In the Soviet Union, the future was always certain; only the past could change without notice. The signal that it had changed was often the publication of a pseudo-scholarly article that denounced the "falsifications" of the existing version of history.
Here we go again. Recently Col. Sergei Kovalev, director of the scientific research department at the Institute of Military History, published an article on the Web site of the Russian Ministry of Defense titled "Fictions and Falsifications in Evaluating the USSR's Role On the Eve of the Second World War." He says it was the Poles who started the war in 1939, not the Nazis.
The British and the French were to blame too, because earlier in 1939 they guaranteed Poland's independence if it stood up to Hitler's demands. That gave the Poles "delusions of grandeur," unfortunately, and misled them into rebuffing Germany's "very modest" requests.
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