Editorial of 40th issue of Securitas Imperii: Journal for the Study of Modern Dictatorships.

The merging of the police and the SS on the example of the secret state police in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia The study analyses the process of the merging of the SS and the police using the example of the Gestapo serving in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, the aim of which was to create a “state protection force” fully committed to the Nazi regime. In order to understand the overall context, the most important decrees and orders that regulated the process of recruiting officials and employees of the secret state police into the ranks of the SS and straightening their ranks are presented. Their application in practice is then traced through the Gestapo’s Prague and Brno control offices. The study not only seeks to answer the question of the extent to which the Gestapo and the SS were merged in the Protectorate and how many SS officers served in the two offices mentioned, but also whether either office went further in the process of merging than the other.

This study analysis situation in Čáslav district during the years 1949 to 1952/1953. Specifically deals with so‑called časlavský case, which was solved in two phases. At first, the functionaries of the Čáslav district complained about the then Deputy Chief Secretary of the District Committee of Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (DC of CPC) Čáslav Josef Beran, because of his autoritarian behavior. They also spread their complaints among the Čáslav workers and local inhabitans. However, they were punished, instead of Josef Beran. The whole case took a new direction on the year 1951. This change in the case was connected with the arrest of General Secretary of Central Committee (CC) of CPC Rudolf Slánský at the end of the year 1951. After that the search for the „inner ennemies“ escalated in the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia. At the and of the whole case, the original punishments of the Čáslav functionaries were changed, and the Josef Beran was punished on the contrary.

Studie se zabývá problematikou aktivit Ukrajinské povstalecké armády (UPA) a Organizace ukrajinských nacionalistů (OUN) v poválečném Československu (ČSR) v rozmezí let 1945–1946. Uvádí motivace, prostředky, činnost a cíle těchto struktur v ČSR (prováděné zejména formou tzv. propagačních rejdů), vojensko‑politickou reakci československé strany a problémy, s jakými se stát na své východní hranici potýkal. Dále se věnuje spolupráci mezi Československem, Polskem a Sovětským svazem v boji proti ukrajinskému nacionalistickému podzemí. Na základě dostupných pramenů československé, polské a ukrajinské provenience jsou konfrontovány předchozí stav bádání, interpretace dění z dob vlády komunistického režimu a zločiny údajně spáchané „banderovci“ na Slovensku v uvedeném období, zejména v prosinci 1945.

The review article deals with David Svoboda’s monograph Jablko z oceli. Zrod, vývoj a činnost ukrajinského radikálního nacionalismu v letech 1920–1939 (Apple of Steel: The Birth, Development, and Activities of Ukrainian Radical Nationalism in 1920–1939. Academia – Ústav pro studium totalitních režimů, Praha 2021). This extremely comprehensive book on the history of Ukrainian radical nationalism in the interwar period is definitely a pioneering work in the Czech context. The author has made use of a large amount of literature and archival sources, yet he has not avoided several shortcomings, which are the subject of detailed analysis. The author takes an apologetic approach to his topic and defends the Ukrainian nationalists in an undisguised manner. On the contrary, he resigns to set clear research questions. Far from always adhering to strict standards of scholarship, the author’s book is often more akin to a polemical essay. Despite these shortcomings, it is undoubtedly an important contribution to scholarly debate.

Studie s komentovanou edicí dokumentů je věnována sociálně demokratickému novináři, politikovi a funkcionáři Josefu Jonášovi (1920–2002). Tohoto předního činovníka české demokratické komunity ve Vídni 2. poloviny 20. století představuje především v kontextu jeho aktivit v československém sociálně demokratickém exilu po únoru 1948. Text se zaměřuje zejména na období od Jonášova útěku z Československa do přelomu 50. a 60. let. Z té doby také pocházejí čtyři dopisy, které autoři předkládají v komentované edici. Soubor je zajímavý především proto, že přibližuje aktivity Josefa Jonáše v rámci exilu, ozřejmuje pozadí jeho přesunu z Kodaně do Vídně a naznačuje jeho vztahy k dalším výrazným osobám exilového života. Dopisy jsou dochovanou částí korespondence mezi Jonášem a Radomírem Lužou, jenž byl jeho blízkým přítelem a exilovým spolupracovníkem. V roce 1960 se Luža z New Yorku přesunul za Jonášem do Vídně a strávil tam s rodinou šest let. Zatímco Radomír Luža je již historikům čs. exilu (nejen skrze jeho autorské práce) dobře znám, osobnost Josefa Jonáše je v rámci studií exilu dlouhodobě přehlížena (vyjma souvislostí s exilovými aktivitami Bohumila Laušmana). Jeho činnost nejen v rámci sociálně demokratického exilu, ale i v širším kontextu (spoluzakladatel a člen redakční rady časopisu Svědectví, člen Rady svobodného Československa, Československého poradního sboru v západní Evropě aj.) ukazuje, že tato osobnost rozhodně není bez významu a zaslouží si vědeckou pozornost.

The article is dedicated to the analysis of the activities of the Czechoslovak State Security (StB) rezidentura (intelligence station) in Montevideo, Uruguay, between 1961 and 1977. Its establishment was a consequence of the growing political ties between the Soviet Union and Cuba, in which Czechoslovakia played an important role as a mediator. As in the case of other Latin American rezidenturas, the StB’s activities in Uruguay focused mainly on weakening US influence in the region. The rezidentura managed to make several important contacts from the government parties, but in the long run the cooperation with the Socialist Party proved to be the most effective, even though its political influence was very limited. In particular, the role of Vivian Trías, a prominent socialist politician and intellectual who became a long-standing and extremely efficient agent of Czechoslovak intelligence, was crucial. Despite ideological differences, both parties shared an opposition to US imperialism, and most of the 35 active measures in which Trías participated were oriented in that direction. Through a critical analysis of the Trías case, the text presents the objectives and mechanisms of the Czechoslovak secret services’ work in Latin America. At the same time, however, it also points out certain limitations of the archival documents that make it very difficult to interpret its secret collaboration with StB.

Mehdi Ben Barka (1920–1965), a prominent representative of the Moroccan opposition and anti‑colonial movement, who was kidnapped in Paris in October 1965 under unknown circumstances and whose body has not been found to this day, was a frequent visitor to socialist Czechoslovakia in the first half of the 1960s. He was repeatedly travelling to the other side of the Iron Curtain to maintain his collaboration with Czechoslovak intelligence (State Security, StB), with whose he made first contact through the Residentura in Paris in 1960. Although the details and development of this cooperation are now known thanks to the declassification of the relevant documents, it is still inadequately answered what circumstances and motives led the Moroccan politician to maintain his connection with the StB. The article, based on a study of the extensive files that the First Directorate (Intelligence) of StB kept on Mehdi Ben Barka and other relevant sources, attempts to seek an answer to this question, which will be pursued along three different interpretive levels. The emphasis will be placed not only on the changing political situation in Morocco and the Maghreb, but also on the overall context of the Cold War and developments within the anti‑colonial movement in the 1960s.