La traducción de la carta de Beria al inglés está realizada en el libro de Anna M. Cienciala, Natalia S. Lebedeva y Wojciech Materski, Katyn. A Crime Without Punishment (Yale University Press, 2002), documento 47, pp. 118-120 con las correspondientes notas, aclaraciones y fuentes. Lo reproduzco aquí como sigue:
Beria Memorandum to Joseph Stalin Proposing the Execution
of the Polish Officers, Gendarmes, Police, Military Settlers, and Others
in the Three Special POW Camps, Along with Those Held in the Prisons
of the Western Regions of Ukraine and Belorussia, Accepted by the Politburo
5 March 1940, Moscow290
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No. 794/B
Top Secret
Central Committee of the All Union Communist Party (b)
To Comrade Stalin
In the USSR NKVD prisoner-of-war camps and prisons of the western
regions of Ukraine and Belorussia, there are at present a large number of
former officers of the Polish Army, former workers in the Polish police and
intelligence organs, members of Polish nationalist c-r parties, participants
in exposed c-r insurgent organizations, refugees, and others. They are all
sworn enemies of Soviet power, filled with hatred for the Soviet system of
government.
Prisoner-of-war officers and police in the camps are attempting to continue
their c-r work and are conducting anti-Soviet agitation. Each one of
them is just waiting to be released in order to be able to enter actively into
the battle against Soviet power.
The NKVD organs in the western oblasts of Ukraine and Belorussia
have exposed several c-r insurgent organizations. In all these c-r organizations,
an active guiding role is played by former officers of the former Polish
Army and former police and gendarmes.291
Among the detained refugees and those who have violated the state border,
a significant number of individuals who are participants in c-r espionage
and insurgent organizations have also been uncovered.292
The prisoner-of-war camps are holding a total (not counting the soldiers
and the NCOs) of 14,736 former officers, officials, landowners, police,
gendarmes, prison guards, [military] settlers, and intelligence agents,
who are more than 97 percent Polish by nationality.
Among them are:
generals, colonels, and lieutenant colonels 295
majors and captains 2,080
lieutenants, 2nd lieutenants, and ensigns 6,049
police officers, junior officers, border guards, and gendarmerie 1,030
rank-and-file police, gendarmes, prison guards,
and intelligence agents 5,138
officials, landowners, priests, and [military] settlers 144
In the prisons of the western oblasts of Ukraine and Belorussia a total of
18,632 arrested people (including 10,685 Poles)293 are being held, including:
former officers 1,207
former police, intelligence agents, and gendarmes 5,141
spies and saboteurs 347
former landowners, factory owners, and officials 465
members of various c-r and insurgent
organizations and of various c-r elements 5,345
refugees 6,127
Based on the fact that they are all hardened, irremediable enemies of Soviet
power, the NKVD USSR believes it is essential:
I. To direct the NKVD USSR to:*
1) examine the cases of the 14,700 former Polish officers, officials,
landowners, police, intelligence agents, gendarmes, [military] settlers, and
prison guards who are now in the prisoner-of-war camps
2) and also examine the cases of those who have been arrested and are
in the prisons of the western oblasts of Ukraine and Belorussia, numbering
11,000, members of various c-r espionage and sabotage organizations,
former landowners, manufacturers, former Polish officers, officials, and
refugees, [and] using the special procedure, apply to them the supreme
punishment, [execution by] shooting.
*The phrase in italics was underlined by hand. Parts I–III of Beria’s memorandum were
used in the decision of the Politburo of the Central Committee as formulated in points I–III,
which were evidently drawn up by Stalin’s secretary; see KD1/217; KDZ1/217.
II. Examine [these] cases without calling in the arrested men and without
presenting [them with] the charges, the decision about the end of the investigation,
or the document of indictment, according to the following
procedure:
a) [examine the cases] against individuals in the prisoner-of-war camps
on the basis of information presented by the USSR NKVD UPV
b) [examine the cases] against individuals who have been arrested on
the basis of information from files presented by the UkSSR NKVD and the
BSSR NKVD
III. Assign the examination of cases and the carrying out of decisions to a
troika [threesome] consisting of Comrades Beria,* Merkulov, Kobulov,†
and Bashtakov (Head of 1st Special Department NKVD USSR).294
USSR People’s Commissar of Internal Affairs
L. Beria‡
* Crossed out by hand in blue pencil.
† “Kobulov” was added by hand after “Merkulov”; both were written above the line in blue
pencil, evidently by Stalin.
‡ On the document, written across the text: “Za” [For] with the signatures “I. V. Stalin, K.
Voroshilov, A. Mikoyan” in blue pencil and “V. Molotov” in regular pencil (page 1).
In the margin, evidently written by Stalin’s secretary: Kalinin—za, Kaganovich—za”
(page 1).
Before point 1: the symbol Z, signifying the beginning of the decision (page 3).
In the margin: “Special folder. USSR NKVD question” (page 3).
Below Beria’s signature on the document, on the left side of page: “Vm Beria. [Implement
Beria].” Below that by hand: “Protocol 13/144.” Below that: “5 March 1940” (page 4 of the
facsimile in KDZ1/216, p. 475; KD1/216, p. 388).
Notes:
290. The date “5.III.40” is written in by hand. KD1/216 gives the date as “earlier
than 5 March 1940,” but KDZ1/216 gives “5 March 1940” (facsimile of document
in both). Natalia Lebedeva sees Beria’s request for lists of prisoners, resulting
in the reports on the nationality of Polish POW officers in the Starobelsk and
Kozelsk camps (28 February 1940, doc. 43) and the number of Polish police and
gendarmes held in NKVD POW camps (2 March 1940, doc. 44), as preparation
for his resolution to have them shot. She therefore dates the Politburo approval of
the resolution earlier than 5 March 1940; see N. S. [Natalia Sergeevna] Lebedeva,
“Proces Podejmo-wania Decyzji Katyn´skiej” [The Decision-Making Process on
Katyn], in Krzysztof Jasiewicz, ed., Europa Nie Prowincjonalna / Non-Provincial
Europe (Warsaw, 2000), p. 1169. The date of 5 March 1940 is generally accepted,
however, because the resolution was summarized in an extract from Protocol no.
13 of the Politburo sessions dated 5 March 1940; KD1/217; KDZ1/217.
291. For NKVD interrogations of Polish officers and civilians arrested for underground
resistance to Soviet authorities in eastern Poland (then, and since 1944,
western Belorussia/Belarus and western Ukraine), see the bilingual Polish-Russian
documentary publication Polskie Podziemie na Terenach Zachodniej Ukrainy i
Zachodniej Bia¬orusi w Latach 1939–1941 / Polskoe Podpolie na Territorii Za-
padnoi Ukrainy i Zapadnoi Belorussii 1939–1941 gg. [The Polish Underground
in the Territories of Western Ukraine and Western Belorussia, 1939–1941], 3
vols., ed. Wiktor Komogorow et al. (Warsaw and Moscow, 2001–2004). Volume
2 contains the interrogations and sometimes also personal depositions by several
high-ranking Polish officers, including Generals Wladyslaw Anders, Marian
Januszajtis-Zegota, and Mieczyslaw Boruta-Spiechowicz; the first became the
commander of the Polish Army, USSR, 1941–1942 (doc. 95), later the Polish 2nd
Corps, and the last two were interrogated by Beria and Merkulov in late October
1940 for participation in creating a Polish division in the Red Army (doc. 91).
There is also a Polish-Ukrainian publication on the Polish underground in eastern
Poland in 1939–1941, but it contains a different set of documents: Polskie Podziemie,
1939–1941/ Polske Pidpillia, 1939–1941, 3 vols., ed. Zuzanna Gajowniczek,
Grzegorz Jakubowski et al. (Warsaw and Kiev, 1998–2004). The NKVD
quickly infiltrated the resistance groups and liquidated all of them by spring
1941.
292. It seems that these prisoners were selected by the NKVD for execution at
the same time as the POWs. Nonpolitical refugees and illegal border-crossers were
deported to the Northeastern labor camps (doc. 45).
293. According to a note dated 9 March 1959, written by Aleksandr Shelepin,
then head of the KGB, for Nikita Khrushchev, head of the CPSU, 7,306 people
were shot in the prisons of western Ukraine and western Belorussia (doc. 110).
294. On Kobulov and Bashtakov, see Biographical Sketches. The text in sections
I–III was the one used in the Politburo resolution of 5 March 1940, point
144, “The Question of NKVD USSR”; see KD1/217; KDZ1/217. Point 144 figured
in the 5 March 1940 Politburo agenda along with the following items: the
construction industry; binocular production; the [Ivan F.] Tevosian Commission
(orders for military goods from Germany); the Supreme Court of the USSR; the
construction of a new sarcophagus for Lenin; and the contracting of suppliers for
military shipyards; see Katyn´: Dokumenty Ludobójstwa (henceforth KDL), trans.
and ed. Wojciech Materski (Warsaw, 1992), no. 8; or Wojciech Materski, ed.,
Katyn´: Documents of Genocide (henceforth KDG) [English edition of KDL by
Ryszard Zelichowski], trans. Jan Kolbowski and Mark Canning (Warsaw, 1993),
no. 3.
Saludos cordiales
JL