A planned provocation by the SB against individuals or communities.
Description based on the glossary of the IPN Archival Inventory. According to this glossary, the highest degree of the SB's operational involvement against activity deemed hostile was the case of operational investigation, whose aim was to gain detailed knowledge of that activity and to stop it.1,2
An example from the files: an article by Jacek Wołoszyn in the IPN journal “Pamięć i Sprawiedliwość” (Memory and Justice) describes the “Baca” case, in which a planned operational combination involving the cell agent network in the prison at Wronki failed to achieve the intended results (see TWC).3
A related concept from Western glossaries is the provocateur – according to the International Spy Museum, a person who induces a group to act so that it can then be caught or discredited.4
Sources
- Institute of National Remembrance, IPN archival inventory – Glossary, letter K (in Polish)
- Institute of National Remembrance, IPN archival inventory – Glossary, letter S (in Polish)
- Jacek Wołoszyn, ‘A sharp weapon’ – cell agents. Secret collaborators in prisons and detention centres in 1944–1956, ‘Pamięć i Sprawiedliwość’ 9/2 (16), 2010, pp. 295–337 (in Polish)
- International Spy Museum (Washington, DC), Language of Espionage (glossary)
Checked: 4 November 2026