81% of the Russians believe that in 1945, “the Red Army liberated Poland, saving the Poles from extermination by the cost of the lives of the Soviet soldiers”. The Poles had similar attitudes before the PiS, the PO, and, especially, the political officers from the Institute of National Remembrance, started to falsify history. // New survey commissioned by The Center for Polish-Russian Dialogue and Understanding serves, like other centre’s publications, to scare Russia, and now also Russians.
This message is part of the Kremlin’s policy of historical revisionism. It accuses Poland of the “falsification and re-writing” of its history. According to this policy, the Russian official historiography is the only “true” way of interpreting historical events for the countries of Eastern and Central Europe. According to mainstream Polish historians and views of the predominant part of Polish society, in 1944-1945, the USSR occupied Poland, establishing the undemocratic and repressive Communist Poland. De facto, Poland appeared under the Soviet military occupation until 1989, while the Russian troops were withdrawn from Poland only in 1993. The Polish Institute of National Remembrance (IPN) is a Polish government institution in charge of the prosecution, archives, education and lustration, in relation to crimes against the Polish nation. The IPN investigates Nazi and Communist crimes committed between 1917 and 1990, documents its findings and disseminates them to the public. The Russian authorities often accuse the Polish and Ukrainian Institutes of National Remembrance of historical falsifications and anti-Russian activities. See similar cases on how Poland and Ukraine established institutions to lie about history, The Polish Institute of National Remembrance is a gang of spongers and The Polish Institute of National Remembrance is not a historical and scientific institution.