Hello, Vladimir Vladimirovich. I treat you with great respect for your balanced and independent point of view. On July 17, Polish President Andrzej Duda signed amendments to the law banning communist propaganda adopted by the Sejm. Thus, Soviet monuments will be demolished, including those dedicated to the feat of the Red Army.
On the one hand, Poland is an independent state and has the right to do as it sees fit, but hundreds of thousands of soldiers died while freeing it! I would like to know your opinion and attitude to this issue. Thank you. (Victor)
Vladimir Pozner: Dear Victor, I perfectly understand your question, and there is no simple, obvious answer to it. There is, however, an explanation for why in Poland they treat both tsarist Russia and Soviet Russia so badly; since your question refers only to the period of the USSR, I will limit my answer-explanation to this.
Let me remind you: on August 23, 1939, the Soviet-German non-aggression pact was signed. It is most commonly referred to as the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact, since they were its signatories. I will not now go into detailed explanations of why Stalin decided to sign such a document with Hitler, we will simply accept the fact that the pact was signed. As it turned out later, additional documents were signed to this pact, called "secret protocols". They stipulated the benefits that the USSR was to receive, namely: the right to the territory of the Baltic republics, Moldova, and some other territories, including Western Ukraine, which was not then part of the Ukrainian SSR.
Exactly one week after the signing of this pact, Nazi Germany invaded Poland, and after another 17 days, the Red Army entered eastern Poland. Two armies - German and Red - moving towards each other, met, and there are documentary footage of joint solemn parades (I saw them with my own eyes), where Wehrmacht officers stand in the stands, throwing up their hands and shouting “Heil Hitler!”, And officers of the Red armies, saluting and saluting the soldiers of both the Wehrmacht and the Red Army walking past them.
In other words, the USSR, having signed a peace treaty with the Nazis, participated in the occupation of Poland. Such things are not forgotten. And then, having defeated Hitler, the Soviet Union practically turned Poland into its satellite - after all, the vast majority of Poles did not want to be part of the "socialist camp" at all.
Yes, the Soviet army expelled the Nazis from Poland, it is true, as well as the fact that thousands and thousands of Soviet soldiers and officers died in the process. But this does not change the fact that the USSR initially betrayed and occupied Poland, and then practically turned it into its vassal. And it has not been forgotten.
For many Poles, monuments Soviet soldiers there are actually monuments to those who took over their country.
You can object to all this, put forward a lot of considerations, I just wanted to explain to you the main reason for making the decision that you asked me about.
WARSAW, 21 Oct- RIA News. A law allowing the demolition of monuments to Soviet soldiers comes into force in Poland on Saturday.
Amendments to the law banning propaganda of communism or another totalitarian system in the names of buildings, objects and premises for public use were initiated by the Senate, the upper house of the Polish Parliament. By mid-summer, the document went through all the adoption procedures in both houses of parliament and was signed by the president. It involves, among other things, the demolition of Soviet monuments.
According to the Institute of National Remembrance of Poland, the law will affect more than 450 monuments across the country, 230 of which are monuments to Red Army soldiers. All monuments subject to the law must be removed from public places within 12 months. The state allocates about five million zlotys (about $1.4 million) for this. During the liberation of Poland, more than 600 thousand Soviet soldiers died, and about 700 thousand Soviet prisoners of war were also killed by the Germans.
Symbols of totalitarianism
"On the one hand, we do not doubt that the Red Army liberated Poland from the occupation of the German fascists. This, of course, is an opinion that corresponds to the truth. But, on the other hand, this liberation was not followed by the return of independence to Poland, because the occupation began later Soviet, the reign of the communist regime, terror began. And we interpret this period as de facto another occupation, "Daniel Markovsky, specialist of the Bureau for the Perpetuation of Struggle and Martyrdom of the Institute of National Memory of Poland, told RIA Novosti.
He explained that "symbolic objects dedicated to the Red Army should be removed from public space as they propagate foreign totalitarianism and another occupation."
Cemeteries will remain, the star will remain
The law will not affect cemeteries where dead Red Army soldiers are buried. The representative of the Institute of National Remembrance confirmed exactly this interpretation of it. “This does not apply, I would like to emphasize this, it does not apply in any way to cemeteries. Because the graves of soldiers, regardless of their nationality, religion, and so on, for Polish state Holy places. These facilities are under the legal and actual protection of the Polish state," he said.
Nevertheless, the Polish authorities will take care that "symbols of totalitarianism" are not left in the cemeteries either.
"If we are talking about cemeteries, then the changes may concern purely symbolic objects - first of all, we are talking about such symbols as the hammer and sickle, images of Stalin. These objects will also be removed from cemeteries. Symbols of the Red Army, such as, for example, will not be removed. like a red star," Markovsky explained.
The Sejm is not completely unanimous
Not all Polish parliamentarians are unanimous on the issue of monuments to Soviet soldiers. Several people dared to vote against the bill. So, the deputy of the Diet Yanush Sanotsky considers that demolition of monuments will be a huge mistake.
"I am against the elimination of the monuments in question. The destruction of these monuments would be a huge mistake, because today they are not monuments to communism, but only monuments to Soviet soldiers who defeated Hitler, and thanks to this we, Poles, live," Sanotsky said. in an interview with RIA Novosti. "You just have to face the truth," he added.
Political scientist: Russia has not yet exhausted all the possibilities of influencing PolandRussian businessmen offer to buy Soviet monuments from Poland. Political scientist Yury Svetov believes that this noble impulse is understandable, but the hypocrisy of the Polish authorities cannot be left unanswered. He shared his opinion with Sputnik radio.At the same time, he emphasized the need to distinguish between monuments to people who harmed Poland and monuments to soldiers. "If the monument is to some killer or criminal, then, of course, it needs to be removed, but monuments to soldiers ..." - said the agency's interlocutor.
The deputy also spoke extremely negatively about the regular desecration of monuments to Soviet soldiers in Poland. "Stop desecrating monuments. This is wrong thinking. It's not the 70s, it's not the 80s anymore. It's long gone Soviet Union, and these monuments are not a symbol of the occupation of Poland," he said.
Voted against and the most senior member of the Seimas Kornel Morawiecki, who can not be accused of pro-Russian sentiments. During the time of the PPR, he was an activist of Solidarity, was arrested and deported from the country.
"We are talking about monuments to Soviet soldiers who died on Polish soil. They, fighting the Germans, fighting the invaders of Poland, liberated us. Then they sent us to communism, but before that they saved us from extermination. Therefore, I think that there must be honesty" the MP said.
"In my opinion, monuments should not be demolished. I believe that these monuments should not be destroyed. We must perpetuate the memory and honor of the people who died," he added.
Didn't wait
Some representatives of local authorities did not wait for the law to come into force and have already begun to eliminate the monuments.
In early September, the Polish authorities began to liquidate the mausoleum at the site of the mass grave of Soviet soldiers in the Polish city of Trzczanka. This memorial Complex, which includes a military mausoleum in memory of the dead Soviet wars during the capture of the city of Trzcianka, according to some information, is the very first memorial dedicated to the Great Patriotic war in Poland. Its construction began on April 24, 1945, and was completed on August 15 of the same year.
The situation in Trzcianka extremely outraged the activists of the Polish public organization"Kursk", which is engaged in the restoration of monuments to Soviet soldiers. They intend to seek prosecution of the perpetrators.
"In November, a round table meeting will be held on the situation with the memorial in Trzcianka. There will be a prosecutor, lawyers, police officers, officials. At the end of this meeting, we plan to make a decision on the prosecution of Trzcianka's measure. We will prove that he committed a crime," told RIA Novosti the head of "Kursk" Jerzy Tyts.
According to the interlocutor of the agency, at first the documents will not be submitted to the court, but to the prosecutor's office.
“If they don’t make a decision and say that everything was fine, then we will go to court – first Polish, and then international. We begin to restore order. I think this will be a turning point against the demolition of monuments, against Russophobia,” concluded Tyts.
Moscow will mirror the adoption of the law on decommunization by Warsaw, which provides for the dismantling of monuments to Soviet soldiers. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Russia warned about this.
Possible measures are already being developed that will be "asymmetric in nature," the department added. Several options are being considered: personal sanctions against Polish politicians involved in the development of the law, economic measures of influence and active work on various international platforms to draw attention to this problem, sources in Russian diplomatic circles told Izvestia.
In any case, the answer to Warsaw's demarche will not be long in coming, the Russian Foreign Ministry made it clear. And the first deputy chairman of the committee of the Federation Council on international affairs Vladimir Dzhabarov will support "any sanctions that are proposed."
Some politicians have recently spoken about the regularity of mirror measures against Poland more than once in the press. For example, Russia may stop caring for Polish memorials, Konstantin Kosachev, head of the Federation Council's international affairs committee, said at a recent press conference in Moscow, probably referring to the Katyn and Mednoye complexes. The site of the plane crash of the President of Poland near Smolensk in 2010 can also be considered a memorial site, the senator added.
The topic of the illegal demolition of Soviet monuments in Poland is invariably "touched upon in the course of contacts with the Poles, our foreign partners, at international platforms, including the OSCE, the Council of Europe and the CSTO," the Information and Press Department of the Russian Foreign Ministry reported.
Earlier in Minsk, the foreign ministers of the CSTO member countries adopted a joint statement condemning attempts to revise the results of World War II. The State Duma and the Israeli Knesset simultaneously appealed to the European Parliament in connection with Poland's decision to demolish monuments to fighters against fascism, insulting the memory of Soviet soldiers-liberators and victims of the Holocaust. The Belarusian deputies also condemned Poland's attempts to rewrite history.
In the near future, Russia will make calls to respond to Poland's actions at several international platforms - the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly, the Inter-Parliamentary Union, the Inter-Parliamentary Assembly of the CIS member states, and will also send appeals to the parliaments of European countries, several senators said.
It is impossible to hush up the problem, despite the fact that the European partners will still not be able to answer the question of supporting the actions of Warsaw in the affirmative, said Andrey Klimov, deputy head of the Federation Council committee on international affairs. According to him, "except for us, hardly anyone will be the first to talk about this problem."
And the most rational answer would be "at the level of symbols and historical politics": Poland's actions are immoral, but they do not cause direct damage to Russian politics and the economy, the Polonist expert noted Russian Institute strategic research Oleg Nemensky.
The share of Poland in the foreign trade turnover of Russia in 2016, according to the Federal Customs Service, amounted to about 2.8%, ranking 11th in this indicator. Trade between Russia and Poland amounted to about $13 billion, down 5% from the previous year.
In Poland, during the liberation of which 600 thousand Soviet soldiers died from the Nazis, about 500 memorials were erected to them. It is not yet clear how many of them fall under the law on decommunization, signed in July by Polish President Andrzej Duda and in October 2016 by the upper house of the Polish parliament, which involves the dismantling of all monuments "propagating communism", with the exception of memorial objects that are elements of burials or military cemeteries.
The Institute of National Memory of Poland, which compiles a catalog of Soviet monuments, did not respond to a request on this matter.
Earlier, last April, Public Chamber Russia to the OSCE with a call to pay attention to the demolition of monuments to Soviet soldiers in Poland. And a few days before that, the Polish authorities removed more than 500 memorials erected "in gratitude to the soldiers of the Red Army for the liberation of the country from fascism."
In Poland, amendments were made to the law banning propaganda of communism, which provide for the demolition of Soviet monuments in the country. We are talking about 230 buildings built in memory of the soldiers of the Red Army. Three months after the entry into force of the updated law, all of them can be dismantled.
Why is the leadership of modern Poland trying to bulldoze the memory of the people who saved Europe and the world from the “brown plague”, and what answer should Russia give to this? Correspondent about this FAN TV spoke with the Deputy Director of the Institute of CIS countries Igor Shishkin.
All videos FAN TV see .
During the liberation of Poland during the Second World War, 600 thousand soldiers of the army of the Soviet Union died. How did it happen that in the Baltic countries, Eastern Europe now do not attach any importance to this?
If we take the Baltic countries, then there came to power those who consider themselves the successors of the cause of the traitors of their own people. The heirs of all those who betrayed the Lithuanian, Latvian, Estonian peoples and served in the same ranks with the soldiers of the Wehrmacht and the SS. They now have heroes ex-warriors SS. Accordingly, how is it now possible to honor the memory of those who smashed these SS men to the tail and mane and threw them out of the Baltic land? Everything is quite natural.
As for Poland, the situation is different. Poland based its historical policy on the image of a victim country. They want to affirm this perception of history: first the Germans came, they conquered the Poles and oppressed them very terribly. Then the Russians came, expelled the Germans, but, in fact, they did not free anyone, but only established an even more cruel occupation regime.
For Poland and the Baltic States, 1991 is the triumph of the struggle for national liberation. Every liberation struggle requires its heroes. Where to get these heroes? In reality, there was no national liberation struggle, because there was no occupation either. Therefore, heroes could not be found anywhere, except among those who fought on the side of the Third Reich.
A video about the so-called "Forest Brothers" is circulating on the Internet. As we understood, it was created with the support of NATO. These "Forest Brothers" are represented there by the heroes of the national liberation movement. Who were they really?
Recently, another set of CIA documents was declassified in the United States. The documents were declassified simply after the expiration of the statute of limitations. This package contained many volumes about how the CIA supported the Forest Brothers in the Baltics. It is clearly written there who these units consisted of.
The first group is the soldiers of the SS units, who, after 1945, refused to come to the assembly points in order to lay down their arms and surrender in accordance with the terms of surrender. Why didn't they come? Because they were so stained with blood that they perfectly understood that there would be no forgiveness for them, which means that they could not surrender.
The second group of "Forest Brothers" is a criminal element that broke free during the fighting. There was no reason for them to return to prison either, since the blood on them was above their heads.
These are the two main groups that hid in the forests and were helped by the Americans to fight the Soviet Union. Unfortunately, this is also our direct fault. Everything that happens in the Baltics is a direct consequence of the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Our second fault is that we indulged all these regimes. And in the Baltic States, and in Ukraine, and in Poland - everywhere and everywhere! Our fault is that we shied away from confrontation. Remember this famous story of the demolition of the bronze soldier in Estonia. What mass resistance was from the people! But the Russian Foreign Ministry then limited itself only to appeals that the Estonian authorities encroached on the soldiers anti-Hitler coalition. That is, the message was made: these are not just soldiers of the Soviet Union, the Red Army, this is a monument to the soldiers of the anti-Hitler coalition! They were allies of the United States and England themselves! That is, it turns out that if it was just a monument to the Red Army, then it could be demolished!
Apparently, we thought that the Estonian authorities would be ashamed of this, and the United States and England would slam their fists on the table and say: “Hands off the monument to our allies!” Naturally, this did not happen. And the monument was dismantled. Down and Out trouble started. Dropped once, dropped a second time, dropped a third time. When the monument to Chernyakhovsky in Poland was demolished, what did we do? Only a formidable statement that the terrorists of ISIS 1, banned in Russia, are doing this, destroying monuments. And that's all.
Do you think we should take more drastic measures now?
Now the situation is so neglected that words can no longer stop it. Very tough measures must be taken so that every Pole, in his own skin, sorry for the intolerance of expressions, realizes what the encroachment on the memory of Soviet soldiers turns into.
- What measures, in your opinion, will be the most effective?
All deputies of the Sejm of Poland who voted for this bill should be subject to sanctions. All the journalists who spoke in his support. All public, political figures who did not condemn the law or openly supported it. We must establish historical justice. Also, we must conduct a new investigation of everything related to Katyn case and recognize that there are grounds for such a revision. Before his death, the deputy Ilyukhin made an official statement that he had evidence of the falsification of these documents in the Russian archives. Literally two or three days after that, he died. No investigation into his words was carried out, and he, excuse me, is a specialist. He was Deputy Prosecutor General of the Soviet Union.
If Poland wants to get rid of its totalitarian legacy, it must also get rid of its western border?
Here is another point. If the totalitarian heritage is destroyed, then everything is destroyed, without exception! The western border of Poland is a gift from a comrade Stalin, who in Poland is now declared the main totalitarian, the villain of all times and peoples. But sorry! Or or. If you get rid, you get rid of everything. And Russia must say that from now on, as soon as the demolition of monuments begins, Russia is not the guarantor of Poland's western border. And the Germans, let's not forget, remember very well that the current Western Poland was until recently East Germany. No one in Germany has forgotten this. If the Poles really hope that the British and the Americans will save them, let them hope. In 1939, the British rescued them. We only need to remind them that whenever Russophobia went off scale in Poland, whether it was the 18th century or the 20th century, Poland disappeared from the world map.
1 The organization is prohibited on the territory of the Russian Federation.
July 17th President of Poland Andrzej Duda signed a law on the demolition of all monuments of the Soviet era. Hundreds of monuments will go under the bulldozer, but the true goal of the purge is to reformat the consciousness of millions of Poles.
The Polish Sejm adopted this scandalous law on June 22. The document enters into force 3 months after signing by the president, it orders to dismantle all monuments dedicated to people or events "symbolizing communism or another totalitarian system." An exception is made for memorials in burial places, works of art and scientific exhibits. Why such a law was needed, AiF.ru told Director of the Russian-Polish Center for Dialogue and Accord Foundation Yuri Bondarenko.
Vitaly Tseplyaev, AiF.ru: - Yuri Konstantinovich, first of all, what kind of monuments are we talking about?
Yuri Bondarenko: — About the monuments to Soviet soldiers that still stand on the streets and squares of Polish cities. Of course, they have been removed before. For example, back in 1991, a monument to Marshal Konev, who saved this city from destruction, was demolished in Krakow. In 2011, the Monument to the Soviet-Polish Brotherhood in Arms, which the whole country knew, was dismantled in Warsaw - it was removed under the pretext of building a metro line, promising to be installed elsewhere. Yes, they never installed ... In May 2014, the famous Monument of Gratitude was liquidated in Katowice Soviet army. In 2015, in the city of Penenzhno, the authorities demolished a monument to the Army General, twice Hero of the Soviet Union Ivan Chernyakhovsky.
However, according to various estimates, in Poland there are still from 200 to 500 similar monuments dedicated to the Soviet-Polish military brotherhood during the Second World War. There are especially many of them in the west of the country - in those territories that became part of Poland following the war.
These are Wroclaw, Szczecin, and others. And there, by the way, the attitude towards these monuments differs from the average - the monuments remind residents of the one thanks to whom these territories became Polish.
- Why was this "tolerable" law adopted?
— The conservative Law and Justice Party (PiS), which is now ruling in the country, has been moving towards this for a long time. This party claims to be the most Russophobic political force in the country. Apparently, they decided that it was enough to bother with each Soviet monument individually, to put pressure on local authorities, to be cunning and come up with plausible pretexts for demolition, to argue with those who did not agree with the new interpretation of history. It is easier to pass a law and demolish all the monuments with chokhs. And since PiS controls both houses of parliament and the president, it was not difficult for them to pass such a law.
The task, I think, is very simple - to rewrite the history of the country under new concept, according to which Poland smoothly passed from the German occupation to the Soviet one. That is, it was not free for exactly half a century, from 1939 to 1989. And if this is so, then how can monuments be erected to one of these occupiers? At the same time, the authors of this initiative emphasize all the time that they do not touch the burial places of Soviet soldiers - they say, we are good Catholics, we do not disturb the ashes of the dead ...
This is not part of the state policy - it is the state policy itself, riddled with Russophobia. According to this policy, all those who fought for the liberation of the country from half a century of occupation with weapons in their hands are heroes. From the historical closet they pull out everyone who is possible: and those who at the time people's republic fled abroad, and those who, like "forest brothers" in the Baltics, fought with local administrations - by the way, they are called "damned soldiers" in Poland. Like their Baltic counterparts, these "people's avengers" were still those heroes - they massacred the civilian population, women, children ...
- While Poland is actively fighting with the monuments of the Soviet era, such "exploits" are not heard in other countries of the former socialist camp. Why?
“Poland aspires to be the most pro-American country in Europe today. However, some representatives of the Polish intelligentsia dreamed about this back in the years of Soviet power - there was even a joke about the fact that Poland would become the 51st state of the United States. Indeed, nothing like the Polish “war on memory” is happening either in Hungary or in Slovakia, where there are also enough monuments to Soviet soldiers. For example, in Bratislava, no one encroaches on the majestic memorial complex Slavin, created in memory of the thousands of Soviet soldiers who died during the liberation of the country and its capital.
