2010-04-14 | Jadwiga Rogoża

The Katyn issue has been discussed in the Russian media for several weeks in the run-up to the celebrations, in which the prime ministers of Russia and Poland took part, commemorating the anniversary of the Katyn massacre. Since the Polish aircraft crashed near Smolensk on 10 April, this question has emerged in Russia’s public space on an unprecedented scale.
The discussions of Katyn have taken on a new quality. The Russian leadership has officially admitted that the NKVD, under orders from the Stalinist authorities, committed the massacre. This change in the Kremlin's rhetoric has triggered a broader debate among politicians, experts and the media, in which the NKVD's responsibility for the murder has been treated as an uncontested fact. What is debated, however, is the policy which Moscow should now adopt with regard to the massacre. The authorities (PM Vladimir Putin in particular), as well as most of the pro-government media, have been emphasising that the moral and political assessment of the massacre which has been accomplished, and the materials concerning the victims which Russia has already handed over, suffice to close the case. On the other hand, independent commentators, historians and human rights activists have called on the authorities to take further, concrete steps, resume the Katyn investigation, and open all the relevant archives, among other measures. According to commentators, it is predominantly Russia itself that needs to account for its historical legacy, and ultimately shed the Stalinist burden.

Information campaign

The NKVD massacre at Katyn has been covered in recent weeks by television (including state-owned channels), radio stations and the press, including titles which even two years ago would still have questioned the Stalinist regime's responsibility for the murder. The number of such reports increased after the Polish aircraft crashed near Smolensk. On 11 April, the popular state-owned television channel Rossiya aired Andrzej Wajda's movie Katyn in prime time (a week previously, the film had been shown on the Kultura channel, which has a smaller audience). This campaign holds the promise that wide swathes of the Russian public will find out about the Katyn massacre. Until now, the public in Russia has known little of it: according to a poll conducted by the Levada Centre in late March 2010, 53% of respondents were unable to identify the perpetrators of the Katyn murder, 28% pointed to the Third Reich, and 19% to the Stalinist authorities.

The ruling elite acknowledges the Soviet Union's responsibility

For the first time since 2000, top-ranking Russian leaders have clearly admitted that the Katyn massacre was committed by the Soviet secret police. This fact was mentioned by PM Putin during the ceremony in Katyn on 7 April, and by many prominent politicians, including the chief of the State Duma Foreign Affairs Committee Konstantin Kosachov, as well as artists loyal to the Kremlin, such as the Russian director Nikita Mikhalkov. The new rhetoric with regard to historical issues has not been limited to Katyn alone, but has been extended to other aspects of the Soviet Union's history. Previous statements could have been interpreted as indirect apologias for Josef Stalin's policy (mainly in recognition of his achievements in the modernisation of Russia, and the victory in World War II). Now, however, public condemnations of Stalinist crimes have been more frequent (President Dmitry Medvedev strongly condemned the Stalinist terror on the Day of Remembrance for the Victims of Political Repression, on 30 October 2009), and both the Kremlin and the government have been distancing themselves from attempts made by the communists and local authorities to highlight Stalin's merits in World War II in the run-up to the upcoming celebrations to commemorate the victory anniversary.

Is the Katyn case closed?

In the Russian debates about Katyn, the participants have disagreed about whether the Russian authorities' acknowledgement that the murders had been committed by the NKVD should close the process of accounting for the Katyn massacre, or whether it should lead to specific legal steps, including a full opening of the archives and the resumption of the investigation into the case.
Russian officials (as well as most of the pro-government media) have been arguing that the case has now been fully clarified and "the wound of Katyn should not be re-opened over and over again". As PM Putin emphasised in Katyn on 7 April, most of the materials are already available, because millions of documents have been handed over to Poland, and the Russian state has expressed an incontrovertible political, moral and legal assessment of the massacre. Putin (followed by pro-government media and several historians) has also said that there is no point in disclosing the names of the individual executioners of the NKVD’s orders, as that would be an injustice to their descendants.
On the other hand, many journalists, historians and human rights activists, including the Memorial organisation, have been arguing that the prime minister's declaration should be followed by concrete steps (including a re-opening of the Katyn investigation, the disclosure of the names of the executioners, and recognition of the murdered Polish officers as victims of political repression). Several authoritative commentators, including Yevgeniy Gontmakher of the INSOR centre (a think-tank associated with Medvedev), and Nikolai Svanidze, a member of the Social Chamber), believe that it is primarily Russia itself that needs to account for its history, and free itself of the burden of its Stalinist legacy.

On the margins of the debate

During these debates, it has been treated as an indisputable fact that the Polish officers were murdered by the NKVD, and the main point of contention has concerned its legal consequences. The voices of those who question the involvement of the Soviets in the Katyn murder are now marginal. Such views have mainly been expressed by the Communist party, whose members have been calling for the creation of a parliamentary commission to identify the "real perpetrators" of the Katyn murder; they have also accused the authorities of allegedly approving of an "anti-Russian presentation of the case", and of failure to defend Russia's geopolitical interests. Furthermore, the question of the death of Soviet prisoners of war captured during the Polish-Bolshevik war, which used to be raised as a counter-argument to Poland's demands concerning Katyn, has also been raised less frequently.

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