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Note to the CC CPSU “On the Katyn Question” by Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze; Valentin Falin, Director of the International Department of the CC CPSU; and Vladimir Kriuchkov, Chairman...

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By Shevardnadze, Eduard Falin, Valentin Mihailovich Kriuchkov, Vladimir Aleksandrovich

Katyn: A Crime Without Punishment

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Document 113

This document was first published with a Polish translation in Materski, KDL, no. 32; also in Snopkiewicz and Zakrzewski, Dokumenty Katynia: Decyzja, pp. 100–104.

22 March 1989, Moscow

No. 17–204

Secret

To the CC CPSU

On the Katyn Question

As the critical dates of the year 1939 are approaching, the discussions in Poland on the so-called blank spots in [Polish] relations with the USSR

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(and Russia) are becoming more and more strident. During recent weeks attention has focused on Katyn. In a series of publications written by authors known for their opposition views, as well as by scholars and publicists close to the Polish leadership, it is stated openly that the Soviet Union is guilty of the deaths of the Polish officers and that they were shot in the spring of 1940.

The PRC report of June 1943 (docs. 105a, 105b) was published in the Polish periodical Odrodzenie [Rebirth] on 16 February 1989 and in the highly respected weekly Polityka two days later.

In the statement by J. Urban, spokesman for the Polish government, this point of view has been, in fact, legalized as the official stand of the authorities, although it is true that the guilt for the Katyn crime is placed on the “Stalinist NKVD” and not the Soviet state.

Jerzy Urban (b. 1933), at that time the Polish government spokesman, stated at a press conference on 7 March 1989 that in the opinion of the Polish historians on the Joint Commission of Soviet-Polish Party Historians, everything pointed to the NKVD's responsibility for the massacre. This was reported by Polish media on 7–8 March 1989.

The tactic of the [Polish] government is understandable—it is trying to reduce the pressure resulting from the nonfulfillment of the promise to throw light on the Katyn question. To some extent, the pressure is directed at us, since for two years already this topic has not moved forward in the Commission of Soviet and Polish Scholars, which was established to find solutions for the “blank spots.”

The Soviet part of the commission does not have at its disposal any supplementary materials to support the Burdenko version published in 1944. At the same time, our representatives do not have full powers to discuss the weighty arguments of the Polish side.

The Joint Commission of Soviet-Polish Party Historians was established with the agreement of Gorbachev and Jaruzelski in May 1987. On 6 March 1989, Falin reported to the CC on the stalemate reached by the joint commission and noted the publication of the PRC Technical Commission report in Poland. He favored the Polish government's idea of giving some satisfaction to the Polish public by relocating symbolic Katyn ashes to Warsaw; see Materski, KDL, no. 32; KDG, no. 18. But this idea was abandoned. For the Polish historians' critique of the Burdenko Commission report and an account of their work on the joint commission, see Maciszewski, Zbrodnia Katyńska; Yasnova, Katynskaia Drama, pp. 179–201 (Russian trans.). For an account of the commission's work from the Russian side, see Yazhborovskaia, Yablokov, and Parsadanova, Katynskii Sindrom, chap. 4; also Jażborowska, Jabłokow, and Zoria, Katyń: Zbrodnia Chroniona, chap. 2.

Aside from J. Urban's statement, other steps are being considered in Warsaw [by the Polish government], which is forced to give some kind of satisfaction to its own society. In particular, there is the intent to transfer symbolic ashes (urn with soil), from Katyn to the central cemetery in Warsaw and, at the same time, change the inscription on the monument erected there in an appropriate manner.

The monument envisaged was at Katyn. There was no monument in Warsaw.

An analysis of the situation indicates that the more this matter is delayed, the more clearly the Katyn question becomes a stumbling block, not so much for past as for present Soviet-Polish relations. In the pamphlet titled Katyn, published under church auspices in 1988, it is stated that Katyn is one of the most horrific crimes in the history of mankind.

This publication has not been identified. For a bibliography of publications on Katyn from 1943 through mid-1993, see Maria Harz, Bibliografia Zbrodni Katyńskiej: Materialy*** z Lat 1943–1993 (Warsaw, 1993).

Other publications suggest that there can be no normal relations between Poland and the USSR as long as the Katyn question is not fully clarified.

The Katyn topic is now being artificially moved up to second place [in public discussion], just after questions connected with the outbreak of World War II and the German attack on Poland. The subtext of this campaign is obvious—it is being suggested to the Poles that the Soviet Union is no better, and perhaps even worse, than the Germany of that time, that it carries no smaller burden of responsibility for the outbreak of the war and the military destruction of the Polish state of that time.

In the Polish People's Republic, the Katyn question may decisively sharpen interest in an explanation of the fate of additional thousands of interned Polish officers, whose trails disappear in the regions of Kharkov

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and Bologoe—and the longer Katyn remains a question, the greater the actual danger.

Many Poles, and evidently also the authors of this note, believed the Ostashkov prisoners had been sent through Bologoe to Arkhangelsk and were then towed out to sea in barges, which were sunk with the men on board; see FitzGibbon, Unpitied and Unknown, p. 437. It seems this was a rumor spread by the NKVD among Poles in the USSR in 1941–1942, for it is not confirmed by any documents.

Thus far, we have not given clear answers to these additional questions put [to us] by the Polish side.

It is clear that we cannot avoid [giving] an explanation to the leadership of the Polish People's Republic and the Polish public of the tragic questions of the past. In this case, time is not our ally. Perhaps it is more advisable to say what really happened and exactly who is guilty, thus effecting closure to the problem. The costs of this kind of action would, in the final reckoning, be less in comparison with the losses [resulting from] present inaction.

The draft of the CC CPSU resolution is attached.

It is not printed.

(E. Shevardnadze) (V. Falin) (V. Kriuchkov)

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