I undertake voluntarily… - Residents, agents, informers and others. The State Security’s secret collaborators, 1945–1989
I undertake voluntarily… - Residents, agents, informers and others. The State Security’s secret collaborators, 1945–1989

Author(s): Libor Bílek
Subject(s): Government/Political systems, Security and defense, WW II and following years (1940 - 1949), Post-War period (1950 - 1989), History of Communism
Published by: Ústav pro studium totalitních režimů
Keywords: Czechoslovakia; Communist regime; state security; collaborators; agents; informers; police;
Summary/Abstract: All of the world’s intelligence or security services have no doubt used and continue to use secret collaborators. The reason is simple: Frequently it is the only way to acquire necessary information from particular suspicious milieus and closed groups of people believed to be engaged in unlawful activities. The State Security (Státní bezpečnost, StB) – Communist Czechoslovakia’s secret political police – always regarded its network of covert collaborators (which on the Soviet model it dubbed an “agency”) as a very important tool in its work.

• Details
• Contents