State Security (StB)

Jan Koura - Mehdi Ben Barka and the interpretation of his cooperation with Czechoslovak intelligence
Abstract

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.

Michal Zourek - Czechoslovak State Security (StB) residency (intelligence station) in Montevideo 1961–1977: Reflection on the collaboration of the prominent Latin American agent Vivian Trías
Abstract

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.

Adam Havlík - “I request issuing of an absolute ban.” Foreign Press Department of the Czechoslovak Federal Ministry of the Interior
Abstract

The paper deals with the topic of one particular department of the Czechoslovak Federal Ministry of Interior (FMV), which was in charge of the control over the foreign press in the 1970s and 1980s. This included foreign magazines, officially ordered by the Czechoslovak state but also individually imported press or books. The foreign press and the dissemination of the information contained in it posed a potential risk to the ruling Czechoslovak Communist Party (KSČ), and therefore its import was subject to a relatively strict control. As part of the State Security (StB), the so‑called Foreign Press Department (OZT) supervised printed matter imported into the country. Among other things, his employees worked undercover at post offices, where they inspected packages with foreign magazines and books and removed „suspicious“ titles from circulation. They thus participated in censoring and directing the flow of information so that it was in line with the Communist Party’s ideas. The study focuses on the mechanisms on which the everyday work of the department was based. At the same time, it follows the personnel and the social profile of those who participated in its operation.

Milan Bárta - A remedy for all the lacks? Study‑analytical work in the Ministry of the Interior in the 1960s
Abstract

In context of the social development in communist Czechoslovakia, voices calling for the need for fundamental reforms also began to be heard in the security apparatus in the mid-1960s. Following the example of the Soviet Union and according to the instructions of the Czechoslovak Communist Party (KSČ) leadership, a study‑analytical group was established in 1963 in the Ministry of the Interior, which was expanded to the Study Department in 1966 and to the Study Institute during the Prague Spring in early August 1968. It brought together highly educated workers who maintained contacts with reformists in the ranks of the Communist Party. Against the leadership of the Ministry of the Interior and the State Security (StB), defending the continuation of the tendencies of the strictly repressive component following the 1950s, they advocated the modernization of the ministry, where the State Security would significantly reduce its activities, especially against Czechoslovak citizens. The conflict culminated in 1968 during the Prague Spring, when Josef Pavel became Minister of the Interior. The reforms prepared by the Study Institute were to become a new program for the reorganization of the security apparatus. The subsequent entry of the troops of the five states of the Warsaw Pact into Czechoslovakia in August 1968 definitively resolved that the security forces, and in particular the StB, would remain the mainstay of the regime, still associated primarily with repression against internal opponents.

Eva Vybíralová - Revanchists or Pioneers of Reconciliation? Ackermann‑Gemeinde and its Support for the Roman Catholic Church in Czechoslovakia during the Communist Era
Abstract

The study discusses the various forms of material and other assistance that the members and friends of the Ackermann‑Gemeinde civic association extended to Czech Roman Catholics for decades. They would mostly send hundreds of parcels with targeted help (selected books, dried fruits, medications, money, etc.), cars for priests, finance for refurbishing church buildings in the borderland, gifts for ordinees, etc. The study also focuses on the attention that State Security (StB) paid to the organisation, in particular to its representatives, Adolf Kunzmann (operation “Revanš/ Revenge”) and Franz Olbert (operation “Náhradník/Substitute”). As part of the operation, StB interrogated dozens of priests and active laypeople in the 1970s. Among other sources, the study draws on documents from the Ackermann‑Gemeinde archive in Munich and selected StB files deposited in the Security Services Archive in Prague. In addition, several persons on both sides were interviewed for the study.

Stanislav Polnar - Unauthorised Desertion of the Republic in the Context of Security Law
Abstract

The communist coup in 1948 brought a pivotal change in Czechoslovakia’s legal policy related to the possibility of leaving the country freely. The Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (KSČ) did not understand this option as a matter of a free citizen’s choice – in contrast, it considered the maximum possible restriction of this principal human right to be a principal interest of the society. The reasons stemmed from ideological, security and economic considerations. Without a doubt, the political stance of the Soviet Union – which took a resolutely negative stance to the option of leaving one’s home country – played a role as well. All of the factors eventually showed in the legal policy, legislation and the application of law by Czechoslovak authorities. First, it was the matter of passport and emigration agenda, with the unusual involvement of security authorities including the State Security (StB). This institutional measure opened up the opportunity for transferring cases from administrative to penal law. After 1948, penal regulations treated unauthorised desertion of the republic as a crime against the country, rather than as an administrative offence. Logically, investigation was on the agenda of StB. The socialist security law also de‑ fined the modus operandi of the Czechoslovak national border. It gave broad authorisations to the Border Guard including the use of firearms on citizens leaving the country without authorisation. By the same token, the border was “secured” using equipment that actually killed hundreds of people. Not all of the successful émigrés stayed abroad permanently. Some of them came back to Czechoslovakia for various reasons, exposing themselves to penal repression and permanent police surveillance. The state tried to attract émigrés back using periodical campaigns promising them no punishment under amnesty. The great majority of the people who left in 1948 and 1968 did not avail themselves of this apparent act of good will, staying abroad permanently. Then, the regime at least seized the property they left behind. In effect, attempts at leaving the socialist Czechoslovakia were acts of civic courage that involved many severe consequences, and as such they deserve admiration.

Pavel Žáček - The Emergency Security Measures and “Operation Student”: An Overview of the Activities of SNB Units and Troops of the Ministry of the Interior on November 17, 1989
Abstract

The intervention by the communist security forces on November 17, 1989, as part of an emergency security operation and the security measures codenamed “Student”, carried out in the centre of Prague and especially on Národní Street was to become a milestone in modern Czechoslovak history. The operation, whose objective was to prevent the student demonstration from moving to the centre of the capital, was   led by the Head Commander of the Municipal Directorate of the National Security Corps, Colonel JUDr. Michal Danišovič, and the main public order unit was the Trainee Emergency Brigade under the command of Major Bedřich Houbal, complemented by forces from the Special Purposes Section, State Security officers, four reserves from the local District National Corps Offices and other support and auxiliary units. As a reserve unit, which eventually played a key role in controlling the movement of the demonstrators and the operation as a whole, there was a professional operation unit – the Public Security Emergency Regiment under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Břetislav Zdráhala. Both units surrounded the core of the demonstrators on Národní Street, pushing them from both sides after a brutal intervention and the deployment of two armoured vehicles and eventually forcing them into a side street and scattering them. A dramatic role in this was played by members of the anti-terrorist squad headed by Major Petr Šesták who, in cooperation with secret police officers, selected individuals from among the demonstrators and, like the intervention squad members, brutally beat them with batons in the archway of Kaňkův Palace. The dis- proportionately harsh response by the security forces gradually led to the downfall of the communist totalitarian regime in Czechoslovakia.