Professor Miriams wrote:

> If this Yu. Mukhin is the same person who wrote
> "Katynskii Detektiv" [Moscow, 1995], then without
> knowing anything else about the matter I would not
> believe a word in your  book. "Katynskii Detektiv" is an
> apologist fairy tale about the Katyn Forest Massacre.

The Katyn massacre affair is hopelessly politicized, with
Cold Warriors and anti-communists loyal to the version
that the Soviets were guilty, and Russian nationalists
and pro-communists just as firmly wedded to the version
that the Nazis did it. I have not witnessed anybody
changing his/her mind in the light of evidence.

The fact, sad or otherwise, is that there is _no_
consensus on the Katyn matter. From where I sit, as a
person who "does not care who did it" but would like to
know, I think there will be no such consensus for decades,
if ever.

Some of my neo-Confederate relatives are still arguing
about the American Civil War, and the _Southern_
"red-shirt" version of events in that conflict, such as
that of the Fort Pillow Massacre in 1864, are "in doubt"
as a result. There's no end to that in sight, and no end
to disagreements over Katyn in sight either.

If anyone _is_ interested in pursuing _all_ the evidence,
however, then Yuri Mukhin has done you a favor, because
his work is a serious, intelligent, prolonged attempt to
refute the "smoking gun" documents published in _Voprosi
Istorii_ 1, 1993 and many places since then, and available
on the web at the main Russian Katyn site
http://katyn.codis.ru. At that site you
may also read the
only serious attempt I know of to refute Mukhin's
criticisms.

I'd like to thank Prof. Miriams for posting the URL for
Mukhin's book _Katynskii Detektiv_, which is freely
available on the web, as he said. The book by Mukhin cited
by the first poster, _Ubiystvo Stalina i Beriya_ is also
free on the web, at

http://www.army.lv/Bibl/CCCP/Muhin/Ubijstvo_Stalina/txt000.html

(and several other places too). Mukhin does not address
the Katyn issue in this book, however.

Mukhin has recently returned to the task of showing up the
case that the Katyn massacres were committed by the Soviets
to be based on forgeries, in _Antirossiiskaya Podlost'_.

Little known outside Russia -- though Mr. Badam's post,
from Turkey, shows that the word is getting out -- Mukhin
has a wide readership in Russia, where many people and not
a few mainstream publications, take his work very
seriously.

Sincerely,

Grover Furr
Montclair SU

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