On "The Mystery of the Katyn Massacre " By Grover Furr

I was anxiously waiting for the publication of the book to see how Grover Furr was going to deal with this "mission impossible" task of studying and concluding the "Katyn Massacre" issue.

We are living in an era where "objectivity" is a myth that more often  influenced by` subjectivity, professionally fabricated evidences and falsified facts. "Objectivity " has become so subjective where the writer does not hesitate to make claims  against his or her ideological belief just to make him/herself sound "objective". We witness this type of "subjective-objectivity", "fashionably", in claims of "mistakes" made by Lenin and Stalin. Especially, if the given issue, somehow is correlated with the ethnicity, ethnic subjectivity overshadows the assessments made by Lenin and Stalin. Writer, in order to make his/her unsupported assessment to look "objective"- fitting his/her subjectivity which coincides with that of reactionaries - do not hesitate to make claims that  Lenin and Stalin and all others were wrong at "the given issue". Since that is not expected of the writer, it is easily accepted as "objective". In other words, the issues are studied from the subjective point of view disregarding the facts and evidences, and going backwards to prove or disprove,  rather than starting from the facts and  evidences towards the conclusion. Preset mind and subjectivity on the conclusion "determines",  more like "justifies" the conclusion fitting their subjectivity, and  thus subjectivity dominates the process of study.Grover Furr , in this sense, and academically,  has an "unusual", better to say uncommon, unquestionably objective  method , - in his words " the method of a detective". An approach which is not concentrated on "who is guilty", but to find out the truth  about the "guilt" , through the study of all available evidences, and let the conclusion of this process; let the "truth determine the guilty" part. 

I thought it was an "impossible mission" because both German and Gorbachev's Soviet "official versions" have been widely accepted, although by the left, with some reservations and still with suspicion. Grover Furr has taken up a task where  there were very little primary source evidence and the so called "top secret" evidence supplied by Gorbachev Government  was most likely "fabricated"  in part and forged , falsified as a whole. 

Furr states that all the evidence related to his study is from The German report, The Soviet Burdenko Commission report, " Closed Packet No 1 by Gorbachev, Archaeological report on excavation at the mass murder site. " The only way to arrive at the truth in any investigation" says Furr, " is to proceed with objectivity. it is impermissible to allow one's own preferences or preconceived ideas to interfere with the search for the truth. Therefore we must be determined from the start to treat Katyn like an unsolved mystery."

Unlike the common practice of treating the "evidence" supporting the predetermined conclusion generously but the "contrary" evidence skeptically, Furr states: 

" We have to work out a method of looking with particular skepticism upon evidence that tends to support our own prejudices and preconceived ideas. We also need to give especially generous consideration to any evidence that tends to contradict our own prejudice and preconceived ideas"

And he states that : " Virtually all the purported research on Katyn , including every one of the book-length academic studies in all languages, is guilty of exactly this failure. Their authors make no attempt to be objective. Instead they misinterpret some evidence and ignore other evidence in an attempt to bolster their own preconceived idea; that the Soviets were the guilty party." 

Furr notes that his book is not to review the history of the Katyn issue but limit the task " to solve the Katyn mystery and to determine, on the basis of the evidence now available, who was the responsible party: the Soviets or Germans".

Since " the only evidence that cannot possibly have been faked is worthy of our attention" Furr  sets the first task to find out if "there are any  primary source evidence that cannot possibly have been fabricated, forged, or faked." "to determine whether any such evidence exists " says Furr, " all the documents in collection A through D must be carefully studied" 

 After studying , Furr comes to the conclusion that " primary-source evidence that cannot have been faked does exist."\\He categorize these as : evidences those " found in  a source which the authors of that source would never have fabricated because the evidence appears to contradict their bias." and those " cited by a source before its authors recognized the significance of that evidence for its own position on the Katyn matter." 

Studying these evidence  that cannot have been faked, using the "detective method" one by one in his book, Furr brings out the truth, the truth that determines the "guilty " part.

It is a  must read book to understand how the history is falsified, re-written and concurred in a way that serves the interests of bourgeois ideology. A must read book especially by students of Journalism, investigative journalism and history as an example of objective approach and the use of " detective method" to a controversial subject.

Erdogan A
September 6, 2018

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