Vladimir Putin’s visit to Poland to take part in the commemoration events dedicated to the 70th anniversary of the beginning of the World War II was anticipated with special interest. Information made available before the visit did not give any special hopes that the Russian capital was seriously intending to avoid further interpretations of World War II events. On the contrary, for some time Moscow has being trying to shift the blame for starting the war from Stalin onto others, including Poland.
If the innocence of Stalin’s regime was discussed by enthusiastic politicians, official historians, or journalists, nobody would pay any special attention. History is viewed in a variety of different ways. But there is a quite different attitude when, for example, the website of the Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO) published articles written by Sergey Naryshkin, head of Putin’s administration, and RF Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergey Mironov in which the authors repeat the long-ago disproved versions of the causes behind World War II.
It is absolutely clear to everyone that these kinds of materials are never published accidentally. Moreover, they establish guidelines for official propaganda. The TV broadcast documentary films on the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact and events preceding it. The latest film in the series had quite a pretentious title — Was Stalin Able to Stop Hitler? — and was shown on Aug. 31 on Moscow’s First channel. A response to this question is unequivocal: he was unable to do so and that is why he signed a pact with a protocol and later confirmed the division of Poland in the German-Soviet Treaty on Friendship, Cooperation, and Demarcation.
Furthermore, on the eve of Putin’s visit to Poland the RF External Intelligence Service (SVR) had declassified a selection of Polish archival documents. The SVR asserts that the documentation it possesses is better than what the Polish leadership has. “I believe the Polish should rejoice that we are giving them an opportunity to familiarize themselves with this documentation,” the compiler of the selection SVR General Major Lev Sotskov stated. In the abovementioned film he reports with a sort of solemnity that it’s the first time that the documents are made public. What an exploit! Seventy years have already passed since the beginning of the war, the next year we will mark the 65th anniversary of its end, and the Russian archives have not yet been opened. Even if anything is published, it is linked to a certain occasion and is a special selection.
Interestingly, the arguments of the high-ranking authors is primarily borrowed from the brochure published by the State Publishing House of Political Literature (Gospolitizdat) in 1948 and entitled Falsifikatory istorii (Istoricheskaia spravka) (Falsifiers of History (Historical Reference)). It was a response to the collection Nazi-Soviet Relations of 1939–1941, compiled by US, French, and British experts in foreign affairs and published by the US State Department. This publication for the first time included the secret protocols to the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact and the German-Soviet Treaty on Friendship, Cooperation, and Demarcation of Sept. 28, 1939. A simple comparison of the texts of the Soviet brochure and those written by the high-ranking authors on the MGIMO website proves that they have not discovered anything new. They mention the same ideological stereotypes: Germany was humiliated by the Treaty of Versailles, and Western states were pacifying Hitler by directing him eastwards, against the USSR, and signing the Munich Agreement etc.
On the eve of the visit an especially big emphasis was placed on Poland’s role. The SVR selection contains documents on how the Polish General Staff developed plans to destabilize situation in Ukraine, the Volga Region, and the Caucasus and dismember and destroy the Soviet Union. According to Gen. Sotskov, in August 1937 the Polish General Staff issued directive #2304/2/37, which said that the ultimate goal of the Polish policy was “to destroy any kind of Russia.” In his opinion, falsifications of history have been elevated to the level of a state policy in Poland. “Assessments perverting the real sequence of events are being aired on the level of this country’s government. The main idea is to blame the USSR as well as fascist Germany for the starting of World War II.”
Certainly, such statements — and Gen. Sotskov is not the first or the only person saying this — were met with a corresponding response in Poland. The situation was so strained before the visit that it was rumored in the Kremlin that Putin might give up the visit. Most likely, it was typical blackmail. Apart from historical problems, there are questions of today that should be resolved. Besides, the Russian side did not intend to break the relations. Therefore, they tried to somewhat damp down the passions that had been seriously stirred up.
Gazeta Wyborcza published an article by Putin entitled “Are pages of history a reason for mutual claims or a foundation for reconciliation and partnership?” It recognizes the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact as immoral. But at the same time, the author says: “We see attempts to rewrite history to fit the needs of today’s political state of affairs. Some countries went even further: they treat Nazi accomplices as heroes and put the victims next to the butchers, the liberators next to invaders.” The reference to Ukraine and the Baltic States is quite obvious here.
Then the author follows the customary scenario. “True, today we are being asked to recognize that the only ‘trigger’ that set off World War II was the Soviet-German Non-Aggression Pact of Aug. 23, 1939. However, the champions of this position do not ask themselves an elementary question — didn’t the Treaty of Versailles, which put an end to World War I, leave numerous ‘delayed-action mines?’ Wasn’t there Austrian Anschluss and torn Czechoslovakia, when not only Germany, but Hungary and Poland as well, in a sense, took part in the territorial division of Europe?”
In response to this the editor in chief of Gazeta Wyborcza Adam Michnik published an article with the very expressive title “Everything was not quite so, Mr. Putin.” The editor of the Polish newspaper believes that one cannot put a sign of equality between the immoral and cowardly Munich Agreement and the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact: neither France, nor Great Britain occupied Czechoslovakia together with Nazis. “And no Polish politician has ever made shabby statements that the ‘ugly creation of the Treaty of Versailles disappeared from the map of Europe’ — this is what Vyacheslav Molotov said in 1939 after the division of Poland. If I weren’t forgiving, I would mention how in 1941, seeking for ‘symmetry’ in mutual offences, Joseph Stalin reminded Gen. W adys aw Sikorski that the Poles seized the Kremlin in the early 17th century.”
Michnik also recognizes the fact that Poland occupied Cieszyn Silesia after the Munich Plot, but he states that this was long ago recognized to be a “historical mistake” by Poland. Besides, the policies pursued by the Polish leadership and by Stalin’s regime on the occupied territories were different. According to Michnik, whole truth should be revealed about the Soviet prisoners of “Pi sudski’s camps” (Red Army soldiers were kept there during the Soviet-Polish War of 1920. – Author), but, he admits, none of these prisoners was killed by shooting a bullet in the back of his head, unlike the Katyn victims. Incidentally, one more grave with the remains of Polish officers shot by the NKVD was recently found in Belarus.
The quite restrained tone of Putin’s article in Gazeta Wyborcza is exclusively a tactical move aimed at avoiding tension during the visit of the Russian prime minister. Moscow is not interested in the escalation of tension in relations with Warsaw. During Putin’s visit the agreements concerning navigation in the Kaliningrad Bay, bringing spent fuel from the Polish research reactor to Russia, and a protocol on cooperation between the ministries of culture were signed.
At the same time, the historical aspect remains a stumbling block. The Kremlin does not intend to yield in the question of Katyn, which is a matter of principle for Poles. The same refers to the issue of documents. As the deputy chief of the RF governmental apparatus Yuri Ushakov said, Moscow will not pass to Poland the secret materials concerning Katyn. “Everything possible has already been declassified, and it is illogical to blame us for anything in this respect.” It would be logical to assume that what remains cannot be declassified. On the eve of the visit, Lavrov’s article was withdrawn from MGIMO’s website, Naryshkin’s was not published, but later everything was restored.
The problem is not history itself. If we omit the inner political reasons for defending Stalin’s ideological stereotypes, the ghost of making claims has been wandering around in the corridors of Russia’s government. Naryshkin wrote in his article: “It is clear that as the USSR’s historical successor Russia has been regularly faced with provocationally imposed ethical guilt for the events of those years, and an ideological foundation has been prepared to file various claims against it for reimbursement.” Moscow does not agree to this. Putin’s article has defined the line that cannot be crossed.
History is a field of ideological confrontation for the Russian rulers, rather than a science. And this is a long-term enterprise. Winston Churchill said that the millstones of history grind slowly, yet exceedingly fine. But Moscow does not want to listen to the Noble Prize winner’s words so far.
