News / Polish President Lech Kaczynski and gov officials die in a plane crash in Russia [686]

It's a terrible tragedy for Poland and for everybody. I felt condolence to the Polish people...

I'm from Moscow. I can't believe that healthy people can believe that Russian "KGB" is behind that tragedy.

Is it an accident? Yes and no.

Too many strange things at once: too many high rank people in an old plane targeted to the old and closed military airbase. This base was closed last year! There was no good modern equipment for safe landing any time except sunny day! Our government didn't support this visit - yes it was not polite...

There is something common betwen Russians and Polish people. Truly we both don’t need any enemy - we themselves are worst enemies for themselves...

News / Polish President Lech Kaczynski and gov officials die in a plane crash in Russia [686]


So, that your friends killed innocent people in Moscow metro?

News / THE ARMY OF POLAND - THE REALITY [493]


So, thanks Germans and Russians you were able to keep Poles in tonus? :)

In the past (without EU) it didn't help much...

News / Do Poles in Poland really feel betrayed because there won't be any US Shield? [288]

I believe if Poles will feel safer with U.S. Patriot missiles - why not? It's always easier to talk if the partner feels safe. From pure military point of view there is nothing changed.

Global missile defense system put Russia in unsafe position degrading our strategic forces.

It's positions in Poland would really be a danger for Poles also - (1) putting them as a target for nucs and (2) anti-misssile missiles launch looks on radars too similar to ordinary nuc missiles and may trigger a war even when used against Iran.

News / RUSSIA TO MAKE PUBLIC THE KATYN FILES... [274]


It is not brave at all - and nothing new . Copies of all these documents were sent by Pres. Yeltsin to Polish officials in early 90-th.

But for unclear reason these docs were "closed" again in Russian archives. The catastrophy with Polish President put publisc attention to this problem - and now Russian public opinion is on Polish side...


There are not criminals - they are true heroes and winners. Criminals - forever - are those who lost WWII.

News / RUSSIA TO MAKE PUBLIC THE KATYN FILES... [274]

No, it's quite different - they fight for our country and won. If necessary we will repeat.

Russians in Afghanistan were the same like Americans in Vietnam, Yugoslavia, Iraq, Afghanistan. All these are just local wars - part of a big political game with local people lives. Yes, all these are crimes.

News / RUSSIA TO MAKE PUBLIC THE KATYN FILES... [274]


I know. Open a trial if you wish - otherwise your opinion doesn't matter.

News / RUSSIA TO MAKE PUBLIC THE KATYN FILES... [274]


And who are war criminals? Was there any trial?

They won war. Losers can call them "criminals" - I can understand it but it doesn't matter.

News / RUSSIA TO MAKE PUBLIC THE KATYN FILES... [274]


OK - we don't ask for your help.

It is our history and we can't change it. The problem was who was more evil - and in that period of time even Stalin was better than Hitler.

News / RUSSIA TO MAKE PUBLIC THE KATYN FILES... [274]


History is not reversable.

I would be happy if Western democracies could won war against Hitler without Russians. May be it would help us to remove Stalin and communism earlier and save more lives.


Looks like I missed the moment when you opened a case against rapists? There was an army tribunal for rapists in Soviet army.

News / RUSSIA TO MAKE PUBLIC THE KATYN FILES... [274]

There was a civil war in 1918-20 - White movement lost, most educated people were killed. Any resistance was supressed with mass murders.
Stalin "cult" was removed after 1953 and most radical NKVD officers were killed or were put to prison -but by other communists. Mass murders and repressions were stopped after that. Stalin was already a history when I was young.

News / RUSSIA TO MAKE PUBLIC THE KATYN FILES... [274]


Yes, possible there were such cases but definitely less than we now talk about. It became a propaganda tool against Soviets after the war - communist's propaganda is not better just used different tools.

You describe Soviet army which would couldn't exist as an army - not talking about winning against strong enemy. It's soldiers were not angels but they struggled against European "true Aryes" and before entering Europe saw what they did in Belarus, Ukraine and Russia. More than 15 million civilians were murdered by Nazis on USSR territory.


ROA - Russian Liberation Army - collaborated to Nazis and were our enemies. As these they were prisoners of war and founded their right place after the war.

News / RUSSIA TO MAKE PUBLIC THE KATYN FILES... [274]


Partly true. Unfortunately they signed a contract with even worse devil.

News / RUSSIA TO MAKE PUBLIC THE KATYN FILES... [274]


Well, for you - may be. I don't know who are you but it's even possible Hitler would be even good for you – if you belong to the right race from Hitler’s point of view (nothing personal).

Personally for me and for all other Russians and Slavs Hitler name means death or slavery without any hope. With Stalin we somehow survive and may now talk to you.

They both were devils but they had different criteria for mass murders - race and nationality for Hitler and economic classes without any relation to nationality for Stalin. The last one was easier for us to survive. But too many people died for nothing.

News / RUSSIA TO MAKE PUBLIC THE KATYN FILES... [274]


I think the key words here "Nazis used" - we had no opportunity to know what they would do with this "used" people.

Hitler plans for Slavs and other "lower" race people are in his published books and he had no opportunity to complete his plans. But his failed start was very impressive.

News / RUSSIA TO MAKE PUBLIC THE KATYN FILES... [274]


He used any human resourses he could find especially at the end of the war. As you know Stalin also wasn't young and died in 1953. Next one (Khrushchev) was already much better compared to Stalin.

Hitler's main mistake was that WWII became a national patriotic war for Russians. And we just couldn't lost - doesn't matter how heavy losses we had. WW1 was quite different for us and lead to revolution and civil war. Nobody yet successfully won against Russia in patriotic war - we lost only to ourselves.

News / RUSSIA TO MAKE PUBLIC THE KATYN FILES... [274]


Yes, we accept it. But we can't change the history - and we can't change ourselves too fast.

And you know that Germans lost independence and were forced for changes. They already paid their heavy price and now should be free.

We are trying to do the same without external force by ourselves.

News / RUSSIA TO MAKE PUBLIC THE KATYN FILES... [274]


Minorities of Russian Empire were among most active supporters of communist's revolution in 1917 – Jews (and some remarkable Poles and Latvians) were majority in communist government until end of 20-s - beg. of 30-s – when Stalin got the power and removed many of his Jewish “competitors” like Trotsky. Until the WWII and even before Stalin death in 1953 ethnic Russians were not a majority among communist party and NKVD leaders. It is clear that ethnic Russians “chauvinists” were the major danger for communist rulers and suffered more than others. The majority of Russian elite – were killed or forced to leave the country in civil war of 1918-1920 by illiterate Russian workers and farmers under communist’s leadership.

Beria (NKVD chief who proposed to kill Polish officers in his report to Stalin) and Stalin (who signed it) were both Georgians - and funny that if they would live now they would be foreigners in Russia and would possible vote for Saakashvili as their president.

But it is not politically correct to remember it and now Russians are the only guilty in all those crimes – I believe we need to support personal responsibility rather than common or ethnic.

..

News / RUSSIA TO MAKE PUBLIC THE KATYN FILES... [274]

My message is not about to blame all Jews or Poles or somebody else as a whole nation. I believe that every criminal has his own name and family name.

News / RUSSIA TO MAKE PUBLIC THE KATYN FILES... [274]


What do you mean? How also we should recognise Soviet crimes from your point of view?

Should we blame our old veterans of WWII in any crimes? It will never happen. I prefer evolution over any revolution.

News / RUSSIA TO MAKE PUBLIC THE KATYN FILES... [274]


No trial - no guilty.

News / RUSSIA TO MAKE PUBLIC THE KATYN FILES... [274]


Don't think so. You've provided a message about crime -yes, it's a crime and should be investigated. I don't think we should hide criminals - but I also don't trust to any German or Polish investigator in this case - so we will need a kind of independent trial or commision. In theory it is possible but I don't believe in any practical result.

But what if we start to investigate all Nazis crimes on FSU territory? There are still a lot left without any investigation.

The war is over. The losers were put to the trial and punished. End of story and start of history. The only other possibility is to start a war again. I wouldn't like the idea, but if you insist...

News / RUSSIA TO MAKE PUBLIC THE KATYN FILES... [274]


How we can punish an old nazi of over 80-90 years old? He is already punished by life living in fear.

But for Nazis we at least had a trial verdict. May be somebody already invented time machine and we are able to reverse history?


I would want to leave it for history and historians. We are not able to save lives and even not able to punish criminals. Time passed and it is too late.

You need to stop blaming - those who guilty will never respond and whose who innocent will never accept responsibility.

News / RUSSIA TO MAKE PUBLIC THE KATYN FILES... [274]


What practical results you would expect from it if it would started? If it is possible - please find out their names to put on their graves and leave their souls in piece.

The only lesson we can get is that never again war should happen.

News / RUSSIA TO MAKE PUBLIC THE KATYN FILES... [274]


I expect nothing special and when I speak I always speak for myself only. I don't want "to look like" - I just try to express my opinion in discussion. And I think this is the only thing we can do now - to have open discussion for better understanding.

I just not clearly understand what you want - point by point. The crimes we speak about are accepted as crimes by everybody and put to history books as crimes. Many facts are mixed with propaganda - and far not only communists propaganda.

News / RUSSIA TO MAKE PUBLIC THE KATYN FILES... [274]


I understand you BB. German civilians suffered a lot and many awful crimes were commited against them at the end of war. As I told I am for personal resposibility, not for common - and for Germans too.

I visited Kaliningrad region last year and I didn't like what I found there even now. But what can we do - practical things?

News / RUSSIA TO MAKE PUBLIC THE KATYN FILES... [274]


Guys, your image of Russia looks for me like you take it from comics for simplicity level.


I don't like to see ethnic cleansing results.

News / RUSSIA TO MAKE PUBLIC THE KATYN FILES... [274]


Another example of comics reader. The only reason why we are where we are now - because communist ideas failed and Russians turned out of them. And you are still fight in the past war.

News / RUSSIA TO MAKE PUBLIC THE KATYN FILES... [274]


I realize that Poles think Poland-centered. But to understand try to think just wider - there is now a lot of documents from those times. Without it all your conclusions will be wrong.

You should know that Germans invaded Poland and SU invaded Baltic states and part of Poland not because they agreed to live in piece forever. As you found by yourself there was nothing of special economic interest on all these territories for SU - except their strategic importance for next big war. It was just a part of the game for future big war preparation.

All "big boys" - SU, UK, France, and Germany - understood that they can't avoid real big war and played for time. They used smaller countries as pawns. Czech, Poland, Baltic states and Finland were first victims of this game but they never been an aim for big powers.

Stalin was not ready for big war at the end of 30-s - beg. of 40-s: he just completed "chistka" ="cleansing" of army and communist party to strengthen his dictatorship - he killed tens of thousands officers and left Red Army without head. He also tried to develop heavy industry in order to increase military production. He proposed alliance and military help to UK, France, Germany, Poland and Czech against Germany- but it was rejected and Western countries left Czech for Hitler without war. Poland even took part in Czech dismemberment - showing an example for Stalin. Poland also had a hope for alliance with Germany against Stalin - they couldn’t even think about opposite alliance.

The Western allies plan was to put Hitler for war in East, not West. Stalin just make an opposite plan and succeed in the start - Western allies proclaimed war against Hitler. But they did nothing. Unfortunately for Stalin Hitler decided that SU is weak enough and started the big war in June 1941 - he believed that the war will be short and after that he will have enough resources for war against UK without danger from the East. You all know the end of story and who won that big game in the late 80-s - USA and UK.

It could be disappointing to think about evil targeting you and your countries but found instead that the evil just didn't even take you into account.

News / RUSSIA TO MAKE PUBLIC THE KATYN FILES... [274]


He had a hope to put the war against Germany future apart - he tried to push Hitler to the west. He rejected any intelligence information about Hitler’s plan and even repressed those who warned him about. His main aim was not "to provoke" Germans for war and he was think about himself as a genius. He was sure that Western allies try to put him to the war first. He wasn't a genius and underestimated Hitler madness.

When the war started he was completely shocked and disappeared for several days - his policy failed.

Don't forget also about other danger for SU in the Far East - Japan. There were hot conflics and local small wars between SU and Japan - in Mongolia and SU Far East in the late 30-s - started by Japanese. Stalin succeeds in the game there. Otherwise the results of WWII would be different.