Establishment and use of operational groups
of Department II of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the
People’s Republic of Poland, with particular emphasis
on the Operational Group „ODRA” Cover Image

Powstanie i wykorzystanie grup operacyjnych Departamentu II Ministerstwa Spraw Wewnętrznych PRL ze szczególnym uwzględnieniem Grupy Operacyjnej „ODRA”
Establishment and use of operational groups of Department II of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the People’s Republic of Poland, with particular emphasis on the Operational Group „ODRA”

Author(s): Anna Grabowska-Siwiec
Subject(s): Politics / Political Sciences, Recent History (1900 till today), WW II and following years (1940 - 1949), Post-War period (1950 - 1989)
Published by: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Kazimierza Wielkiego
Keywords: intelligence services; counterintelligence; Operational Group; People's Democratic Countries; security

Summary/Abstract: The security of the People's Democracy consisted in stopping the NATO countries' intelligence from influencing the internal situation of individual countries. Countering the enemy's intelligence activity was carried out by civilian counterintelligence - Deparment II of the Interior Ministry. One element of counter-intelligence cooperation was the posting of Operational Groups to the partner country in order to expand the possibility of combating foreign intelligence activities against its own citizens in cooperation with the partner country. The research problem of the article is to define the scope of cooperation with the partner country. The research problem of the article is to define the scope of cooperation of capitalist states and ideological diversion using operational groups. The aim of the article is to present the Operational Groups as an instrument of the counterintelligence services of socialist states to combat the hostile activities of capitalist states. The specific questions concern the purpose and legitimacy of the establishment of operational groups by Department II of the Interior Ministry, with particular regard to the consequences of the establishment , the course of work and the grounds for the termination of the operational group in Bulgaria codenamed "ODRA". In pursuing the objective of the work, a research hypothesis was laid out according to which the functioning of the Operational Groups was an important instrument for deepening cooperation between countries of popular democracy aimed at combating the intelligence activities of capitalist countries. The research was carried out by analysing the content of archival documents collected in the Archives of the Institute of National Remembrance and on the basis of open sources (available scientific articles). In addition, a direct source analysis method, a comparative method and a progressive method were used.

  • Issue Year: 20/2021
  • Issue No: 1
  • Page Range: 160-178
  • Page Count: 19
  • Language: Polish