Federacja jako zagrożenie. Działania wywiadu PRL wobec polskich federalistów na Zachodzie po II wojnie światowej
Federation as a Threat. The Operation of the Intelligence of the Polish People’s Republic against Polish Federalists in the West

Summary/Abstract: The issues concerning the unification of Europe, especially its central and eastern parts, occupied a central place in debates of émigré circles from the Second World War – starting from the Polish-Czechoslovak confederation and federal clubs and ending with the participation in the initiatives on behalf of the European Federation. Poles among others actively participated in the European Movement, International Peasant Union, Christian Democratic Union of Central Europe, Assembly of Captive European Nations (ACEN), they established the Polish Federalists’ Association (Związek Polskich Federalistów – ZPF), connected to the Polish Freedom Movement ‘Independence and Democracy’ and affiliated to the European Union of Federalists. For the security apparatus of the communist Poland both the emigration and the federalist initiatives posed a threat. First of all, it was the consequence of the Moscow’s attitude. Next, the authorities in Warsaw aimed at liquidating any connections between the state and the emigration due to their platform by discrediting the latter among others by stressing the relations with foreign intelligence services and accusing them of engaging in agent network operations and ideological sabotage. Still, the direct actions against the circle of federalists were not carried out for a long time. It was among others conditioned by weak reconnaissance of the potential of specifi c émigré organizations. Especially at the turn of the 1940s and 1950s the diffi culties also resulted from internal changes in the functioning of the civil and military intelligence of the communist Poland. Starting with the so-called second repatriation action (1955–1956), and ending with the guidelines of the Vice-Minister of Internal Affairs, Mieczysław Moczar of 1958 one may see that the understanding of and the knowledge about the apparatus as far as emigration structures and functioning are concerned were better and better. It gave a stimulus fi rst to keep under surveillance singular federalists (among others Zbigniew Rapacki, Tadeusz Parczewski, Jerzy Jankowski), and in 1968 also the Polish Federalists’ Association (existing from 1949!). It was a paradox that it was a decadent period of the organized activities of federalists in emigration – out of the structures operating in Great Britain, the USA and France the latter were in the best condition, the rest of them were, in fact, non-existent or their activities were very limited. No wonder that the case of the ZPF was closed very quickly – just within two years. The actions of exposing particular persons were carried out a little bit longer but they were also stopped in the first half of the seventies.

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