Polish and Latvian participation in communist terror

[teg]

First of all I do not make any generalisations and do not blame. But there is is undeniable fact: a huge number of high ranked architects of communist terror were Poles and Latvians. Only few examples:Poles- Dzerzhinsky,Menzhinsky, Kosior (one of organizer of Ukrainian famine from which one of my grandmother s relatives died). Latvians - Peters, Lacis, Eichmans (head of Gulag). In my city Kazan in september 1918 Latvian riflemen executed near 1000. What do modern Poles and Latvians think about the role of their fellows in communist crimes?

[wm]

The names (except Dzerzhinsky) are known only to historians. Their opinions are not much different from the opinions of Russian or Ukrainian historians, I suppose. Those Polish communists did nothing for Poland, there weren't any Khrushchevs among them - so they aren't entitled to any mitigating circumstances.
There were plain, brutal or not communists without adjectives.

But a few names is not huge. Poland was small, and wasn't part of the USSR - it couldn't possibly contribute in any meaningful way to the Soviet nomenclature.

[teg]

I mentioned only the most famous most ill fated and high ranked names. There were other high, medium and minor ranked Poles and Latvians who participated in communist terror. Lots of other can be mentioned.

[teg]

For example the other high ranked officials responsible for my grandmother relative s death were pole Stanislaw Redens and Latvian Druskis

[wm]

This page indeed says that Poles, Jews and Latvians were the backbone of Cheka, and lists ten Poles.
So the question is how many Chekists there were in total. Without knowing this ten maybe a large or a small number.

[David Thompson]

teg -- Your opening post asked:

What do modern Poles and Latvians think about the role of their fellows in communist crimes?

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http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=53962

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