If USSR had admited about Katyn slaughter earlier?

nova2010

Banned
If USSR had admited about Katyn slaughter earlier? Let's say after Stalin's death in mid-50's and put the whole anathema to Stalin? What the impact?
 
What would be the reasoning? It would do badly for their public relations with the Poles, who were already unhappy as it was.
 
To make Stalin to look bad. "Butcher" "Psychopath" "Traitor of Socialism" etc.

I'm not sure; it would be trivial for anti-Soviet sentiment already present in the east bloc to spin this into the Sovs admitting themselves as murderers. But anyway, assuming they do this anyway, American propagandists have a field day, being able to use the communist party itself as 'evidence' for the USSR being a nation of butchers.
 
As is there were uprisings in Poznan shortly after Khrushchev's "Secret Speech." I would think this admission within it would massively add to that, making a Polish Crisis even larger than the Hungarian Crisis later that year.

IOTL, tensions eased once Gomulka came into power and yielded some minor reforms. In this case I would expect much more would be needed to pacify the people. Eased restrictions on the Roman Catholic church perhaps... Or else, the Soviets double down and destroy the insurrection by massive force, therefore looking hypocritical in censuring Stalin but maintaining his hardline approach and giving loads and loads more political capital for the West to use against them.

And of course, as the Hungarian Uprising was IOTL part due to a need to see similar reforms as Gomulka gave to the Poles, it is not a stretch to see the butterflies influence this as a result. Either Nagy has to give up far more, or possibly there is a massive period of rebellion within the Warsaw Pact.

Either way, DeStalinization just got a bit trickier, at least in 1956... Reasonably likely it is all under control by '58 though.
 
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