Documents as weapons: secret police files in Communist and post-Communist Romania

Abstract

PurposeThis study examined dossiers of informative pursual (DIPs), a particular type of secret police files, before and after the fall of Communism in Romania. These DIPs were often weaponized against citizens perceived to be anti-government.Design/methodology/approachBased on Buckland's (2017) concept of a document as an object with physical, mental and social parts, the study used thematic analysis to examine volumes of DIPs from 1945 to 1989 Communist Romania as well as several recorded reactions to the DIPs by the victims who were targeted by the Communist secret police.FindingsFour themes were revealed by the study's findings and discussed within the manuscript: DIPs as unreliable epistemic tools, DIPs as tools to construct the identity of the “People's Enemy,” DIPs as weapons to fight the “People's Enemy” and DIPs as tools that could be used in counterattacks during post-Communism, including in political-economic blackmailing.Research limitations/implicationsThere are two major limitations to research of DIPs. First, since many DIPs have been stolen, copied illicitly or even destroyed, it is difficult to articulate precisely their actual or potential social and political effects. Researchers may often detect these effects only indirectly, based on information leaks in the news. Second, many victims of surveillance practices during the Communist period have chosen not to leave records of their reactions to reading the DIPs that targeted them.Social implicationsCurrent and future comprehensive studies of DIPs can reveal possible parallels between surveillance by the Communist regime and the massive data-collection that occurs in democratic societies, particularly given the increased technical capabilities for processing data in these democratic societies.Originality/valueWithin documentation studies, secret police files and document weaponization have been particularly under-researched, therefore this study contributes to a small body of literature.