ON SOVIET DISINFORMATION ABOUT SEPTEMBER 17, 1939
Pilecki Institute
The panelists were Dr. Maria Domańska, former diplomat, former head of the Political Section at the Embassy of the Republic of Poland in Moscow, and an analyst and deputy head of the Russian Department at the Centre for Eastern Studies (OSW); Prof. Andrzej Zawistowski, a historian and education specialist, professor at the Pilecki Institute, and vice-rector of the SGH Warsaw School of Economics; and Dr. hab. Damian Markowski, a historian and Sovietologist, professor at the Pilecki Institute, and head of the Institute’s Department for Research on Soviet Occupation and Communism.
The debate was moderated by Dr. Paweł Sasanka, a historian of communism in the second half of the 20th century and assistant professor at the Pilecki Institute’s Centre for Totalitarian Studies.
Dr. Domańska observed that the narrative about the September 17 attack on Poland is subordinated to the theme of the Great Patriotic War and the 1945 victory, which serves as a founding myth of sorts for Putinism: “To put it in general terms, today’s Russia is, to a large extent, returning to Soviet narratives about that period. In Putin’s vision, Russia is meant to return to that high point of its lost glory. And of course, the narrative about September 17, together with all the related narratives about that period, is today embedded in Russia’s systemic conflict with the West. If we look at the aims and components of this narrative about September 17, we see a great many similarities to the narrative about Ukraine today.”
In the OSW expert’s view, the Russian narrative sustains the image of an empire under constant threat, compelled to regain lost territories and to seek security by expanding its “strategic depth”. Russia presents itself as “a good empire that only ever liberated, never wanted war, always wanted peace, was never aggressive, and came to the rescue,” the former diplomat emphasized.
“This is a kind of permanent myth of innocence, a myth of victimhood,
a messianic myth. It goes hand in hand with whitewashing repression, or leaving out altogether the repression that accompanied the attack on Poland and the occupation of Poland from September 17 onward—and also today’s occupation of Ukraine,” Dr. Domańska added.
Prof. Andrzej Zawistowski pointed out that Russia is not the only country that directly invokes the legacy of the Soviet Union; Belarus does so as well. In Belarus, this is particularly evident in the narrative that presents September 17, 1939, as the “unification of Belarusian lands” and liberation from Polish oppression. “It is exactly the same name as that of the Russian holiday celebrated in November, which commemorates the expulsion of the Poles from the Kremlin,” the historian noted.
“In Belarus’s domestic policy, Poland is enemy number one, because it meets all the criteria of an enemy. First, it is
a member of NATO; second, it is a part of the West; third, it is a state that once encompassed part of Belarus’s territory; and fourth, it has its own people there in the form of a national minority in Belarus,” the Pilecki Institute professor said, listing the reasons.
Dr. hab. Markowski agreed that contemporary Russia is returning to the Soviet Union’s narrative. “My impression is that when the propaganda of the Russian Federation speaks about history, it constantly invokes the myth of a supposed historical justice, delivered through various actions of the Soviet Union, of Stalin, and of the NKVD and NKGB—bodies that have been gradually rehabilitated over well more than a decade. There are, of course, references to the alleged Hitler–Piłsudski pact, which was in fact
a non-aggression pact. False narratives also keep resurfacing about Poland’s role in the partition of Czechoslovakia in 1938—the so-called Munich collusion—as does the theme of Second Polish Republic’s alleged preparations for an armed attack on the Soviet Union.”
Prof. Markowski drew on his experience in the Polish-Ukrainian group working to counter Russian disinformation: “Just imagine: every day, as many as several hundred flashpoints of various kinds containing disinformation find their way into online discussions between Poles and Ukrainians—some more productive than others—including discussions on historical topics.”
He added: “We live in the world of ChatGPT. Today it is very easy—even if you are no great computer genius—to create
a fake photograph purporting to show, for example, events connected with the Second World War. . . . This shows the kind of disinformation challenges we are facing now and will continue to face in the near future.”
The discussion went on to address the effectiveness of Russian and Belarusian politics of memory, Russians’ attitudes toward the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact, and changes in the Ukrainian narrative about September 17, 1939.
To mark the anniversary of the Soviet aggression against Poland on September 17, 1939, the Pilecki Institute held an expert debate on the propaganda mechanisms that accompanied the Soviet Union’s armed attack on Poland, and on how those mechanisms continue in the policies of the Russian Federation today.
20