There is often a temptation among the more politically naïve of us to deplore our government’s sidling up to countries with questionable human rights records. In the past, Pinochet’s Chile was am example.  Currently I could cite Saudi Arabia or even China.

Well, set yourselves back 70 years to an issue which could have resulted in the world hegemony of German Nazism today.  The story of the KKK.

During the German advance on the USSR in 1943 a mass grave was discovered in the forests of Katyn, a small town near Smolensk  in Russia.  Conclusive evidence determined that this grave, along with two others soon to be discovered at Kharkov and Kalinin, contained the bodies of missing Polish army officers and other members from the hierarchy of Polish society – doctors, academics, writers, engineers.  Estimates put the number of bodies at 22,000.

We must extinguish the spark of

Katyn, Kalinin and Kharkov

Equally conclusive evidence pointed to their executions being perpetrated by the Soviets during their earlier advance into Eastern Poland. 

The London-based Polish Government in Exile was outraged by the discovery and demanded action of the British Government. Britain, at the time, was forging a new-found alliance with the USA and the USSR – the tete-a-tete-a-tete of Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin.

We shall not dwell on this sin

Kalinin, Kharkov, Katyn

Although Britain and the USA knew the truth, Stalin denied the allegations and the lie was the official Soviet stance until Gorbachev told the truth 50 years later. But both Britain and the USA sold their Polish allies down the river in favour of maintaining cordial relations with their new-found Eastern ally and it was swept under the carpet.  To use Churchill’s words, “There is no use prowling morbidly round the three-year-old graves at Smolensk”.

For nothing matters but winning

Katyn and Kharvov, Kalinin

Naysayers of today, had they been there, would no doubt have protested outside Westminster, pointlessly and foolishly.  For if relations with the Kremlin had been jeopardised resulting in the collapse of the Alliance, or even worse, throwing  Moscow towards a second accommodation with Hitler again, who can say whether or not the war would have been won.

Sometimes you have to swallow bitter pills to remedy the ill.