Image: Katyn - decision of massacre p1

Description: The accepted proposal of Lavrentiy Beria to execute former Polish army and police officers in NKVD prisoner of war camps and prisons. March 1940. TOP SECRET From the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union to comrade STALIN In the NKVD POW camps and in the prisons of the western oblasts of Ukraine and Belorussia there is currently a large number of former officers of the Polish army, former Polish police officers and employees of intelligence agencies, members of Polish nationalist c-r (counterrevolutionary) parties, participants in underground c-r rebel organizations, defectors and so on. All of them are implacable enemies of Soviet power and full of hatred for the Soviet system. POW officers and policemen located in the camps are attempting to continue c-r work and are leading anti-Soviet agitation. Each of them is simply waiting to be freed so they can have the opportunity to actively join the fight against Soviet power. NKVD agents in the western oblasts of Ukraine and Belorussia have uncovered a number of c-r rebel organizations. In each of these c-r organizations the former officers of the former Polish army and former Polish police officers played an active leadership role. Among the detained defectors and violators of the state- (Signatures: In favor - Stalin, Voroshilov, Molotov, Mikoyan) (In margin: Comrade Kalinin - In favor. Comrade Kaganovich - In favor.)
Title: Katyn - decision of massacre p1
Credit: РГАСПИ Ф. 17 оп. 166 дело 621 лист 130. Подлинник. Scan from http://katyn.ru/index.php?go=Pages&in=view&id=6 This is a colour photocopy of official document residing in the Russian archive RGASPI, a b/w copy of which had been legally transferred into the property of Polish Government, and first published in Poland in 1992.
Author: Lavrentiy Beria
Usage Terms: Public domain
License: Public domain
Attribution Required?: No