consultant (SB)

A paid SB collaborator with academic or professional expertise who prepared expert opinions.

Description based on the glossary of the IPN Archival Inventory.¹

According to the IPN glossary, a consultant's file contained material on establishing the contact, the recruitment plan, a pledge of secrecy, receipts for payments, and the consultant's analyses and reports. Unlike TW files, it was not divided into a personal file and a work file; it was archived in the register marked I (1970 instruction, § 20).²

The consultant form was sometimes used instead of recruitment as a TW: according to the IPN, recruiting PZPR members required the consent of the secretary of the provincial committee or of the Central Committee, so contact with them was often maintained as a KO, a KS or a consultant. The concept of collaboration within the meaning of the Lustration Act is defined separately in its Article 3a.^2,3