Razem czy osobno: próba „organicznego połączenia” wywiadów Polski Ludowej w latach 1947–1950

Abstract

Together or Apart: an Attempt at an ”Organic Union” of the Intelligence Services of People’s Poland in 1947–1950 The Intelligence Services of People’s Poland were established in the summer of 1945 and modelled on their Soviet counterparts i.e. they comprised two separate entities: military (Second Department of the General Staff) and civilian (Second Special Department of the Ministry of Public Security). A year later, however, Waclaw Komar, head of the Second Department, proposed to recognise Army monopoly of all Intelligence activity. In July 1947 this notion was partly implemented as a “personal union” and Komar was entrusted with the Services while retaining their organisational distinctness. Since at the time both Soviet Intelligence Services became united within the newly established Information Committee of the Council or Ministers, there are premises for assuming that the authorities in Warsaw partially copied the decisions made in Moscow. The symbiosis of the Intelligence institutions of the Ministry of Public Security and the General Staff considerably stimulated their activity and assisted the modernisation of operational and analytical work. Nonetheless, the middle of 1949 – when a battle was waged against the “internal enemy” and the “rightist–nationalist deviation” – witnessed the initiation of the disassembly of the existing configuration, starting with a purge of the personnel, which ended formally on 22 June 1950 with the dismissal of Komar from his office in the Ministry of Public Security. At the same time, a reversal from the conception of a uniform Intelligence Service took place also in Moscow, though the reasons for the changes differed from those in Poland. The episode of the creation and dissolution of an ‘’Intelligence community” under the aegis of General Komar is interesting not only from the point of view of the history of Polish Intelligence, but also as a fragment of the political history of the period. The article is based on extensive archival studies and the rather modest literature on the topic (W. Bagienski, S. Cenckiewicz, Z. Siemiątkowski, Ch. Andrew).