The question is: who was the beneficiary of this Big Lie?
Russia’s parliament on Friday declared Stalin responsible for ordering the Katyn massacre of Polish officers in World War II, a crime Moscow spent decades blaming on the Nazis to the fury of Poland.
The resolution came amid reports that President Dmitry Medvedev intended to launch a major new “de-Stalinisation” drive that reminded Russians of the Soviet dictator’s crimes and declassified once-secret information.
The resolution of the State Duma lower house of parliament broke more than half a century of official reluctance to admit that the Soviet leadership under Joseph Stalin ordered the killing of thousands of Polish officers in 1940.
The document conceded that history could no longer be ignored and that it was time to lay waste to the myths spread by “official Soviet propaganda”. (Are there other myths which are still taken as fact to this day? — Ed)
“Materials that for many years have been kept in secret archives and have now been published not only show the extent of this terrible tragedy but show that that Katyn crime was carried out on the direct orders of Stalin and other Soviet leaders,” the declaration said.