Russia posts Katyn Forest documents

[cookie]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/apr/28/katyn-massacre-russia-documents-web?INTCMP=ILCNETTXT3487

 

[martinsantos]

Interesting, sad and tragic.

Tks for sharing.

 

[Chas]

That was an example of the Stalinists. That's just how they rolled.

 

[Story]

WARSAW, Poland (AP) — The American POWs sent secret coded messages to Washington with news of a Soviet atrocity: In 1943 they saw rows of corpses in an advanced state of decay in the Katyn forest, on the western edge of Russia, proof that the killers could not have been the Nazis who had only recently occupied the area.

The testimony about the infamous massacre of Polish officers might have lessened the tragic fate that befell Poland under the Soviets, some scholars believe. Instead, it mysteriously vanished into the heart of American power. The long-held suspicion is that President Franklin Delano Roosevelt didn't want to anger Josef Stalin, an ally whom the Americans were counting on to defeat Germany and Japan during World War II.

Documents released Monday and seen in advance by The Associated Press lend weight to the belief that suppression within the highest levels of the U.S. government helped cover up Soviet guilt in the killing of some 22,000 Polish officers and other prisoners in the Katyn forest and other locations in 1940.

http://bigstory.ap.org/article/ap-exclusive-memos-show-us-hushed-soviet-crime

 

[Metatron]

Finally! Unfortunately, to this day many people are not aware that the Stalinist regime was every bit as oppressive as the National Socialists in Germany. In fact where I live, many lay-leftists seem to think Stalin was some kind of heroic figure. Perhaps because he was so instrumental in defeating that other tyrant.

 

[Edward]

Finally! Unfortunately, to this day many people are not aware that the Stalinist regime was every bit as oppressive as the National Socialists in Germany. In fact where I live, many lay-leftists seem to think Stalin was some kind of heroic figure. Perhaps because he was so instrumental in defeating that other tyrant.

History is written by the victor, and all that. Had the Nazis won, we'd certainly not have seen the Churchill Myth that we have nowadays either.

 

[Story]

Excavation work began on Thursday near the village of Dworzysko in the southern Opole region in search of anti-communist resistance fighters slaughtered in the aftermath of WWII.

http://www.thenews.pl/1/9/Artykul/114296,New-dig-launched-in-Poland-for-victims-of-communist-terror

 

[1961MJS]

Finally! Unfortunately, to this day many people are not aware that the Stalinist regime was every bit as oppressive as the National Socialists in Germany. In fact where I live, many lay-leftists seem to think Stalin was some kind of heroic figure. Perhaps because he was so instrumental in defeating that other tyrant.

Hi

From my reading on Stalin, Hitler, and Mussolini, Uncle was the worst of the bunch by far. Uncle Joe had anyone who he thought might LATER think about possibly being trouble killed off. Uncle Joe had a lot of his personal help killed off. According to various books by Hitler's secretaries and other "henchmen", Hitler was nice to individuals, but hated groups of people as a whole. Uncle Joe seemed to hate anyone who wasn't Uncle Joe.

IN MY OPINION (for emphasis), Hitler was a moderately evil whack job (surrounded by evil men) who ran a country. Stalin was a completely evil man who ran the next country down the road. They both made Mussolini look like a kindly grandpa...

Russians are lucky that there are any Russians after Stalin got done.

Later

 

[MikeKardec]

It can be easy to forget that Stalin was the original, the first, longest lasting and most effective 20th century tyrant. I suspect that he set the model that other pretenders attempted to emulate. He inspired paranoid bad asses right up to Saddam Hussein.

 

[Guttersnipe]

Finally! Unfortunately, to this day many people are not aware that the Stalinist regime was every bit as oppressive as the National Socialists in Germany. In fact where I live, many lay-leftists seem to think Stalin was some kind of heroic figure. Perhaps because he was so instrumental in defeating that other tyrant.

I can't imagine those are particularly well informed leftists. Every real life, old school Communists I've known -- including a hardline member of the Comintern aligned U.S. Central Committee (described in his FBI file as "the most dangerous man in New York State, if not the whole country") -- all repudiated Stalin their support for Stalin after Khrushchev's famed "Crimes of the Stalin Era" speech / memo.

In fact, after learning the true extent of crimes carried out during the Lenin / Stalin eras by the likes of Trotsky, Khrushchev, Mikoyan, Voroshilov, Kaganovich, etc. (many of whom remained powerful figures in Soviet politics long after Stalin's death), the worldwide Communist was decimated by resignation of disillusioned members.

Hi

From my reading on Stalin, Hitler, and Mussolini, Uncle was the worst of the bunch by far. Uncle Joe had anyone who he thought might LATER think about possibly being trouble killed off. Uncle Joe had a lot of his personal help killed off. According to various books by Hitler's secretaries and other "henchmen", Hitler was nice to individuals, but hated groups of people as a whole. Uncle Joe seemed to hate anyone who wasn't Uncle Joe.

IN MY OPINION (for emphasis), Hitler was a moderately evil whack job (surrounded by evil men) who ran a country. Stalin was a completely evil man who ran the next country down the road. They both made Mussolini look like a kindly grandpa...

Russians are lucky that there are any Russians after Stalin got done.

Later

I don't believe there is any empirical method by which to measure human tragedy. Attempting to quantify the atrocities of monsters for the sake of comparison is really not a valuable exercise.

 

[MisterCairo]

I don't believe there is any empirical method by which to measure human tragedy. Attempting to quantify the atrocities of monsters for the sake of comparison is really not a valuable exercise.

Actually, there is.

The numbers killed on the orders of the monster in question.

When you start questioning motive, that is where the subjective debates begin.

In terms of numbers, Stalin wins, hands down.

Mao Tse Tung is second.

Hitler a distant third.

Pol Pot in fourth.

And there are MANY socialists/communists who still don't get it. I know several, sadly.