III of Beria's memorandum were used in the decision of the Politburo of the Central Committee as formulated in points I-III, which were evidently drawn up by Stalin's secretary; see KD 1/217; KDZ 1/217.

1) examine the cases of the 14,700 former Polish officers, officials, landowners, police, intelligence agents, gendarmes, [military] settlers, and prison guards who are now in the prisoner-of-war camps 2) and also examine the cases of those who have been arrested and are in the prisons of the western oblasts of Ukraine and Belorussia, numbering 11,000, members of various c-r espionage and sabotage organizations, former landowners, manufacturers, former Polish officers, officials, and

Page 120

refugees, [and] using the special procedure, apply to them the supreme punishment, [execution by] shooting.

II. Examine [these] cases without calling in the arrested men and without presenting [them with] the charges, the decision about the end of the investigation, or the document of indictment, according to the following procedure: a) [examine the cases] against individuals in the prisoner-of-war camps on the basis of information presented by the USSR NKVD UPV b) [examine the cases] against individuals who have been arrested on the basis of information from files presented by the UkSSR NKVD and the BSSR NKVD

III. Assign the examination of cases and the carrying out of decisions to a troika [threesome] consisting of Comrades Beria,

Crossed out by hand in blue pencil.

Merkulov, Kobulov,

“Kobulov” was added by hand after “Merkulov”; both were written above the line in blue pencil, evidently by Stalin.

and Bashtakov (Head of 1st Special Department NKVD USSR).

On Kobulov and Bashtakov, see Biographical Sketches. The text in sections I-III was the one used in the Politburo resolution of 5 March 1940, point 144, “The Question of NKVD USSR”; see KD 1/217; KDZ 1/217. Point 144 figured in the 5 March 1940 Politburo agenda along with the following items: the construction industry; binocular production; the [Ivan F.] Tevosian Commission (orders for military goods from Germany); the Supreme Court of the USSR; the construction of a new sarcophagus for Lenin; and the contracting of suppliers for military shipyards; see Katyń: Dokumenty Ludobójstwa (henceforth KDL), trans. and ed. Wojciech Materski (Warsaw, 1992), no. 8; or Wojciech Materski, ed., Katyń: Documents of Genocide (henceforth KDG) [English edition of KDL by Ryszard Żelichowski], trans. Jan Kolbowski and Mark Canning (Warsaw, 1993), no. 3.

USSR People's Commissar of Internal Affairs L. Beria

On the document, written across the text: “Za” [For] with the signatures “I. V. Stalin, K. Voroshilov, A. Mikoyan” in blue pencil and “V. Molotov” in regular pencil (page 1). In the margin, evidently written by Stalin's secretary: Kalinin—za, Kaganovich—za” (page 1). Before point 1: the symbol Z, signifying the beginning of the decision (page 3). In the margin: “Special folder. USSR NKVD question” (page 3). Below Beria's signature on the document, on the left side of page: “Vm Beria. [Implement Beria].” Below that by hand: “Protocol 13/144”. Below that: “5 March 1940” (page 4 of the facsimile in KDZ1/216, p. 475; KD1/216, p. 388).

Transcription

Document Details

Document TitleBeria Memorandum to Joseph Stalin Proposing the Execution of the Polish Officers, Gendarmes, Police, Military Settlers, and Others in the Three Special POW Camps, Along with Those Held in the Prisons of the Western Regions of Ukraine and Belorussia, Ac...

AuthorBeria, Lavrenty Pavlovich

RecipientDzhugashvili, Iosif Vissarionovich (Stalin); Russian Communist Party (Bolshevik), Bolshevik Party, Bolshevik Center, Central Committee, RKP(b), Members of the Central Committee of the; Communist Party, Executive Commission of the Bolshevik; Party, Executive Committee of Bolsheviks, Provincial and Regional Party Committees of; the RKP(b), Communist Party of the Soviet Union,; CPSU, All-Union Communist Party, VKP(b), CC and CCC of the VKP(b), Central Control Commission of the; VKP(b), Republic and Territorial (Regional) Control; Commissions, Conference of the Russian Communist; Party, Plenium of the Central Committee VKP(b); (Central Committee of the All-Russian Communist Party), RK VKP(b), Congress of the Communist Party, Central Committee of the VKP(b) (All-Union; Communist Party (Bolsheviks)

RepositoryAPRF

ID #f.2, sealed packet no. 1

DescriptionN/A

Date1940 Mar 5

AOC VolumeKatyn: A Crime Without Punishment

Login Required

Your subscription has expired.