| Komitet do spraw Bezpieczeństwa Publicznego | |
.svg) Coat of Arms of thePolish People's Republic used by the agency as its official logo | |
 The agency's headquarters inUjazdów Avenue | |
| Agency overview | |
|---|---|
| Formed | 1954 (1954) |
| Preceding agency | |
| Dissolved | 1956 (1956) |
| Superseding agency | |
| Type | Secret police,Internal Security Corps special purpose military formation also known as interior troops, foreign intelligence,Counterintelligence,border security, criminal investigations |
| Jurisdiction | Poland |
| Headquarters | Warsaw,Polish People's Republic |
| Agency executives |
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| Parent agency | Council of Ministers |
TheCommittee for Public Security at the Council of Ministers (Polish:Komitet do spraw Bezpieczeństwa Publicznego) known in its acronym KdsBP, was collegial supreme body of the state administration of thePolish People's Republic, operating in the years 1954–1956, acting as a special service (comprising intelligence, counterintelligence and political police, and in the years 1955–1956 also military counterintelligence). The name of the institution and its formula was a copy of the name and formula of theKGB USSR, (acronym ofCommittee for State Security under the Council of Ministers of the Soviet Union. According to thelustration law, the KdsBP is considered a state security body.
After the escape to the West of Lieutenant ColonelJózef Światło b. (Izaak Fleischfarb) former deputy director of Department X of theMinistry of Public Security, and after the disclosure inRadio Free Europe broadcasts of his memoirs from his service in the Ministry of Public Security, the then communist authorities – wanting to change the image of an institution hated by society and the entire repressive system – began its reorganization. On December 14, 1954, by decree of theCouncil of State, the Ministry of Public Security was dissolved.[1] The previous Minister of Public Security, Maj. Gen.Stanisław Radkiewicz, was transferred to the position of Minister for State Agricultural Farms. In place of the dissolved MBP, two separate central offices were established to deal with internal and external security: theMinistry of Internal Affairs and the Committee for Public Security.[2] Propaganda publicized these events, although the changes were in reality cosmetic. The competences of the MBP were taken over by the KdsBP, headed byWładysław Dworakowski. All operational, technical-operational and accounting departments of the MBP remained in the committee. It therefore maintained full surveillance and repression capabilities. Several people were removed from prominent positions, but the personal continuity of the MBP-KdsBP management was maintained.[3] The number of employees of the Committee for Public Security was cut by 30% in central headquarters and by 40–50% in local structures. The huge network of secret informers was also substantially reduced and the most implicated functionaries of the Ministry of Public Security were arrested. Surveillance and repressive activities were reduced; in the majority of factories, special cells of public security, set up to spy on workers, were secretly closed.[4]
The Committee for Public Security took responsibility forintelligence and counter-espionage, government security and the secret police. From September 3, 1955 to November 28, 1956 it also controlled the Polish Army'sMain Directorate of Information (Główny Zarząd Informacji Wojska), which ran theMilitary Police and counter espionage service.
The formal scope of the KdsBP's activities was defined by the resolution of the Council of Ministers No. 830 of December 7, 1954:
In addition to the massively expanded headquarters in Warsaw, the KdsBP took over an extensive network of local units scattered throughout the country from the MBP – provincial, municipal (in cities separated from provinces), county and commune (three posts at a MO station) Public Security Offices, protection departments ("RO") and military departments ("RW"). After the KdsBP was established, they became its delegations. The basic organizational unit in the MBP, and later in the Committee for Public Security, were departments, which included divisions, divided in turn into sections. In the provincial delegations, the equivalents of departments were divisions consisting of several sections, while the county delegations were divided into departments (sections). After the division of the MBP into the MSW and the KdsBP, the Committee's forces were significantly reduced, but they allowed for well-organized and dynamic activity of the political police.
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