Um crime terrível pode estar sendo reparado, quase setenta anos depois de ter sido perpetrado. O primeiro passo é o reconhecimento formal do que sempre foi negado.
A Rússia encontra sua verdadeira história, alguns de seus demônios mais terriveis: a sanha cruel e assassina do ditador Stalin e seus sabujos amestrados.
Muita coisa ainda precisa ser revelada, inclusive desmantelando as últimas restrições morais ao papel terrorista de Lênin.
Paulo Roberto de Almeida
Russia publishes Katyn massacre archivesBBC news,
28 April 2010
Grab of letter from Russian state archives
A letter from Soviet secret police chief Beria was among the files published
Russia has published online once-secret files on the 1940 Katyn massacre, in which some 22,000 members of the Polish elite were killed by Soviet forces.
The state archive said the "Packet No. 1" original files had until now only been available to researchers.
The Soviet Union denied its role in the massacre for decades.
But relations between Russia and Poland have warmed since the Polish president and others were killed in a plane crash on their way to a Katyn commemoration.
The six documents that were published on the state archive website were declassified in 1992 on the order of the then-Russian president, Boris Yeltsin.
Current President Dmitry Medvedev had now ordered their publication online, the state archive said.
'Symbolic gesture'One of the documents is a 5 March, 1940 letter from the then-head of the Soviet secret police or NKVD, Lavrenty Beria, to Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, recommending the execution of Polish prisoners of war.
Beria refers to them as "steadfast, incorrigible enemies of Soviet power".
"Each of them is just waiting for liberation so as to actively join the struggle against Soviet power," it says.
The letter bears Stalin's signature in blue pencil, with the comment "In favour".
Given that historians have already had access to the files for some time, correspondents say the decision to put them on the state archive website is likely to be seen as a symbolic gesture, rather than shedding new light on what happened at Katyn.
"We on the Russian side are showing absolute openness in telling what happened in Katyn and other places with Polish prisoners of war," Russian state archive chief Andrei Artyzov was quoted as saying by Russian news agencies.
"All the basic documents about these events have been published."
Among the files that remain secret are documents relating to a Russian investigation into the massacre that began in the 1990s.
Russian human rights campaigners have appealed for those documents to be declassified.
Joint commemorationPoland has repeatedly demanded that Russia open all its files on Katyn, and the issue has soured relations between the two countries in the past.
Recently though, tension over Katyn has eased.
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin (r) walks with Poland"s Prime Minister Donald Tusk at the memorial museum to the Katyn massacre, 7 April 2010
Russian and Polish leaders marked Katyn together for the first time in April
Earlier this month leaders from both states marked the massacre together for the first time, in a joint ceremony attended by Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and his Polish counterpart Donald Tusk.
It was the first Russian ceremony to commemorate Katyn.
Days later, Polish President Lech Kaczynski and more than 90 others were killed when their plane crashed as it was trying to land in western Russia ahead of a separate event to mark the killings.
Moscow's handling of the aftermath of the crash was well received by Poles.
The April 1940 killings were carried out by the NKVD on Stalin's orders.
Members of the Polish elite, including officers, politicians and artists, were shot in the back of the head and their bodies dumped in mass graves.
The killings took place at various sites, but the western Russian forest of Katyn has become their chief symbol.
The Soviet Union blamed the massacre on Nazi Germany before acknowledging responsibility in 1990.
One of the documents now posted online was a March 1959 letter marked "Top Secret" from the former head of the KGB, Alexander Shelepin, to then-Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, proposing that all dossiers concerning the Katyn killings be destroyed.
He said the authorities should just keep a few documents - the minutes of meetings of the NKVD troika that condemned the prisoners and some papers on the fulfilment of the troika's instructions.
Shelepin wrote that the official Soviet version - that Nazi Germany had carried out the killings - had been "firmly implanted in international opinion".
ANALYSIS
Adam Easton, BBC News, WarsawThe publication of the Katyn documents on Russia's state archive website has been warmly welcomed by Polish authorities.
"It's yet another symbolic step testifying to the fact that we are witnessing an obvious change in the Russian attitude and handling of the Katyn issue," Polish foreign ministry spokesman Piotr Paszkowski told the BBC.
Polish historians said the Russian president's decision was an attempt to end persistent speculation in Russia that the massacre was in fact committed by Nazi Germany. German troops uncovered the first mass grave in Katyn in 1943.
It's certainly another gesture from the Russian authorities which began in earnest with Vladimir Putin's invitation to his Polish counterpart, Donald Tusk, to jointly commemorate the massacre for the first time earlier this month. The plane crash which killed the Polish president, Lech Kaczynski, three days later has accelerated that process.
Excerpts: Beria letter to Stalin
The state archive shows a March 1940 letter to Stalin from his secret police chief Beria ordering the killings
Russia's state archive has published formerly top secret Soviet-era documents on the April 1940 Katyn massacre on its website.
They include a key letter to then Soviet leader Joseph Stalin from secret police (NKVD) chief Lavrenty Beria, dated 5 March 1940 and marked "Top Secret".
Some 22,000 members of the Polish elite were killed by Soviet forces, and for decades the USSR claimed that it was the work of Nazi Germany. Russia gave the documents to Poland in 1992.
Here are excerpts from the Beria letter:
"To Comrade Stalin:
In prisoner-of-war camps run by the USSR NKVD and in prisons in western Ukraine and Belorussia there is currently a large number of former Polish army officers, former officials of the Polish police and intelligence services, members of Polish nationalist counter-revolutionary parties, members of unmasked rebel counter-revolutionary organisations, defectors and others. They are all sworn enemies of Soviet power, filled with hatred towards the Soviet system.
The POW officers and police in the camps are trying to continue counter-revolutionary work and are engaged in anti-Soviet agitation. Each of them is just waiting for liberation so as to actively join the struggle against Soviet power….
In total in the prisoner-of-war camps (not counting soldiers and non-commissioned officers) there are 14,736 former officers, government officials, landowners, policemen, military police, jailers, settlers and spies. More than 97% are of Polish nationality…
In total the prisons of western Ukraine and Belorussia contain 18,632 detainees (of whom 10,685 are Poles)...
Based on the fact that all of them are steadfast incorrigible enemies of Soviet power, the USSR NKVD deems it essential:
I. To propose that the USSR NKVD: [underlined - ed]
Give special consideration to
1) the cases of 14,700 people remaining in the prisoner-of-war camps - former Polish army officers, government officials, landowners, policemen, intelligence agents, military policemen, settlers and jailers,
2) and also the cases of those arrested and remaining in prisons in the western districts of Ukraine and Belorussia, totalling 11,000 - members of various counter-revolutionary spy and sabotage organisations, former landowners, factory owners, former Polish army officers, government officials and defectors -
Imposing on them the sentence of capital punishment - execution by shooting.
II. The cases are to be handled without the convicts being summoned and without revealing the charges; with no statements concerning the conclusion of the investigation and the bills of indictment given to them…."
[The letter is signed "L. Beria" in blue pencil, under the title USSR People's Commissar for Internal Affairs.
The first page of the letter bears the word Za - "in favour" - scrawled in blue pencil with the signatures of then Soviet leader Joseph Stalin and of Politburo members K. Voroshilov and A. Mikoyan, along with V. Molotov in ordinary pencil. In the margin are the names Kalinin and Kaganovich - also aides to Stalin - added in blue ink, and also with the word za.]
, édition du 13 avril 2010
Enquête Katyn : une obsession polonaise
