Security Service (SB)

Origins

A decree of 1954 created the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Committee for Public Security attached to the Council of Ministers. By an Act of 13 November 1956 the Committee was merged into the Ministry of Internal Affairs; Order No. 3/56 of 28 November 1956 concerned the merger and the new tasks of SB officers, and Council of Ministers Resolution No. 781/56 of 13 December 1956 gave the Ministry its organisational statute.³

The SB in the 1983 Act

The Act of 14 July 1983 provided that the Minister of the Interior performed his tasks with the help of the Security Service, the Citizens' Militia (MO), subordinate military units and the fire service (Article 5(1)). Protecting state security and public order was the fundamental duty of the SB and the MO (Article 5(2)); the minister's responsibilities included combating espionage, terrorism, subversion and sabotage (Article 2(1)(1)).⁴

The SB and the MO carried out operational and reconnaissance, investigative, and administrative and legal activities (Article 6(1)). The Act granted powers including identity checks, detention and search (Article 7) and the use of coercive measures (Articles 8–9); SB officers were covered by the rules on service and pensions of the MO (Article 20).⁴

Structure and the concept of the SB

A collection of IPN studies edited by A. Jusupović and R. Leśkiewicz (2013) examines the meaning of the term “Służba Bezpieczeństwa” (Security Service) in the 2006 Lustration Act; the authors point out that the units of the SB are defined by lower-ranking legal acts. The Lustration Act lists, among the state security organs, the central institutions of the SB of the Ministry of Internal Affairs together with their regional units (Article 2(1)).^5,6

In August 1989 Departments III, IV, V and VI and the SB Research Bureau were transformed into the Department for the Protection of the Constitutional Order of the State, the Department for the Protection of the Economy and the Department of Studies and Analyses.³

Foreign intelligence was the domain of Department I of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, which had its own categories of collaborators; the SB's domestic branches worked with secret collaborators.^7,8

The case of Father Jerzy Popiełuszko

On 19 October 1984 Father Jerzy Popiełuszko, chaplain of “Solidarity”, was murdered by officers of Department IV of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, which was responsible for combating the Church: Grzegorz Piotrowski, Leszek Pękala and Waldemar Chmielewski. The department's deputy director, Colonel Adam Pietruszka, was convicted of incitement. At the Toruń trial in 1985 the court handed down sentences of 14 to 25 years in prison.⁹

Dissolution

Ministry of Internal Affairs Order No. 043/90 of 10 May 1990 ended the activities of the SB. The Act of 6 April 1990 on the UOP provided that the SB would be dissolved upon the creation of the Office (Article 129(1)). Council of Ministers Resolution No. 69 of 21 May 1990 set out the procedure for vetting former SB officers for service in the UOP, the Police and the Ministry of Internal Affairs (see UOP).^2,3,10