False Dawn: The Failed Reform of the Yugoslav Secret Political Police 1966–1980

(1998). Arturo Bocchini and the Secret Political Police in Fascist Italy. The Historian: Vol. 60, No. 4, pp. 779-793.

From its inception in July 1979, a debate raged in policy and academic circles as to the fundamental political, ideological, and structural nature of the Sandinista regime. The two main intellectual camps fell along these lines: (1) the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) showed signs of traditional Latin American authoritarianism, but had a healthy strain of social democracy within its ranks. If only the U.S.‐sponsored “counterrevolution” would disappear, the Sandinistas would be able to develop their latent pluralism; (2) the FSLN was a Marxist‐Leninist regime, the leadership of which had a clear blueprint for taking and holding power and which sought to construct a Communist Utopia. Although this paper argues that the second line more clearly characterizes the nature of the Sandinista state, it strives to reach a broader understanding of the nature and structure of that state by employing the “Totalitarian” model of analysis first developed by Hannah Arendt in her monumental study “Origins of Totalitarianism.” That model recognized numerous similarities between the regimes of Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, such as a Utopian ideology, a secret political police, a single dictatorial party (and leader), and a compulsion to control all areas of civil society. Having defined Totalitarianism theory, the paper then moves on to examine Sandinista ideology, Sandinista “party” institutions like the “block committees” and the youth group, and the instruments of coercion such as the politicized armed forces and the secret political police. It shows how any and all rivals to the Front's power were penetrated, harassed, and in some cases crushed in order to smooth the way toward the leadership's Leninist Utopia∗ The paper finds that, by adhering to a Utopian ideology, by constructing an elaborate party‐army‐police nexus, and by seeking to penetrate every aspect of life in Nicaragua, the Sandinista regime met the definition of totalitarian and that it fell within the numerous experiments of the 20th century.

The article titled “Navy Court in Gdynia – profiles of selected judges who committed court crimes” is about a history of this court and changes that were being made in the court’s characteristic and the reasons behind these adjustments. Next, the article presents the role of the Navy Court in repressions across the Eastern and West Pomerania. The study also shows the important issue of case law, especially of political trials and death sentences passed. The article discusses a problem of cooperation between the Navy Court, secret political police, the Navy Prosecutor’s Office and the Navy Bar. The range of these institutions’ activities is presented in the study as well as the mechanisms of putting pressure on the Navy Court by secret political police and the Navy’s information office. The article shows the meaning of the Navy Prosecutor’s Office in preliminary proceedings and presents the profiles of some of the most important prosecutors who worked in the Navy Prosecutor’s Office. The main part of the article is devoted to the profiles of judges and associated judges who worked in the Navy Court during the years 1945–1955. Profiles of people that were in charge of the Court have been described in detail. The article shows their influence on ruling and the way they controlled the Navy Court. Furthermore, the study presents the education of twenty judges and associated judges, their ruling activity and further professional life. The career of judges who played the most important role in creating the case law of the Navy Court is presented in a more detailed way. Moreover, an issue of appraising the judges’ activity during their work in the Navy Court is also mentioned in the article.

police in relation to this complaint continually raises concerns about the quality of their investigation , it is interesting to note that they confirm that they have identified a potential “flow of information between Special Branch and the construction industry”. A number of blacklist activists have been refused copies of their own personal police files made under Subject Access Requests on the basis that providing the documents may jeopardise ongoing criminal investigations. It is without doubt that the police and security services are spying on trade unionists fighting for justice on the issue of blacklisting. They have colluded with big business to deliberately target trade unionism over decades. The refusal to provide any information whatsoever smacks of an establishment cover-up. Blacklisting is no longer an industrial relations issue: it is a human rights conspiracy. Protestors assaulted by construction company security Part of the work of the BSG is our campaign to ensure that the role of the multinational construction giants who used the Consulting Association’s services is not forgotten. To further our demands for justice we regularly organise public demonstrations and protests at the offices and major projects of these giant corporations. On 15 October a group of 20 BSG activists attended headquarters of Laing O’Rourke in Dartford where we attempted to distribute leaflets about the role of the construction giant in the Consulting Association blacklisting conspiracy. The photograph reproduced here shows how Laing O’Rourke chose to respond to this peaceful protest. Time for a public inquiry? The BSG is not alone in being concerned by the web of relationships that appears to have facilitated the movement of staff and speakers between major multinationals, the Consulting Association blacklisting operation, independent ‘employment vetting’ services, and the UK’s secret services. It has been confirmed in a Select Committee investigation that the undercover police unit known as the National Extremism Tactical Coordination Unit (‘NETCU’) attended and gave Powerpoint presentations to meetings of the Consulting Association blacklisting organisation. In their rather blunt response the metropolitan police say that the relevant guidance on this issue is simply ‘if asked: is it true that NETCU shared information with the Consulting Association? We do not discuss matters of intelligence’ At least one former NETCU officer now works for an ‘employment vetting’ service . Another senior officer from the unit now The UK’s secret political police are spying on me. I know this because they refuse to provide a copy of my file, even after making appropriate requests by the proper procedure. My ‘crime’ is being a trade unionist INTERNATIONAL union rights Page 20 Volume 21 Issue 4 2014 T he metropolitan police have responded to a request for information about continuing surveillance of workers’ rights activists with the unhelpful posturing that they will ‘neither confirm nor deny’ whether the Blacklist Support Group (‘BSG’) is under surveillance by undercover police units. The statement came in a response to a Freedom of Information request on 9 October 2014 and was sent to investigative journalist Phil Chamberlain. The police chose to justify their stance by quoting Section 24(2) of the Freedom of Information Act, claiming that it was in the ‘public interest’ for them to refuse to ‘confirm or deny in order to safeguard national security ’. But the Act allows them to confirm or deny for public interest reasons. Failing to release information under this provision seems a difficult decision to justify given the huge public interest surrounding the exposure of undercover police surveillance of activists in the UK that has emerged over the past few years. As IUR readers may be aware, we now know that the UK secret State operated an extraordinary web of intrusive surveillance of left and environmental activists, over many years, by officers who insinuated themselves deep into the private and family lives of activists. Posing as activists, these officers formed relationships and fathered children with the activists whom they were secretly monitoring. The destructive impact of this surveillance upon the lives of many peaceful activists, and their children, is slowly emerging, although the secret State appears to be in complete denial about its responsibility for this awful situation. The ‘neither confirm nor deny’ defence which was also adopted by...

During the years of the Polish People's Republic, the secret political police occupied a prominent role. Their mandate was extensive and their influence pervasive. As a result, the transformation of the secret services became a fundamental political and constitutional task following the anti-Communist opposition's assumption of power in 1989. The fate of the secret service's archives and the problems of lustration--the identification of secret collaborators--became part and parcel of this transformation. But in Poland, as elsewhere in the former Soviet bloc, this process was not carried out consistently. Political Conditions The nature of Poland's peaceful social change was undoubtedly the major determinant of the country's future course. The activists of Solidarity had gained power with the June 1989 political victory of the Citizens' Committee bloc. However, even those partially free elections were the result of a settlement arrived at during the Roundtable talks the same year. Offering the presidency to General Wojciech Jaruzelski was also an informal part of this settlement. General Czeslaw Kiszczak, the Minister of Internal Affairs and Jaruzelski's most trusted colleague, was the initiator of the talks as well as the guarantor of the negotiated terms. Since 1956, a civilian entity known as Security Service (SB) had existed within the framework of the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MSW). The SB functioned as a secret political police, simultaneously conducting intelligence and counterintelligence operations. For decades, the SB operated with broad powers, largely free of oversight or restraint. In the 1980s, however, the MSW began to scrutinize the power and reach of the civilian civil services. The result was the enactment of certain legal provisions in an attempt to regulate the SB's activities. (1) Legal rules, however, would end up playing only a minor role in deciding the future of an agency that, by the 1980s, was operating under its own supervision, beholden only to the formal oversight by the Polish United Workers' Party (PZPR). (2) By 1989, the SB had become one of the most important power structures in the Polish state. Most of the SB's 24,000 functionaries were well-trained professionals with logistical support from the governmental administration. The SB's huge archival resources, accumulated throughout the decades, and its network of thousands of secret collaborators (some of them strategically placed within the ranks of the opposition), also constituted major factors in the agency's position of power. The SB's political dominance remained largely unchanged despite the tumultuous events of June 1989. This was ensured by the elevation of General Kiszczak, Jaruzelski's confidante, to a preeminent position in the new, post-Communist political order. During Kiszczak's tenure as Minister of Internal Affairs in the administration of Tadeusz Mazowiecki (July 1989-May 1990), no structural or personnel changes took place in the MSW. Indeed, of all the officials in this branch of government, only Krzysztof Kozlowski, the former deputy editor of the influential Tygodnik Powszechny Catholic weekly, had not held a Communist Party identity card earlier. (Kozlowski would be promoted to Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs in February 1990.) Nor were there any changes in the area of the military special services, which functioned as Administration II of the General Staff of the Polish People's Army (intelligence) and Military Internal Service (WSW, or counterintelligence and military police). Not many people were aware of how often the military special services were used to combat the opposition and to penetrate Polish political circles. But these elements enjoyed a special trust from General Jaruzelski, and General Kiszczak had come from their ranks. A revolution in the special services was certainly hard to accomplish. For many months, even under the new political conditions that prevailed after the summer of 1989, the special services were supervised by the same people that had led them earlier in the struggle against the anti-Communist opposition. …

Racibórz, as a so-called “trophy city”, located within the borders of the Third Reich, was treated by the Soviets with exceptional brutality. First came the organized looting of property, both industrial and private, followed by deliberate arson of the city’s central buildings. The ruined Silesian city was handed over to the Polish authorities only after more than two months under the rule of a Soviet commandant.Deprived of its pre-war fabric of society, Racibórz faced the necessity of rebuilding its demographic potential. Thousands of residents, who had fled westward from December 1944 ahead of the front lines, decided to remain in Germany, settling mostly in the regions of Roth and Leverkusen. Those who returned, realizing the new political realities, either chose to emigrate again or were forcibly expelled. The repopulation of the city took place under entirely new circumstances. The social landscape, previously dominated by the German population, was replaced by a new fabric woven from post-war destinies and traumas. Alongside the native Silesian population, many of whom were widows and orphans and often spoke Polish, the city became home to Poles resettled from the Eastern Borderlands. They came mainly from Sambor, Stanisławów, Chodorów, and Łuck, as well as from other regions of pre-war Poland. Among them there were soldiers of the Home Army, including participants of the Warsaw Uprising, and members of other underground resistance formations. The so-called “Recovered Territories” were seen as a safe haven.Reconstruction began paradoxically with destruction — by demolishing German tenement houses. The building materials were shipped to Warsaw. The authorities noticed with concern the growing closeness between Silesians and settlers from the East, so they built the foundations of the militia and secret political police on battle-tested soldiers of the Polish Army who had fought alongside the Red Army or on members of the communist resistance movement.Adding to the tension was the Polish–Czechoslovak border dispute over Racibórz, Kłodzko, and Głubczyce. The fate of Racibórz, once the Upper Silesian capital, unfolded quite differently from that of Upper Silesian cities incorporated into the reborn Second Polish Republic after 1921 — and the consequences of this are still visible today.

The Ontario election of June 4, 1945, will likely be remembered by historians as the “Gestapo election.” For it was in that election that Edward B. Jolliffe, leader of the official CCF opposition in the legislature, made the remarkable accusation that Premier George Drew was “maintaining in Ontario … a secret political police, a paid government spy organization, a Gestapo to try and keep himself in power.” A provincial Royal Commission was named to investigate Jolliffe's charges. Unfortunately, however, it has been impossible to locate a complete transcript of the Commission's proceedings. It is the purpose of this paper to assess, using the material that is available, the validity of the CCF leader's spectacular accusations.Most observers agreed that Drew's minority Conservative administration would be re-elected in 1945. Yet the CCF was still considered a serious contender. The CCF's opponents certainly did not discount its challenge. Anti-socialist politicians and professional propagandists alike played heavily on the theme that a CCF government would impose a dictatorship on the citizens of Ontario. The CCF's campaign, in contrast, was relatively undramatic initially. Its propaganda centred primarily upon its uncomplicated “Five Star Programme For Ontario,” the five stars representing security on the job, for the farm, the home, health, and nation.

Freethought, anticlericalism and faithlessness have been present in the Romanian lands since the mid-19th century, when the sons of many local boyars returned home after studying in Paris, Berlin, Vienna and other Western European capitals and brought with them new ideas, attitudes and opinions. Anticlericalism and faithlessness took center stage once Romania turned Communist. The Communist Party adopted a virulently antireligious discourse, and religion came under sustained attack from the Communist officials and their propaganda machine, as well as the secret political police. Under the weight of terror, censorship and conformism, Freethought itself was almost extinguished under Communism. Post-Communist democratization allowed Freethought to reestablish itself and gain new supporters, but many Romanians viewed anticlericalism and faithlessness as sad legacies of the Communist dictatorship the country sought to move away from. This chapter identifies several individual and institutional actors important in the history of Freethought, anticlericalism and faithlessness in 20th- and 21st-century Romania. The pioneers of Freethought in that country (Constantin Thiron and Panait Zosin), the pro-church intellectuals who opposed them (Nae Ionescu), Communist officials such as Pintilie Gheorghe and post-Communist activists like Remus Cernea are among the individuals who contributed to the public debate on religion and atheism.

In line with the provisions of the peace treaty with Italy, a large part of the Archdiocese of Gorizia became part of Yugoslavia on 15 September 1947; the same applies to the Diocese of Rijeka and part of the Diocese of Trieste-Koper. Franc Močnik became the apostolic administrator for the Yugoslav part of the dioceses of Gorizia and Trieste-Koper. Even before the annexation, activities of the Church in Zone B under Yugoslav administration had been under close surveillance; violence against priests had started and was further exacerbated after the annexation. Udba, the secret political police, launched an active “differentiation” of the clergy right after the annexation. It collected materials against undesirable priests, starting arrests and trials. Franc Močnik was driven out of the country twice by an incited mob; in 1948, he was succeeded by Mihael Toroš, who first held a different view of the authorities, collaborating with them and being a member of the Cyril-Methodius Society (CMD) at first. After four years, he changed his opinion radically, becoming a harsh critic.

The authors shed light on the organizational structure of the State Security Service in the Socialist Republic of Slovenia based on a systematic analysis of the corresponding preserved archival material kept by the Archives of the Republic of Slovenia. The organizational structure was grounded in the two-phase post-1966 restructuring of the service, following the IV (Brioni) Plenum of the Central Committee of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia. The first phase focused on the adaptation of the work area of the service. The second phase unfolded at the beginning of 1967 and aimed at the rapid establishment of the organizational structure of the Service. In 1969, a new regulation was adopted, which divided the SDV into the service headquarters and seven (after 1970 eight) analytical, technical, and operational departments. The organizational structure established in 1967 and modified and enlarged in 1969 functioned as the structural and operational foundation on which the secret political police in the Slovenian lands operated until Yugoslavia's break-up.

The “Nazi Detective” as Provider of Justice in Post-1990 British and German Crime Fiction: Philip Kerr's <i>The Pale Criminal</i>, Robert Harris's <i>Fatherland</i>, and Richard Birkefeld and Göran Hachmeister's <i>Wer übrig bleibt, hat recht</i>

In the late nineteenth century, France experienced concurrent revolutions in domestic politics and international affairs. Anti-parliamentary, anti-capitalist and anti-Semitic movements corroded the liberal foundations on which the Republican project rested. Meanwhile, France concluded an alliance with its longtime geopolitical and ideological rival, tsarist Russia. This article argues that these two momentous events are genealogically connected. It reconstructs a series of cultural exchanges that began in the 1870s between a small circle of Republican intellectuals and defenders of Russia's autocratic regime. The individuals involved in these exchanges, who worked to render the values of the Republic comprehensible to tsarist loyalists—and vice versa—played an important role in laying the groundwork for the alliance that would emerge in the 1890s. These same circles also found themselves in the vanguard of France's anti-liberal revolution, and not by happenstance. The dialogues that these circles initiated between east and west produced new ideological hybrids that reconciled republicans' traditional commitment to mass political participation with Russian conservatives' aversion to capitalism, individualism, and the parliamentary-constitutional order. This melding of seemingly contradictory agendas provided the intellectual foundations for France's anti-liberal mass politics.

In the post-9/11 climate, the role of Middle Eastern and North African (MENA) states in Europe’s regional security environment and international politics has become more than ever a focus for attention, but remains ill-understood. This book provides a framework for the analysis of Middle Eastern foreign policies in general, and for understanding these states’ relations with Europe in particular. The book fills a gap in the literature on Euro-Middle Eastern relations by adopting a south-to-north perspective, using the tools of Foreign Policy Analysis to examine the determinants of the foreign policies of the MENA states themselves: only thus can one hope to arrive at a genuine understanding of what underlies these states’ evolving policy orientations and behaviour towards Europe. The volume starts by laying out a conceptual framework for analysis, and examining the domestic, regional, and international environments that condition MENA foreign policies. Actual policy output is then systematically investigated through a wide range of country case studies ranging from the Maghreb and the Mashreq to the Gulf and Turkey. Europe is treated throughout both as a target of those foreign policies, and as part of the environment that shapes them. The result of a two-year project sponsored by the European University Institute’s Mediterranean Programme, the book helps bridge the divide between Middle East expertise and the discipline of International Relations. The systematic comparative analysis of MENA states’ foreign policy with special reference to Europe throws new light on questions about ‘Third World’ foreign policy.

This paper represents an extension of the theoretical and empirical research on the strategic aspects of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) in the context of multinational corporations (MNCS). In fact, the purpose of the study is to investigate the relationship between social responsibility and internationalization strategies of multinational enterprises. To this end, we introduce a theoretical model, that connects social responsibility with the internationalization strategies of MNCS. This model consists of the international expansion strategies and global sustainability phases according to the ideological and operational perspectives. The theoretical model is validated through a field survey on a sample of 27 MNCS, belonging to the Sodalitas Foundation and opportunely selected by a systematic sampling procedure. Data collection technique is an semi-structured interview via e-mail to the responsible for internationalization and/or CSR in the sample MNCS. An univariate analysis of collected data is conducted using SPSS 19 software, without excluding a qualitative analysis. The findings verify the research hypotheses and they allow to identify new sustainable internationalization models of MNCS.

: Foreign economic development and prosperity support the national security of the United States by contributing to domestic prosperity, increasing foreign social stability, and reducing the likelihood of armed conflict. While the value of economic and political liberalization may be universally accepted, problems in developing, implementing, and sustaining a consistent development policy to achieve these goals have made that policy elusive. This paper examines the tension between political and economic liberalization, introduces the continuum of legitimate paths toward economic liberalization, and demonstrates the practical use of this continuum as an analytic tool in the case of Slovenia. Finally, it concludes with some general policy recommendations for the United States.