Year 12 IB Extended Essays 2017

Exile’s inferiority in international politics, Stalin set about forming a provisional, communist government in Poland which became a component of the Soviet Union’s sphere of influence (Newworldencyclopedia.org, 2017). Polish-Soviet relations would be affected by the massacre for decades to come, admission of Soviet culpability was one of the biggest issues that continued to poison relations between the two nations. In 1990, relations were still tainted by the massacre until President Mikhail S. Gorbachev gave Polish President Wojciech Jaruzelski documents that proved the Soviet secret police were responsible for the massacre of thousands of Polish army officers in Katyn forest during World War 2. A statement made by the official Russian news agency Tass on behalf of the government, reversed almost half a century of denials (Hamilton, 1990). Polish-Soviet relations were affected to an incredibly significant extent by the massacre. The Katyn massacre, in addition to the other massacres carried out by the NKVD in accordance to Beria’s proposal to the Politburo was one of the greatest tragedies of the second world war and the 20 th century – at Katyn alone there were 20,000 deaths including approximately 4,000 Polish officers and half of Poland’s officer corps (Cia.gov, 2017). Though internationally and politically significant, the massacre did not seriously affect British-Soviet relations during the war because it was not in British interest to view their strongest European ally as mass murderers. Soviet cooperation was essential for an allied victory and thus the discovery of the massacre was dismissed as Nazi propaganda and supressed. During the war, American-Soviet relations were effected to a similar extent – the Soviet Union was far too valuable of an ally. From the American perspective, denunciation of the Soviet Union would result in the absence of the much-needed presence of the Soviet Union in America’s war efforts against Japan, however considering the Cold War the similarity between the execution of Poles in Katyn and GI’s in Korea was too striking and deteriorated American-Soviet relations significantly in addition to other diplomatic concerns. International relations with the Soviet Union were most significantly affected in Poland. The massacre was clearly an attempted genocide, because of the massacre and the subsequent lies made by Stalin’s regime Polish- Soviet relations was the most significantly affected international relationship as a direct result of the massacre. It seems that the Katyn Massacres of 1940 effected international relations with the Soviet Union, particularly Poland and the United States to a very significant extent.