A Russian court on Tuesday threw out a libel case brought by Soviet dictator Josef Stalin’s grandson against state archives for publicizing documents showing the dictator had ordered the execution of Polish officers in 1940.
Yevgeny Dzhugashvili, who lost previous lawsuits against a liberal radio station and a newspaper for saying Stalin murdered innocents, wanted 10 million rubles (US$322,300) in moral damages from Russia’s Federal Archive Service, or Rosarchiv.
PHOTOS
In April, Rosarchiv published scanned photos of several documents on its Web site including a March 5, 1940, note from the head of the NKVD secret police, Lavrenty Beria — signed by Stalin and three other members of the Soviet Politburo — ordering the execution of Polish “nationalists and counter-revolutionaries.”
The published documents on the massacre in the Katyn forest in western Russia and their contents had been known to historians, politicians and families of those killed since the early 1990s, but it was the first time most Russians were able to see the scanned originals.
Dzhugashvili had claimed the documents were faked, and wanted Stalin’s name removed from them.
Dzhugashvili was not in court on Tuesday, but three elderly women who came to support him — one wearing a Stalin pin on her chest — sat silently in the courtroom.
PUBLICATION
The publication, seen as a sign that long-standing tension between Russia and Poland was easing, came after the April 10 plane crash that killed then-Polish president Lech Kaczynski.
He died along with his wife and 94 officials en route to a ceremony marking the Katyn massacre of 22,000 Polish officers and intellectuals.
Rights activists praised the documents’ publication, which came amid emotional debate over Stalin’s legacy as Russia prepared to celebrate the 65th anniversary of victory over Nazi Germany in World War II.
Like many Russians, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, a former KGB officer, has said Stalin deserves credit for the industrialization of the Soviet Union and its victory in the war, but has criticized his vast purges of opponents. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has condemned Stalin’s rule.
Western historians estimate that 30 million to 60 million people died in Soviet gulag labor camps, in executions and during famine under Stalin.
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