Vorbemerkung: (Muß nicht gelesen werden) Ich lebte damals noch nicht und weiß nicht wie Stalin wirklich war. Ich las und sah nur andere Zeitzeugen und etwas von Stalin selbst. Die meisten schlimmen Vorwürfe und angeblich überzeugenden Beweise kenne ich wohl und ausnahmslos. Nicht nötig zu wiederholen, was jeder tausend mal gehört, gesehen und gelesen hat. Aber … Durch unglaublich krasse Kriegslügen, über die Opfer der NATO-Kriege, die alle als brutale Diktatoren bezeichnet wurden und Dreck und Lügen über diesen ausgeschüttet wurden, um den nötigen Hass für die Kriege zu erzeugen, halte ich es für gut möglich, dass auch im Zusammenhang mit Stalin solche Lügen aufgebaut wurden. Auch in den anderen Fällen sah man Beweisfotos, die aber auch ohne Photoshop gefälscht waren. Bei Videos die ganz woanders gedreht wurden ebenfalls. Deshalb wollte ich wenigstens ein Mal auch die „andere Seite“ anschauen, oder hier zusammenfassen, um nicht auf die einseitige Sicht aus den kapitalistischen Ländern angewiesen zu sein. Das hier ist also eine Pro-Stalindarstellung mit allen Pro-Informationen und Argumenten, die ich darüber jemals mal gelesen oder gehört habe. Ich denke so ein positives Gesamtbild ist das Mindeste, das man dem krass negativen Gesamtbildern, die jeder kennt, entgegenstellen muß. Was ich selber nicht weiß oder vergessen habe dürft ihr gern in den Kommentaren ergänzen. Mein Motto: Mit den Lügen von beiden Seiten kann man sich am besten der möglichen Wahrheit annähern.
Stalin der Schlächter?
Jeder von Euch kennt die Anti-Stalinfilme oder -Artikel und falls nicht, dann die daraus folgenden Meinungen oder Äußerungen von Freunden: Eine brutaler kranker Massenmörder etc.
Komisch nur, dass die meisten alten Russen, die ihn noch kannten das GANZ anders sehen als die Lohnschreibsklaven der kapitalistischen Zeitungs- und Buch-Verlage und deren gläubige Leser. 
Schauen wir uns doch mal nur die ganz groben Fakten an:
Stalin als Person
Stalin war ein guter Schüler. Er hätte im zaristischen Regime etwas werden können. Er hasste aber die Not, die Lüge, die Ausbeutung, die imperialistischen Kriege, wurde Kommunist, kämpfte unter Lebensgefahr, erlitt und überlebte durch Flucht zwei zaristische GULAGs in Sibirien. Er war sicher aufgrund seiner Verfolgung und Flucht cool genug im Umgang mit Geheimdienst- und Polizeispitzeln um nicht – wie man ihm heute gerne vorwirft: Paranoid geworden zu sein. Wer als Diktator schmarotzen will, der liest nicht Karl Marx und schreibt meterweise Bücher und übernimmt keinen so gefährlichen und aufreibeneden Job. Er würde keine Alphabetisierungskampagnen machen, das Land an die Bauern verteilen und gäbe Arbeitern nicht freiwillig Mitspracherecht.
Stalin Kult?? Nach langer Geduld, wird er ärgerlich wegen der Bejubelung:
Stalin Angry: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1YsL4HXZN9E
Stalin-Rede mit engl. UT: Stalin’s Final Speech 1952 [Subtitled] 12 min. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nMDjKtTigQ&list=PLD6Ls5qx-TOXTCkSX8im4E6nsETEDsiMU&index=3
Stalin-Rede mit engl. UT: Speech about the new Soviet Constitution has been deleted: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nLqplbwD644 Aber als englisches Audiobuch ist es noch da: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wkTVuyydhHc
Stalin als Staatslenker
Russland war trotz seiner Größe vorher im Vergleich zum Westen ein recht rückständiger Agrarstaat mit riesiger Analphabetenrate. Nach der Revolution 1917 – obwohl 14 westlichen Länder (Entente) gemeinsam die junge UdSSR angriffen, bei Nichterfolg auf Bürgerkrieg umschwenkten und viele Tote und große Schäden anrichteten, 
entwickelte sich durch die Planwirtschaft das Land in einem nie gekannten Tempo. In den Jahren vor und nach der sog. „Welt“wirtschaftskrise der kapitalistischen Welt um 1929, hatte die UdSSR über Jahre Wachstumsraten von 22-26%/Jahr !
Es wurde alphabetisiert, elektrifiziert, Infrastruktur aufgebaut und die Landwirtschaft mechanisiert. Und trotz der leider nötigen Rüstung und des Vernichtungskriegs der deutschen Kapitalisten, die „Lebensraum“, Rohstoffe und Arbeitssklaven im Osten wollten, war die UdSSR zu einem der fortschrittlichsten Länder geworden und hat bald nach dem Tod von Stalin den ersten Satelliten, die ersten Lebewesen und Menschen und die erste Weltraumstation ins All gebracht. 
Deshalb wurde und wird Stalin immer als großer Staatslenker geehrt. Auch im Westen war er zu Lebzeiten ein ehrenwerter Feind 
Einige Zitate aus dieser Zeit geben einen lebendigen Eindruck davon:
*Zitate über Stalin*
*Roosevelt über Stalin*
„Dieser Mann kann handeln. Er hat immer das klare Ziel vor Augen. Mit ihm zu arbeiten, ist ein Vergnügen. Es gibt keine Umständlichkeiten. Er legt die Frage dar, die er diskutieren will, und davon wird in keiner Hinsicht mehr abgewichen.“
(Roosevelt, Präsident der USA)
*J.E.Davis über Stalin*
„Er (Stalin) gilt durchweg als ein sauber lebender Mensch, bescheiden, zurückhaltend, zielbewusst, ein Mann von eingleisigem Denken, dessen Sinnen und Trachten auf den Kommunismus und die Hebung des Proletariats gerichtet ist… Er hat einen gescheiten Humor. Und einen großen Geist. Scharfsinnig, durchdringend klug und vor allem, so empfinde ich ihn, weise. Wenn Du Dir eine Persönlichkeit ausmalen kannst, die in allen Stücken das volle Gegenteil von dem ist, was der rabiateste Stalingegner sich auszudenken vermochte, dann hast Du ein Bild dieses Mannes“
(J.E. Davis, „Als USA-Botschafter in Moskau“, 1943, S. 144 u. 276)
*Berthold Brecht über Stalin*
„Den Unterdrückten von fünf Erdteilen, denen, die sich schon befreit haben, und allen, die für den Weltfrieden kämpfen, muss der Herzschlag gestockt haben, als sie hörten, Stalin ist tot. Er war die Verkörperung ihrer Hoffnung. Aber die geistigen und materiellen Waffen, die er herstellte, sind da, und da ist die Lehre, neue herzustellen.“
(Bertolt Brecht)
*Winston Churchill über Stalin*
„Er war eine herausragende Persönlichkeit, die in unserer rauhen Zeit, in der Periode in der sein Leben verlief, imponierte. Stalin war ein außergewöhnlich energischer, belesener und äußerst willensstarker Mann, heftig, schroff, schonungslos in der Sache, wie im Gespräch, dem selbst ich, der ich im englischen Parlament groß geworden bin, nichts entgegenzusetzen vermochte … In seinen Werken spürte man eine hünenhafte Kraft. Stalins Kraft war so groß, daß er unter den Führern aller Völker und Zeiten nicht seinesgleichen kennt … Die Menschen konnten seinem Einfluß nicht widerstehen. Als er den Raum der Konferenz von Jalta betrat, erhoben wir uns alle, buchstäblich wie auf Kommando. Und, so seltsam es ist, wir legten die Hände an die Hosennaht. Stalin besaß einen tiefschürfenden, gründlichen und logischen Verstand. Er war ein unübertroffener Meister darin, in schweren Momenten einen Ausweg aus der ausweglosesten Lage zu finden … Er war ein Mann, der seinen Feind mit den Händen seiner Feinde vernichtete, der uns, die er offen Imperialisten nannte, zwang, gegen Imperialisten zu kämpfen. Er übernahm das Rußland des Hakenpflugs und hinterließ es im Besitz der Atomwaffe.“
(Winston Churchill über Stalin)
* H.G. Wells über Stalin * (eine noch interessantere längere Version – siehe Link unten)
„Ich habe noch nie einen offeneren, gerechteren und ehrlicheren Menschen getroffen, und diesen Qualitäten ist es zu verdanken, und nichts Okkultistischem und Finsterem verdankt er seine ungeheure unbestrittene Überlegenheit in Russland. Ich hatte gedacht, bevor ich ihn sah, dass er da war, wo er war, weil Männer Angst vor ihm hatten, aber ich merke, dass er seine Position der Tatsache verdankt, dass niemand Angst vor ihm hat und jeder ihm vertraut.
~ H.G. Wells -Experiment in Autobiographie mehr:
Lange Version: https://mltheory.wordpress.com/2015/02/23/h-g-wells-on-joseph-stalin/
Schauen Sie sich H.G. Wells Interview von J. V. Stalin an: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AM7u1-BQ8ww
http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1934/07/23.htm
*Alexander Sinowjew über Stalin 1993*
„Seit meinem siebzehnten Lebensjahr bin ich ein überzeugter Antistalinist gewesen. Die Idee eines Attentats auf Stalin beherrschte meine Gedanken und Gefühle. Wir studierten die ‚technischen’ Möglichkeiten eines Attentats. Wir fingen mit den praktischen Vorbereitungen an.“ „Wenn sie mich 1939 zum Tode verurteilt hätten, wäre das die richtige Entscheidung gewesen. Ich hatte geplant, Stalin zu töten und das war ein Verbrechen, oder? Als Stalin noch lebte, sah ich das anders, aber jetzt, wo ich das ganze Jahrhundert überblicken kann, sage ich: Stalin ist die größte Persönlichkeit dieses Jahrhunderts gewesen, das größte politische Genie. Ein wissenschaftlicher Standpunkt jemanden gegenüber, muss nicht dem persönlichen Verhalten entsprechen.“
(Alexander Sinowjew, Les confessions d’un homme en trop, Olivier Orban Verlag, 1990, s. 104, 120. Interview Humo, 25. Februar 1993, s. 48-49)
Zu den „Verbrechen“:
Das Methode der Verbrechensanklage is primitiv: Wenn zwei sich streiten ist immer der andere Schuld. Im Konflikt und Krieg zwischen Zaristen, Feudalisten, deren Günstlinge, Kapitalisten und Imperialisten (nach dem 1.Weltkrieg haben 14 westliche Länder haben gemeinsam die junge UdSSR angegriffen) mit der Befreiungsbewegung des russischen Volkes, die einen Arbeiter- und Bauernstaat wollen, werden Menschen getötet , aber alle Toten haben die Sozialisten zu verantworten. Nach der Berechtigung des Aufstands und den Zielen wird nie gefragt. Nur ganz nebulös wird die wissenschaftliche Theorie von Marx und Lenin als „Ideologie“ verdreht, die zwar eigentlich, selbst nach Kapitalisten-Ideologie „Unrealistisch“ gut und menschenfreundlich sein soll, aber unergründlicherweise genau das Gegenteil tut. Warum, bleibt unklar, es werden uns lediglich „böse Diktatoren“ angeboten.
Der unbestreitbare Volksaufstand 1917, die Oktoberrevolution, gegen Krieg, Ausbeutung und für Selbstbestimmung in Freiheit und (echter nicht-kapitalistischer) Demokratie und die Symbole des freien Arbeiter- und Bauernstaats (Hammer und Sichel ☭ ) werden so zu Symbolen des Gegenteils von dem was sie sind: Von Mord, Krieg, Hunger und Verfolgung, die aber von Zaristen und Kapitalisten selbst verursacht und auch begangen wurden.
In jüngster Zeit wird Stalin gerne als verrückter Psychopath verkauft. Man sagt, er sah überall Spione, Saboteure etc. Wie die Realität damals war, sagen sie nicht: Der Staatsapparat brauchte naturgemäß Leute die Lesen und Schreiben können und Ausbildungen hatten. Die meisten Arbeiter und erst recht Bauern konnten das aber nicht in der Anfangsphase – man musste Angestellte, Soldaten, Beamte des Zaren bzw. der Feudalisten nehmen, die sich loyal erklärten, aber oft Geld aus dem Ausland nahmen oder vermittelt über sonstige Nutznießer des alten Systems, den Staatsaufbau oft insgeheim sabotierten, ja sogar gute Sozialisten ermorden ließen in Stalins Namen, „Säuberungen“ die man Stalin als Verbrechen in die Schuhe geschoben hat.
Auf Landesverrat, Sabotage und Mord steht in vielen Ländern die Todesstrafe. Dass in der damaligen Situation es besonders viele gab, ist nicht verwunderlich.
Stalin, der seit seiner Jugend im Untergrund Jahrzehnte lang verfolgt wurde und zwei Mal in Arbeitslager (GULAG) in Sibirien geschickt wurde und zwei Mal wieder floh, Lebensgefahr mit der Muttermilch aufsog, soll paranoid geworden sein? Man sehe sich nur seine Reden, auch im hohen Alter an: Er war immer sehr entspannt und ruhig und ich empfehle auch seine Gedanken, also das was er schrieb sich anzuschauen. Da wird klar, womit er sich wirklich beschäftigt. Früher gab es bei www.stalinwerke.de alles was er je gesagt und geschrieben hat. Die Inhalts- u.a. Verzeichnisse zeigen schnell einen Zeitraum oder ein Thema mit dem er sich damals beschäftigt hat. 
Einige Nachweise über die Lügen der angeblichen Massenmorde:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=5cLY7tBthPA
Zur Kollektivierung der Landwirtschaft
Auch das soll ein Verbrechen gewesen sein. Man sagt, er habe die Bauern in landwirtschaftliche Produktionsgenossenschaften (Kolchosen-Aufbau im Rahmen der Kollektivierung) „gezwungen“. „Vergessen“ tut die Anti-Stalin-Propaganda aber meist, dass es seine bzw. auch generelle sozialistische Politik vorher war, den landlosen Landarbeitern Land zu geben! Sie waren vorher Leibeigene oder in völliger Abhängigkeit gehaltene Lohnsklaven auf den Riesengütern der Feudalisten oder Großbauern. Die Revolution hat ihnen das Land vorher gegeben! Geschenkt! Das Motto damals: Das Land dem, der es bearbeitet! Die Kollektivierung war (im Prinzip) freiwillig und man bedenke, wie die (unvermeidliche) Mechanisierung der Landwirtschaft aufgrund der technologischen Entwicklung in der „freien USA“ ablief: Traktoren und später auch andere Landmaschinen wurden erfunden.
Die Bauern hatten zu kleine Felder als dass sich dies lohnte, konnten sich das auch nicht leisten, konnten nicht mehr konkurieren mit den mechansierten Großfarmen oder mußten teuere Bankkredite aufnehmen für Traktoren, die sie aber ebenfalls meist ruinierten. Es führte also (selbst ohne Bürgerkrieg) in der USA zu Hunger, zur Aufgabe der Farmen und Bildung vor Riesenfarmen in denen einige der Bauern für Banken – wenn sie Glück hatten – als Landarbeiter arbeiten konnten, aber natürlich nicht als freier Mitbesitzer wie in den Kolchosen, sondern als Abhängiger, dem Arbeitsmarkt Unterworfener. Das Resultat war grob gesehen des Gleiche: Vernichtung der Kleinbauern, mechanisierte Landwirtschaft. In der UdSSR hatten die Kolchosen aber Selbstbestimmung im Rahmen staatlicher Pläne, Belieferung von Maschinen und kostenlose Schulen, Ärzte, Krankenhäuser, Urlaub, Rente etc. wie eben im Sozialismus üblich. Das politische Ziel war ja auch die Lebensverhältnisse von Stadt und Land anzugleichen. Bauern auf dem Land sollten und haben Lebensbedingungen wie bei Arbeitern bekommen. Bauern konnten Präsident werden – Chruschtschow z.B.. Nicht nur Millionäre oder deren Diener oder Schauspieler wie in den USA.
Eine Diffamierung Stalins und schon gar nicht so wie heute, gab es damals selbst im Westen nicht. Lediglich die Nazi-Kriegspropaganda erfindet mit Hungerbildern aus der Zarenzeit die Fake-Story von den absichtlichen Hungertoten in der Ukraine.
Holodomor: Fraud, Famine & Fascism: The Ukrainian Genocide Myth from Hitler to Harvard (17M) http://www.plp.org/books/tottlefraud.pdf 
The truth about Holodomor https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=10&v=6VK-mQBO83Q
Auch ein Vergleich wie die USA-Bauern im Zug der „Mechanisierung der Landwirtschaft“ – Traktoren per ruinöser Bankfinanzierung oder Ende wegen der maschinisierten Konkurrenz – enteignet und hungernd durch das Land zogen ist lehrreich. Es zeigt die Unterschiede ein und desselben technisch-ökonomischen Wandel im Sozialismus und im Kapitalismus:
http://journal-neo.org/2016/01/05/holodomor-in-the-united-states/
Download-Link für das e-book: 
Stalin anders betrachtet von Ludo Martens
Das e-book ist auch bei Archive.org kostenlos downloadbar und ist hier nur zur Bequemlichkeit gespiegelt, weil sich der Archive Link als doppel-Link oft nicht verlinken läßt. Wenn das vom Rechteinhaber unerwünscht sein sollte, bitte melden- ich werde das dann sofort wieder herausnehmen.
Weitere Infos zu Stalin:
Gegenparteiische Belege: http://www.kurt-gossweiler.de/index.php/stalin/120-die-ueberwindung-des-anti-stalinismus-eine-wichtige-voraussetzung-fuer-die-wiederherstellung-der-kommunistischen-bewegung-als-einer-einheitlichen-marxistisch-leninistischen-bewegung-1-mai-1994-2
Das Buch und weitere Stalin-Bücher gibt es auch in Englisch zum freien download:
„Another view of Stalin“ of Ludo Martens a former Stalin enemy
for download at www.plp.org/books/
Politik Politics unconventional warfare 08oo's Weblog 
Lest doch, was er und warum er, was gemacht hat. Die Inhaltsverzeichnisse bei http://www.stalinwerke.de zeigen schön geliedert alle Themenbereiche und einschlägige Zeiträume.
Er hatte anderes im Kopf als Konkurrenten umzubringen – das hier z:B.:
Über dialektischen und historischen Materialismus:
http://www.stalinwerke.de/geschichte/geschichte-021.html
Bzgl. der Massenmordlügen gibt es auchhier eine kleine Zusammenstellung:
Stalin ein böser Diktator!? Teil 2 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5cLY7tBthPA
stalinwerke.de gibt es nicht mehr. Aber irgendwo bei https://kommunistische-geschichte.de gibt es die Werke ebenfalls.
11.03.13 – Jeder zweite Russe würdigt „positive Rolle“ Stalins
Eine aktuelle Umfrage in Russland kommt zu dem Ergebnis, dass 49 Prozent der russischen Bevölkerung von einer positiven Rolle Stalins in der russischen Geschichte überzeugt sind. Die Umfrage des Levada-Center, ergab auch, dass nur 10 Prozent Stalin als „unbestreibar negativ“ sehen. Ein beachtliches Ergebnis nach Jahrzehnten der antikommunistischen Meinungsmache gegen Stalin, die auch in Russland massiv betrieben wird.
Was meint ihr wieviele Deutsche heute noch Hitler gut finden würden wenn es keine von den Allierten augezwungene Umerziehung und Entnazifizierung gegeben hätte. Sicher gibt es Interesse Stalin als schlecht dazustellen, das heißt aber noch lange nicht das er gut war!
Die Mehrheit der Russen damals fand ihn aber GENIAL …. Er wurde geliebt vom Volk ! Er hat den Bauern Land gegeben, sie aus halber Leibeigenschaft befreit, ihnen Bildung gegeben, in den Kolchosen Urlaub, Krankenversicherung, Versorgungssicherheit etc. etc.
Seit 20 Jahren werden doch im deutschen Fernsehen ständig die alten Nazi-Propaganda-Filme gezeigt!
war stalin böse er hat doch denn 2 weltkrieg benndet er hat die rote arme befehlt denn krieg zu bennden
!
Etwas von mir noch Ungeprüftes zum Thema der angeblich dummen und/oder paranoiden Ermordung von Armeegenerälen durch Stalin:
USSR General Andrey Vlasov He officially defected with 180 other Soviet Generals and high ranking Officers to form the Russian Liberation Army.
This German sponsored Corps saw between 120,000–130,000 soldiers fight within its ranks, most being former Soviet soldiers
https://qph.ec.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-ce170d7752ab934e0669dc4c59c4a970
The Katyn Massacre
by Ella Rule
July 2002
At the end of the First World War, the boundary between Russia and Poland was settled as being along a line which became known as the Curzon line – Lord Curzon being the British statesman who had proposed it.
This demarcation line was not to the liking of the Poles, who soon went to war against the Soviet Union in order to push their borders further eastward. The Soviet Union counter-attacked and were prepared not only to defend themselves but, against Stalin’s advice, to liberate the whole of Poland. Stalin considered such an aim to be doomed to failure because, he said, Polish nationalism had not yet run its course. The Poles were determined NOT to be liberated so there was no point in trying. Hence the Poles put up fierce resistance to Soviet advances. Ultimately the Soviet Union was forced to retreat and even cede territory to the east of the Curzon line to Poland. The areas in question were Western Byelorussia and the western Ukraine – areas populated overwhelmingly by Byelorussians and Ukrainians respectively rather than by Poles. The whole incident could not but exacerbate the mutual dislike of the Poles and the Russians.
On 1 September 1939, Nazi German invaded Poland. On 17 September, the Soviet Union moved to reoccupy those parts of Poland that lay east of the Curzon line. Having taken over those areas, the Soviet Union set about distributing land to the peasants and bringing about the kind of democratic reforms so popular with the people and so unpopular with the exploiters. During the battle to retake the areas east of the Curzon line, the Soviet Union captured some 10,000 Polish officers, who became prisoners of war. These prisoners were then held in camps in the disputed area and put to work road building, etc.
Two years later, on 22 June 1941, Nazi Germany attacked the Soviet Union by surprise. The Red Army was forced hurriedly to retreat and the Ukraine was taken over by the Germans. During this hurried retreat it was not possible to evacuate to the Soviet interior the Polish prisoners of war. The chief of camp no. 1, Major Vetoshnikov gave evidence that he had applied to the chief of traffic of the Smolensk section of the Western Railway to be provided with railway cars for the evacuation of the Polish prisoners but was told it was unlikely to be possible. Engineer Ivanov, who had been the Chief of Traffic in the region at the time, confirmed there had been no railway cars to spare. „Besides, “ he said, „we could not send cars to the Gussino line, where the majority of the Polish prisoners were, since that line was already under fire“. The result was that, following the Soviet retreat from the area, the Polish prisoners became prisoners of the Germans.
In April 1943, the Hitlerites announced that the Germans had found several mass graves in the Katyn Forest near Smolensk, containing the bodies of thousands of Polish officers allegedly murdered by the Russians.
This announcement was designed to further undermine the co-operation efforts of Poles and Soviets to defeat the Germans. The Russo-Polish alliance was always difficult because the Polish government in exile, based in London, was obviously a government of the exploiting classes. They had to oppose the Germans because of the latter’s cynical takeover of their country for lebensraum. The Soviet Union’s position was that so long as the Soviet Union could retain the land east of the Curzon line, they had no problem with the re-establishment of a bourgeois government in Poland. But the alliance was already in difficulties because the Polish government in exile, headed by General Sikorski, based in London, would not agree to the return of that land. This is in spite of the fact that in 1941 after Hitler invaded Poland, the Soviet Union and the Polish government in exile had not only established diplomatic relations but had also agreed that the Soviet Union would finance „under the orders of a chief appointed by the Polish government-in-exile but approved by the Soviet government “ the formation of a Polish army – this chief being, in the event, the thoroughly anti-Soviet General Anders (a prisoner of the Soviets from 1939). By 25 October 1941 this Army had 41,000 men including 2,630 officers. General Anders, however, eventually refused to fight on the Soviet-German front because of the border dispute between the Soviet Union and Poland, and the Polish army had to be sent elsewhere to fight – i.e., Iran.
Nevertheless, despite the hostility of the Polish government in exile, there was a significant section of Poles resident in the Soviet Union who were not anti-Soviet and did accept the Soviet claim to the territories east of the Curzon line. Many of them were Jewish. These people formed the Union of Polish Patriots which put together the backbone of an alternative Polish government in exile.
The Nazi propaganda relating to the Katyn massacres was designed to make it impossible for the Soviets to have any dealings with the Poles at all. General Sikorski took up the Nazi propaganda with a vengeance, claiming to Churchill that he had a „wealth of evidence“. How he had obtained this „evidence“ simultaneously with the German announcement of this supposed Soviet atrocity is not clear, although it speaks loudly of secret collaboration between Sikorski and the Nazis. The Germans had made public their allegations on 13 April. On 16 April the Soviet government issued an official communiqué denying „the slanderous fabrications about the alleged mass shootings by Soviet organs in the Smolensk area in the spring of 1940“. It added:
„The German statement leaves no doubt about the tragic fate of the former Polish prisoners of war who, in 1941, were engaged in building jobs in areas west of Smolensk and who, together with many Soviet people, fell into the hands of the German hangmen after the withdrawal of Soviet troops“.
The Germans had in fabricating their story decided to embellish it with an anti-Semitic twist by claiming to be able to name Soviet officials in charge of the massacre, all of whom had Jewish names. On 19 April Pravda responded:
„Feeling the indignation of the whole of progressive humanity over their massacre of peaceful citizens and particularly of Jews, the Germans are now trying to arouse the anger of gullible people against the Jews. For this reason they have invented a whole collection of ‚Jewish commissars‘ who, they say, took part in the murder of the 10,000 Polish officers. For such experienced fakers it was not difficult to invent a few names of people who never existed – Lev Rybak, Avraam Brodninsky, Chaim Fineberg. No such persons ever existed either in the ‚Smolensk section of the OGPU‘ or in any other department of the NLVD…“
The insistence of Sikorski in endorsing the German propaganda led to the complete breakdown in relations between the London Polish government in exile and the Soviet government – as to which Goebbels commented in his diary:
„This break represents a one-hundred-per-cent victory for German propaganda and especially for me personally … we have been able to convert the Katyn incident into a highly political question. “
At the time the British press condemned Sikorski for his intransigence:
The Times of 28 April 1943 wrote: „Surprise as well as regret will be felt by those who have had so much cause to understand the perfidy and ingenuity of the Goebbels propaganda machine should themselves have fallen into the trap laid by it. Poles will hardly have forgotten a volume widely circulated in the first winter of the war which described with every detail of circumstantial evidence, including that of photography, alleged Polish atrocities against the peaceful German inhabitants of Poland. “
What lay at the basis of Sikorski’s insistence that the massacre had been carried out by the Soviets rather than the Germans was the dispute over the territory east of the Curzon line. Sikorski was trying to use the German propaganda to mobilise western imperialism behind Poland’s claim to that territory, to try to force them out of the position, as he saw it, of taking the Soviet Union’s side on the issue of this border dispute.
If one reads bourgeois sources today, they all assert that the Soviet Union was responsible for the Katyn massacre, and they do so with such assurance and consistency that in trying to argue the contrary one feels like a Nazi revisionist trying to deny Hitler’s slaughter of Jews. After the Soviet Union collapsed, Gorbachov was even enrolled on this disinformation campaign and produced material allegedly from the Soviet archives which ‚proved‘ that the Soviets committed the atrocity and, of course, that they did so on Stalin’s orders. Well, we know the interest that the Gorbachovs of this world have in demonising Stalin. Their target is not so much Stalin as socialism. Their purpose in denigrating socialism is to restore capitalism and bring lives of luxurious parasitism to themselves and their hangers-on at the cost of mass suffering among the Soviet peoples. Their cynicism matches that of the German Nazis and it is hardly surprising to find them singing from the same hymn sheet.
Bourgeois sources blithely claim that Soviet evidence in support of blaming the Germans for the atrocity was either totally absent or based purely on hearsay evidence of terrorised inhabitants of the region. They don’t mention one piece of evidence which even Goebbels had to admit was a bit of a bummer from his point of view. He wrote in his diary on 8 May 1943, „Unfortunately, German ammunition has been found in the graves at Katyn … It is essential that this incident remains a top secret. If it were to come to the knowledge of the enemy the whole Katyn affair would have to be dropped. “
In 1971 there was correspondence in The Times suggesting the Katyn massacres could not have been done by the Germans since they went in for machine gunning and gas chambers rather than despatching prisoners in the way the Katyn victims had been killed, i.e., by a shot in the back of the head. A former German solider then living in Godalming, Surrey, intervened in this correspondence:
„As a German soldier, at that time convinced of the righteousness of our cause, I have taken part in many battles and actions during the Russian campaign. I have not been to Katyn nor to the forest nearby. But I well remember the hullabaloo when the news broke in 1943 about the discovery of the ghastly mass grave near Katyn, which area was then threatened by the Red Army.
„Josef Goebbels, as the historic records show, has fooled many people. After all, that was his job and few would dispute his almost complete mastery of it. What is surprising indeed, however, is that it still shows evidence in the pages of The Times thirty odd years later. Writing from experience I do not think that at that late time of the war Goebbels managed to fool many German soldiers in Russia on the Katyn issue … German soldiers knew about the shot in the back of the head all right … we German soldiers knew that the Polish officers were despatched by none other than our own. “
Moreover, very many witnesses came forward to attest to the presence of Polish prisoners in the region after the Germans had taken it over.
Maria Alexandrovna Sashneva, a local primary school teacher, gave evidence to a Special commission set up by the Soviet Union in September 1943, immediately after the area was liberated from the Germans, to the effect that in August 1941, two months after Soviet withdrawal, she had hidden a Polish war prisoner in her house. His name had been Juzeph Lock, and he had spoken to her of ill-treatment suffered by Polish prisoners under the Germans:
„When the Germans arrived they seized the Polish camp and instituted a strict regime in it. The Germans did not regard the Poles as human beings. They oppressed and outraged them in every way. On some occasions Poles were shot without any reason at all. He decided to escape…“
Several other witnesses gave evidence that they had seen the Poles during August and September 1941 working on the roads.
Moreover, witnesses also testified to round-ups by the Germans of escaped Polish prisoners in the autumn of 1941. Danilenko, a local peasant, was among several witnesses who testified to this.
„Special round ups were held in our place to catch Polish war prisoners who had escaped. Some searches took place in my house 2 or 3 times. After one such search I asked the headman .. whom they were looking for in our village. [He] said that an order had been received from the German Kommandatur according to which searches were to be made in all houses without exception, since Polish war prisoners who had escaped from the camp were hiding in our village. “
Obviously the Germans did not shoot the Poles in full sight of local witnesses, but there is nonetheless significant evidence from local people as to what was happening. One witness was Alexeyeva who had been detailed by the headman of her village to serve the German personnel at a country house in the section of the Katyn Forest known as Kozy Gory, which had been the rest home of the Smolensk administration of the People’s Commissariat of Internal Affairs. This house was situated some 700 metres from where the mass graves were found. Alexeyeva said:
„At the close of August and during most of September 1941 several trucks used to come practically every day to the Kozy Gory country house. At first I paid no attention to that, but later I noticed that each time these trucks arrived at the grounds of the country house they stopped for half an hour, and sometimes for a whole hour, somewhere on the country road connecting the country house with the highway. I drew this conclusion because some time after these trucks reached the grounds of the country house the noise they made would cease.
„Simultaneously with the noise stopping single shots would be heard. The shots followed each other at short but approximately even intervals. Then the shooting would die down and the trucks would drive right up to the country house. German soldiers and NCOs came out of the trucks. Talking noisily they went to wash in the bathhouse, after which they engaged in drunken orgies.
„On days when the trucks arrived more soldiers from some German military units used to arrive at the country house. Special beds were put up for them… Shortly before the trucks reached the country house armed soldiers went to the forest evidently to the spot where the trucks stopped because in half an hour they returned in these trucks, together with the soldiers who lived permanently in the country house.
„…On several occasions I noticed stains of fresh blood on the clothes of two Lance Corporals. From all this I inferred that the Germans brought people in the truck to the country house and shot them.“
Alexeyeva also discovered that the people being shot were Polish prisoners.
„Once I stayed at the country house somewhat later than usual… Before I finished the work which had kept me there, a soldier suddenly entered and told me I could go … He … accompanied me to the highway.
„Standing on the highway 150 or 200 metres from where the road branches off to the country house I saw a group of about 30 Polish war prisoners marching along the highway under heavy German escort… I halted near the roadside to see where they were being led, and I saw that they turned towards our country house at Kozy Gory.
„Since by that time I had begun to watch closely everything going on at the country house, I became interested. I went back some distance along the highway, hid in bushes near the roadside, and waited. In some 20 or 30 minutes I heard the familiar single shots. “
The other two requisitioned maids at the country house, Mikhailova and Konakhovskaya, gave supporting evidence. Other residents of the area gave similar evidence.
Basilevsky, director of the Smolensk observatory, was appointed deputy burgomeister to Menshagin, a Nazi collaborator. Basilevsky was trying to secure the release from German custody of a teacher, Zhiglinsky, and persuaded Menshagin to speak to the German commander of the region, Von Schwetz, about this matter. Menshagin did so but reported back it was impossible to secure this release because „instructions had been received from Berlin prescribing the strictest regime be maintained. “
Basilevsky then recounted his conversation with Menshagin:
„I involuntarily retorted ‚Can anything else be stricter than the regime existing at the camp?‘ Menshagin looked at me in a strange way and bending to my ear, answered in a low voice: yes, there can be! The Russians can at least be left to die off, but as to the Polish war prisoners, the orders say they are to be simply exterminated. “
After liberation Menshagin’s notebook was found written in his own handwriting, as confirmed by expert graphologists. Page 10, dated 15 August 1941, notes:
„All fugitive war prisoners are to be detained and delivered to the commandant’s office. “
This in itself proves the Polish prisoners were still alive at that time. On page 15, which is undated, the entry appears: „Are there any rumours among the population concerning the shooting of Polish war prisoners in Kozy Gory (for Umnov) “ (Umnov was the Chief of the Russian police).
A number of witnesses gave evidence that they had been pressured in 1942-43 by the Germans to give false testimony as to the shooting of the Poles by the Russians.
Parfem Gavrilovich Kisselev, a resident of the village closest to Kozy Gory, testified that he had been summonsed in autumn of 1942 to the Gestapo where he was interviewed by a German officer:
„The officer stated that, according to information at the disposal of the Gestapo, in 1940, in the area of Kozy Gory in the Katyn Forest, staff members of the People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs shot Polish officers, and he asked me what testimony I could give on this score. I answered that I had never heard of the People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs shooting people at Kozy Gory, and that anyhow it was impossible, I explained to the officer, since Kozy Gory is an absolutely open and much frequented place, and if shootings had gone on there the entire population of the neighbouring villages would have known …
„…The interpreter, however, would not listen to me, but took a handwritten document from the desk and read it to me. It said that I, Kisselev, resident of a hamlet in the Kozy Gory area, personally witnessed the shooting of Polish officers by staff members of the People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs in 1940.
„Having read the document, the interpreter told me to sign it. I refused to do so… Finally he shouted ‚Either you sign it at once or we shall destroy you. Make your choice.‘
„Frightened by these threats, I signed the document and thought that would be the end of the matter. “
But it wasn’t the end of the matter, because the Germans expected Kisselev to give parol evidence of what he had ‚witnessed‘ to groups of ‚delegates‘ invited by the Germans to come to the area to witness the evidence of supposed Soviet atrocities.
Soon after the German authorities had announced the existence of the mass graves to the world in April 1943, „the Gestapo interpreter came to my house and took me to the forest in the Kozy Gory area.
„When we had left the house and were alone together, the interpreter warned me that I must tell the people present in the forest everything exactly as I had written it down in the document I had signed at the Gestapo.
„When I came to the forest I saw the open graves and a group of strangers. The interpreter told me that these were Polish delegates who had arrived to inspect the graves. When we approached the graves the delegates started asking me various questions in Russian in connection with the shooting of the Poles, but as more than a month had passed since I had been summoned to the Gestapo I forgot everything that was in the document I had signed, got mixed up, and finally said I didn’t know anything about the shooting of Polish officers.
„The German officer got very angry. The interpreter roughly dragged me away from the ‚delegation‘ and chased me off. Next morning a car with a Gestapo officer drove up to my house. He found me in the yard, told me that I was under arrest, put me into the car and took me to Smolensk Prison …
„After my arrest I was interrogated many times, but they beat me more than they questioned me. The first time they summoned me they beat me up heavily and abused me, complaining that I had let them down, and then sent me back to the cell. During the next summons they told me I must state publicly that I had witnessed the shooting of Polish officers by the Bolsheviks, and that until the Gestapo was satisfied I would do this in good faith, I would not be released from prison. I told the officer that I would rather sit in prison than tell people lies to their faces. After that I was badly beaten up.
„There were several such interrogations accompanied by beatings, and as a result I lost all my strength, my hearing became poor and I could not move my right arm. About one month after my arrest a German officer summoned me and said: ‚You see the consequences of your obstinacy, Kisselev. We have decided to execute you. In the morning we shall take you to Katyn Forest and hang you.‘ I asked the officer not to do this, and started pleading with them that I was not fit for the part of ‚eye-witness‘ of the shooting as I did not know how to tell lies and therefore I would mix everything up again.
„The officer continued to insist. Several minutes later soldiers came into the room and started beating me with rubber clubs. Being unable to stand the beatings and torture, I agreed to appear publicly with a fallacious tale about shooting of Poles by Bolsheviks. After that I was released from prison, on conditions that on the first demand of the Germans I would speak before ‚delegations‘ in Katyn Forest…
„On every occasion, before leading me to the graves in the forest, the interpreter used to come to my house, call me out into the yard, take me aside to make sure that no one would hear, and for half an hour make me memorise by heart everything I would have to say about the alleged shooting of Polish officers by the People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs in 1940.
„I recall that the interpreter told me something like this: ‚I live in a cottage in ‚Kozy Gory‘ area not far from the country house of the People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs. In spring 1940 I saw Poles taken on various nights to the forest and shot there‘. And then it was imperative that I must state literally that ‚this was the doing of the People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs.‘ After I had memorised what the interpreter told me he would take me to the open graves in the forest and compel me to repeat all this in the presence of ‚delegations‘ which came there.
„My statements were strictly supervised and directed by the Gestapo interpreter. Once when I spoke before some ‚delegation‘, I was asked the question: ‚Did you see these Poles personally before they were shot by the Bolsheviks?‘ I was not prepared for such a question and answered the way it was in fact, i.e., that I saw Polish war prisoners before the war, as they walked on the roads. Then the interpreter roughly dragged me aside and drove me home.
„Please believe me when I say that all the time I felt pangs of conscience, as I knew that in reality the Polish officers had been shot by the Germans in 1941. I had no other choice, as I was constantly threatened with the repetition of my arrest and torture. “
Numerous people corroborated Kisselev’s testimony, and a medical examination corroborated his story of having been tortured by the Germans.
Pressure was also brought on Ivanov, employed at the local railway station (Gnezdovo) to bear false witness:
„The officer inquired whether I knew that in spring 1940 large parties of captured Polish officers had arrived at Gnezdovo station in several trains. I said that I knew about this. The officer then asked me whether I knew that in the same spring 1940, soon after the arrival of the Polish officers, the Bolsheviks had shot them all in the Katyn Forest. I answered that I did not know anything about that, and that it could not be so, as in the course of 1940-41 up to the occupation of Smolensk by the Germans, I had met captured Polish officers who had arrived in spring 1940 at Gnezdovo station, and who were engaged in road construction work.
„The officer told me that if a German officer said the Poles had been shot by the Bolsheviks it meant that this was a fact. ‚Therefore‘, the officer continued, ‚you need not fear anything, and you can sign with a clear conscience a protocol saying that the captured Polish officers were shot by the Bolsheviks and that you witnessed it‘.
„I replied that I was already an old man, that I was 61 years old, and did not want to commit a sin in my old age. I could only testify that the captured Poles really arrived at Gnezdovo station in spring 1940. The German officer began to persuade me to give the required testimony promising that if I agreed he would promote me from the position of watchman on a railway crossing to that of stationmaster of Gnezdovo station, which I had held under the Soviet Government, and also to provide for my material needs.
„The interpreter emphasised that my testimony as a former railway official at Gnezdovo station, the nearest station to Katyn Forest, was extremely important for the German Command, and that I would not regret it if I gave such testimony. I understood that I had landed in an extremely difficult situation, and that a sad fate awaited me. However, I again refused to give false testimony to the German officer. He started shouting at me, threatened me with a beating and shooting, and said I did not understand what was good for me. However, I stood my ground. The interpreter then drew up a short protocol in German on one page, and gave me a free translation of its contents. This protocol recorded, as the interpreter told me, only the fact of the arrival of the Polish war prisoners at Gnezdovo station. When I asked that my testimony be recorded not only in German but also in Russian, the officer finally went beside himself with fury, beat me up with a rubber club and drove me off the premises…“.
Savvateyev was another person pressurised by the Germans to give false testimony. He told the Soviet Commission of Inquiry:
„In the Gestapo I testified that in spring 1940 Polish war prisoners arrived at the station of Gnezdovo in several trains and proceeded further in trucks, and I did not know where they went. I also added that I repeatedly met those Poles later on the Moscow-Minsk highway, where they were working on repairs in small groups. The officer told me I was mixing things up, that I could not have met the Poles on the highway, as they had been shot by the Bolsheviks, and demanded that I testify to this.
„I refused. After threatening and cajoling me for a long time, the officer consulted with the interpreter about something in German, and then the interpreter wrote a short protocol and gave it to me to sign. He explained that it was a record of my testimony. I asked the interpreter to let me read the protocol myself, but he interrupted me with abuse, ordering me to sign it immediately and get out. I hesitated a minute. The interpreter seized a rubber club hanging on the wall and made to strike me. After that I signed the protocol shoved at me. The interpreter told me to get out and go home, and not to talk to anyone or I would be shot…“
Others gave similar testimony.
Evidence was also given as to how the Germans ‚doctored‘ the graves of the victims to try to eliminate evidence that the massacre took place not in the autumn of 1941 but in the spring of 1940 shortly after the Poles first arrived in the area. Alexandra Mikhailovna had worked during the German occupation in the kitchen of a German military unit. In March 1943 she found a Russian war prisoner hiding in her shed:
„From conversation with him I learned that his name was Nikolai Yegorov, a native of Leningrad. Since the end of 1941 he had been in the German camp No. 126 for war prisoners in the town of Smolensk. At the beginning of March 1943, he was sent with a column of several hundred war prisoners from the camp to Katyn Forest. There they, including Yegorov, were compelled to dig up graves containing bodies in the uniforms of Polish officers, drag these bodies out of the graves and take out of their pockets documents, letters, photographs and all other articles.
„The Germans gave the strictest orders that nothing be left in the pockets on the bodies. Two war prisoners were shot because after they had searched some of the bodies, a German officer discovered some papers on these bodies. Articles, documents and letters extracted from the clothing on the bodies were examined by the German officers, who then compelled the prisoners to put part of the papers back into the pockets on the bodies, while the rest was flung on a heap of articles and documents they had extracted, and later burned.
„Besides this, the Germans made the prisoners put in the pockets of the Polish officers some papers which they took from the cases or suitcases (I don’t remember exactly) which they had brought along. All the war prisoners lived in Katyn Forest in dreadful conditions under the open sky, and were extremely strongly guarded… At the beginning of April 1943, all the work planned by the Germans was apparently completed, as for three days not one of the war prisoners had to do any work…
„Suddenly at night all of them without exception were awakened and led somewhere. The guard was strengthened. Yegorov sensed something was wrong and began to watch very closely everything that was happening. They marched for three or four hours in an unknown direction. They stopped in the forest at a pit in a clearing. He saw how a group of war prisoners were separated from the rest and driven towards the pit and then shot. The war prisoners grew agitated, restless and noisy. Not far from Yegorov several war prisoners attacked the guards. Other guards ran towards the place. Yegorov took advantage of the confusion and ran away into the dark forest, hearing shouts and firing.
„After hearing this terrible story, which is engraved on my memory for the rest of my life, I became very sorry for Yegorov, and told him to come to my room, get warm and hide at my place until he had regained his strength. But Yegorov refused… He said no matter what happened he was going away that very night, and intended to try to get through the front line to the Red Army. In the morning, when I went to make sure whether Yegorov had gone, he was still in the shed. It appeared that in the night he had attempted to set out, but had only taken about 50 steps when he felt so weak that he was forced to return. This exhaustion was caused by the long imprisonment at the camp and the starvation of the last days. We decided he should remain at my place several days longer to regain his strength. After feeding Yegorov I went to work. When I returned home in the evening my neighbours Branova, Mariya Ivanovna, Kabanovskaya, Yekaterina Viktorovna told me that in the afternoon, during a search by the German police, the Red Army war prisoner had been found, and taken away. “
Further corroboration was given by an engineer mechanic called Sukhachev who had worked under the Germans as a mechanic in the Smolensk city mill:
„I was working at the mill in the second half of March, 1943. There I spoke to a German chauffeur who spoke a little Russian, and since he was carrying flour to Savenki village for the troops, and was returning on the next day to Smolensk, I asked him to take me along so that I could buy some fats in the village. My idea was that making the trip in a German truck would get over the risk of being held up at the control stations. The German agreed to take me, at a price.
„On the same day at 10 p.m. we drove on to the Somolensk-Vitebsk highway, just myself and the German driver in the machine. The night was light, and only a low mist over the road reduced the visibility. Approximately 22 or 23 kilometres from Smolensk at a demolished bridge on the highway there is a rather deep descent at the by-pass. We began to go down from the highway, when suddenly a truck appeared out of the fog coming towards us. Either because our brakes were out of order, or because the driver was inexperienced, we were unable to bring our truck to a halt, and since the passage was quite narrow we collided with the truck coming towards us. The impact was not very violent, as the driver of the other truck swerved to the side, as a result of which the trucks bumped and slid alongside each other.
„The right wheel of the other truck, however, landed in the ditch, and the truck fell over on the slope. Our truck remained upright. The driver and I immediately jumped out of the cabin and ran up to the truck which had fallen down. We were met by a heavy stench of putrefying flesh coming evidently from the truck.
„On coming nearer, I saw that the truck was carrying a load covered with a tarpaulin and tied up with ropes. The ropes had snapped with the impact, and part of the load had fallen out on the slope. This was a horrible load – human bodies dressed in military uniforms. As far as I can remember there were some six or seven men near the truck: one German driver, two Germans armed with tommy-guns – the rest were Russian war prisoners, as they spoke Russian and were dressed accordingly.
„The Germans began to abuse my driver and then made some attempts to right the truck. In about two minutes time two more trucks drove up to the place of the accident and pulled up. A group of Germans and Russian war prisoners, about ten men in all, came up to us from these trucks. … By joint efforts we began to raise the truck. Taking advantage of an opportune moment I asked one of the Russian war prisoners in a low voice: ‚What is it?‘ He answered very quietly: ‚For many nights already we have been carrying bodies to Katyn Forest‘.
„Before the overturned truck had been raised a German NCO came up to me and my driver and ordered us to proceed immediately. As no serious damage had been done to our truck the driver steered it a little to one side and got on to the highway, and we went on. When we were passing the two covered trucks which had come up later I again smelled the horrible stench of dead bodies“.
Various other people also gave testimony of having seen the trucks loaded with dead bodies.
One Zhukhov, a pathologist who actually visited graves in April 1943 at the invitation of the Germans, also gave evidence:
„The clothing of the bodies, particularly the greatcoats, boots and belts, were in a good state of preservation. The metal parts of the clothing – belt buckles, button hooks and spikes on shoe soles, etc. – were not heavily rusted, and in some cases the metal still retained its polish. Sections of the skin of the bodies which could be seen – faces, necks, arms – were chiefly a dirty green colour, and in some cases dirty brown, but there was no complete disintegration of the tissues, no putrefaction. In some cases bared tendons of whitish colour and parts of muscles could be seen.
„While I was at the excavations people were at work sorting and extracting bodies at the bottom of a big pit. For this purpose they used spades and other tools, and also took hold of bodies with their hands and dragged them from place to place by the arms, the legs or the clothing. I did not see a single case of bodies falling apart or any member being torn off.
„Considering all the above, I arrived at the conclusion that the bodies had remained in the earth not three years, as the Germans affirmed, but much less. Knowing that in mass graves, and especially without coffins, putrefaction of bodies progresses more quickly than in single graves, I concluded that the mass shooting of the Poles had taken place about a year and a half ago, and could have occurred in autumn 1941 or in spring 1942. As a result of my visit to the excavation site I became firmly convinced that a monstrous crime had been committed by the Germans. “
Several other people who visited the graves at the time gave like testimony.
Moreover, pathologists who examined the bodies in 1943 concluded that they could not have been dead longer than two years. Furthermore, documents were found on some of the bodies which had obviously been missed by the Germans when they doctored the evidence. These included a letter dated September 1940, a postcard dated 12 November 1940, a pawn ticket receipted 14 March 1941 and another receipted 25 March 1941. Receipts dated 6 April 1941, 5 May 1941, 15 May 1941 and an unmailed postcard in Polish dated 20 June 1941. Although all these dates pre-date Soviet withdrawal, they all postdate the time of the alleged murder of the prisoners by the Soviet authorities in the spring of 1940, the time given as the date of the supposed massacre by all those whom the Germans were able to bully into giving false testimony. If, as is claimed by bourgeois propagandists, these documents are forgeries, it would have been the easiest thing to forge documents which postdated the Soviet departure, but his was not done – and it was not done because the documents found were undoubtedly genuine.