Democracy’s silence

Europe and the US are sometimes accused of practicing double standards. Unfortunately, these accusations prove to be just quite often. And this goes back to the times of Stalin’s rule.

Last week the US National Archives uncapped documents that prove that president Roosevelt’s administration knew about execution of Polish Army officers in Katyn Forest in 1940. According to the data provided by the US archives, in 1943, occupying German troops discovered eight large graves with remains of Polish officers. The Germans brought in several groups of observers, including some American prisoners-of-war, and started excavation. “This commission determined that the massacre occurred in 1940, when the area was under Soviet control – a determination which was then used as a propaganda tool intended to disrupt the alliance between the US, Great Britain, and the Soviet Union,” reads the document.

But the countries, that are considered to be the role models of democracy, decided to keep silent about it. Because they would have hardly been able to defeat Hitler without “Uncle Joe” (that is the name Americans gave to Stalin).

This is confirmed by the declassified document. “In June, 1943, Roosevelt expressed his approval of the British approach to Stalin in his telegram to Churchill,” it says in the documents. The 32nd US president wrote the following: “Considering the obvious need to create favorable conditions for the Alliance military forces that fight against a common enemy… victory in this war is the priority for all of us. And it requires unity.” Churchill, on the other hand, was constantly afraid that Stalin would go over to Hitler’s side. Meanwhile, historians got access to about one thousand archive documents relating to this topic. “I do not think that these documents will change our overall understanding of American policy on Katyn,” says Harvard University professor Mark Kramer in commentary to the Polish Press Agency. “They mostly confirm what we know already, that many of the representatives of the US and the UK knew that the Soviet Union was responsible for these killings.” The NKVD shot about 22,000 Poles in Katyn Forest, most of them were officers.

Diplomat and writer Yurii SHCHERBAK does not see anything new in the released fact. According to him, state policy that affects the country’s interests has always been cynical and contained double standards, secrecy, and concealed some facts from the public opinion. “Of course, it is extremely hard to justify such situations from the moral point of view, but you can try to put yourself in shoes of people who are responsible for whole countries,” Shcherbak says. “After all, Assange’s publications indicate the existence of such standards in the present-day practice of the so-called democratic countries. We can remember other examples. It is known that both British and American intelligence services had information about the existence of death camps for Jewish population of Europe, and neither did anything to destroy them or help the prisoners in any way.”

Deputy editor of the international department of Rzeczpospolita Piotr Koscinski agrees with Shcherbak. “Double standards of Western countries, which also apply to the Great Famine in Ukraine, is something that is used on a daily basis and has been in use for a long time,” he said in his commentary to The Day. “Therefore, there is no question why in 1945 London and Washington acknowledged the communist government in Warsaw, but not the Provisional Government of National Unity, and refused to recognize the Polish government in exile, which was located in London.”

Ukraine faced the West’s double game even before the Poles. “In 1932-33 Ukrainian organizations in the US bombarded American government with letters and appeals demanding to deny recognition of the Soviet Union for the crime of Holodomor,” adds Shcherbak. “Roosevelt, who wished for diplomatic recognition of the USSR, ignored these calls and mass demonstrations, and even the Congress Resolution on Holodomor.” It is common knowledge that the government of Mussolini ordered Italian journalists not to write about the famine in the Soviet Union; Fascist Italy had excellent relations with the Soviet Union, and the latter also supplied the fuel for Italian fleet.

According to Alexander Motyl, expert on Soviet and post-Soviet regimes, Professor of Political Science, Rutgers University (US), “it is widely known that the Western countries have always used and still use different humanitarian standards to friends, allies and ‘pragmatic’ partners on the one hand, and to enemies and not very important countries on the other. It was this way before World War II, after it, and it is the same way now,” Motyl told The Day. “And that is because even democratic countries create their foreign policy in contradiction to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. For the most part, they are guided by sober, cold-blooded interests. Stalin was an ally, therefore it would be better not to say anything about Katyn. Chechen War is criminal, and everyone knows it, but oil and gas are important, therefore, it is better to remain silent. We can go on and on with examples. By the way, it is worth mentioning that Western countries conceal their own crimes: the Dresden bombing, nuclear explosions over Hiroshima and Nagasaki, etc. On the other hand, despite the cynicism and hypocrisy, the Western democracies at least feel some shame for their actions, thus knowingly admitting to their hypocrisy. While dictators do not even feel shame.”

A vivid confirmation of this idea is what happened in Yugoslavia: the West punished Milosevic for the stir up of ethnic war. However, Russia, which also was at war, but with Chechnya, avoided the punishment. “It is clear they could not treat Russia the way they treated Yugoslavia, because it is a nuclear state and the Western countries are just afraid of it. Recent information on the Katyn Massacre is a reminder of this,” summarizes Shcherbak.

However, living permanently with an outstretched hand and waiting for help from Uncle Sam or someone else is not a way out. Only the building of a truly democratic and open state with strong institutions and the rule of law will bring Ukraine back on the path, which it abandoned a long time ago, and still cannot find. Otherwise, who will protect us from another twist of history? Who but ourselves? It is not without a reason that people say that if you do not help yourself, no one else will.