The Katyn Massacre

A Re-examination in the Light of Recent Evidence

Abstract

In Socialism & Democracy, 27:2 (2013) I published an article about some important new discoveries concerning the events known collectively as the Katyn Massacre. The standard account of these mass murders, which I refer to in this paper as the official version, blames Joseph Stalin and his associates in the leadership of the USSR for them. In the present article I review all of the evidence published since the early 1990s concerning Katyn. In general, there can be two major categories of evidence. First, there is evidence whose genuineness either is not contested by any party or, if it is contested, disappears from subsequent renditions by such contesting parties, indicating a dishonest desire to reinforce an account with which such evidence is incompatible. This category I refer to as “unimpeachable” evidence. And second, there is evidence that is either rejected by one or another party or, if retained by such parties, contradicts other pieces of evidence presented by them, apparently without their realizing it. Such evidence is far weaker, or even demonstrably fabricated, and does not carry the weight that unimpeachable evidence carries in solving the mystery of which party – the Germans or the Soviets – committed the Katyn Massacre. This paper reviews all the evidence and concludes that the “official version” of Katyn is mistaken. All of the unimpeachable evidence excludes Soviet guilt, and therefore points towards German guilt.