Year 12 IB Extended Essays 2017

respective spheres of influence. These discussions resulted in the further signing of a strictly secret protocol which concluded how their respective spheres of influence would change in the in the event of a territorial and political rearrangement in the areas belonging to the Baltic or Polish States (Avalon.law.yale.edu, 2008). It can be said that Polish-Soviet relations were significantly affected by the Katyn massacre, however relations had already seriously been affected prior to the massacre, the massacre was rubbing salt in the wound of Polish-Soviet relations. To emphasise Soviet feelings of resentment towards Poland, during a session of the Supreme Soviet in October 1939, Soviet Foreign Minister Molotov's made a remark about Poland " wiping out all remains of this misshapen offspring of the Versailles treaty," This remark was indicative of the grave nature of Soviet intentions towards Poland and serves as an apt example of the deterioration of relations between the two sovereign nations (Coatney, December 1993). From the Soviet point of view, the territories gained by Poland in accordance with the Treaty of Riga were illegally annexed. This was a key motivator for the Soviet Union to sign the Ribbentrop-Molotov treaty with the Third Reich. For the Soviets, this pact meant that their own plans of invading Poland would not clash with Germany’s. Predictably, 25 days after the pact was signed and 16 days after Poland was invaded by the German Reich, the USSR invaded Poland. By the end of the war 50.8% of Poland was under Soviet Control (Eberhardt, 2011). Historical evidence, such as Laventriy Beria’s handwritten proposal to the Politburo, suggests that the Soviet Union was motivated to commit the massacre for two main reasons: The first is due to the “nationalists and counterrevolutionaries” that were “ actively struggling against Soviet authority “in the Soviet POW camps, Koleszk, Starobolesk and Ostashkov (Brown, 2009). The second reason the Soviets were motivated to authorise the massacre was due to Stalin’s long term objective, the liquidation of the Polish state and regaining territory annexed eastwards of the Curzon Line. On the 19 th of September two days after the Soviet invasion of Poland, the Main Administration for Affairs of Prisoners of War and Internees was formed under the instructions of the head of the NKVD, Lavrentiy Beria. This was the most appropriate way to manage Polish Prisoners according to Beria. This department of the NKVD was responsible for the networking, organisation and transport arrangements of prisoner of war camps across the Soviet Union (Polian, 2004) Beria’s role as the head of the NKVD included the management of the gulag system, reforms carried out by Beria in addition to an increased number of inmates improved the economic productivity of the camps by further repressing prisoners (Hosford, Kachurin, Lamont, 2017). In addition to the massacre, the effects of the NKVD activities in Poland from September 1939 to June 1941 were detrimental to Polish- Soviet relations, however the effects on Poland were tragic and catastrophic. On the 5 th of March 1940, Beria wrote a top-secret letter to the Soviet Pulitboro . Beria felt that the 14,736 mostly Polish prisoners of war in the Kozelsk, Starobelsk and Ostashkov camps were “hardened and uncompromising enemies of Soviet authority ” (Brown, 2009) and the most appropriate way to deal with these “ sworn enemies of Soviet authority full of hatred for the Soviet system” was to apply the supreme penalty to them – execution without trial. The proposal was met with agreeance from the Soviet Politburo, an order was subsequently signed by six members of the Politburo including Stalin (Brown, 2009). Another reason for the Katyn