The Only Globally Successful "Company" in Communist Poland?: Scientific-technical intelligence and its role in technology transfer, 1971-1989 (2020)
Mirosław Sikora (Author)
Icon: Journal of the International Committee for the History of Technology
Volume: 25
Issue: 1
Pages: 12-38
This article explains how scientific-technical intelligence (STI) supported the Polish economy during the communist period. It focuses on the 1970s and 1980s. During the first period of the communist regime in Poland, 1945-1970, the state economy was centrally planned and rather isolated from the OECD countries. After the government was taken over by technocrats led by the general secretary of the Polish United Workers’ Party (PZPR) Edward Gierek in late 1970, Poland began to open up to business contacts in the West. This, in turn, provided excellent opportunities for STI (established by the late 1950s) which from that time on began to be considered as a significant factor in the acquisition of knowhow for industrial and R&D centers in Poland. STI should be understood as more than just an organizational structure within the Ministry of the Interior. STI divisions had employees, a task-oriented budget, and infrastructure at its disposal. STI divisions contracted tens (the 1950s) and then hundreds (1980s) of consultants representing various disciplines of natural sciences, engineering, and humanities. At the same time, it relied on tens and then hundreds of agents (information contacts and operational contacts), recruited from the citizens of Polish People’s Republic and citizens of other countries. However, STI was also an extensive network of formal and informal links between the Ministry of the Interior and industrial ministries, research and development institutions, and counterparts of STI in other COMECON countries. The main object of this article is to present the modus operandi and extent of cooperation between Polish STI, situated within the First Department in the Ministry of Internal Affairs, with the ministries responsible for individual industrial branches. It illustrates how Polish industry communicated with the secret world of special services: how the requests and requirements of R&D institutions were transferred to the Ministry of Internal Affairs and changed into operational tasks of espionage. STI offered the People’s Republic of Poland many benefits. The electronics and pharmaceutical industries particularly profited from its clandestine operations. Furthermore, The Polish state could economize as a result of STI operations aimed at western companies.
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