FDR and the Massacre at Katyn (FDR was terribly naïve when it came to Stalin)

Fox News ^ | 12/08/2010 | Paul Kengor, Grove City College

[SeekAndFind]

At the end of November something historically quite significant happened in Russia. The State Duma passed a statement conceding Soviet responsibility for the Katyn Woods massacre, one of the 20th century’s worst war crimes.

The roots of this atrocity date to September 1939, when the Nazis and Bolsheviks jointly invaded, annihilated, and partitioned Poland. The Soviets seized thousands of Polish military officers as prisoners.

Their fate was sealed on March 5, 1940 when Stalin signed their death warrant, condemning 21,857 of them to “the supreme penalty: shooting.” This we now know conclusively through the surviving NVKD document. The officers were taken to three execution sites, the most infamous of which bears the namesake of the crime: the Katyn Forest, 12 miles west of Smolensk, Russia. There, these Polish men were slaughtered. The Bolsheviks covered their crime with a layer of dirt.

The recent apology from the Duma—plus a pledge by President Dmitri Medvedev to visit Poland this month—was something Poles waited decades to hear. It was something many of us who have studied and written about this incident have waited to hear. And it is too bad that Franklin Delano Roosevelt is not around to hear it.

FDR? Yes, FDR. Let me explain.

The Katyn massacre was first exposed by the Nazis in April 1943. By then, the Nazis had betrayed the Hitler-Stalin “Non-Aggression” Pact. They discovered the mass graves, and immediately converted the atrocity into a propaganda coup to split the Big Three Allies. The Soviets, in turn, claimed the Nazis had done the crime. Stalin and his goons attempted to pin the massacre on Hitler and his goons. Stuck in between was the civilized world, which sought to determine which devil had done the deed.

FDR was among those stuck in between. Where would he stand?

[charlie72]

Be careful not to mention Alger Hiss because he was innocent you know. sarc

[charlie72]

Remember, according to the liberals, Joe McCarthy was stark raving mad and made up all that stuff about commies in the gov and Hollywood. sarc

[Hoplite]

It is possible to make an argument that picking a fight with Stalin in late 1945 made military sense.

I don't think such an argument stand for long, given what's known of the relative strengths and equipment of the prospective combatants, to say nothing about the effects that an Anglo/Soviet conflict in Europe would have in the Pacific.

[Sherman Logan]

I didn't say it was a good argument or one that I agree with, only that one can be made.

Only an autocracy can effectively implement such "stab the ally in the back" maneuvers, though, and I'm quite glad I live in a society where it isn't possible.

BTW, it is entirely possible Stalin might have tried a "pre-emptive strike" of this type had not the Bomb given him excellent reason to reconsider any such plans he may have had.

[Hoplite]

I didn't say it was a good argument or one that I agree with, only that one can be made.

Oh you're no fun anymore. </Python>

I reckon Stalin probably directed STAVKA to the same type of study Churchill did his Planning Staff with "Operation Unthinkable", and came up with much the same answer, i.e., let's not.

[Matt_DZ_PL]

Katyn was only a drop in the ocean of the Soviet terror. After so called liberation, Soviets murdered hundreds of thousand of others in the same Katyn way in Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Ukraine, Hungary, etc.