Information work of civilian counterintelligence in the second half of the 1980s and the political transformation in Poland

Abstract

The aim of the article is to present the information work of civilian counterintelligence – Department II of the Ministry of Internal Affairs in the second half of the 1980s and during the political transformation. A research hypothesis was formulated – the information work of counterintelligence was an important source of knowledge for decision-makers in power both at the end of the Polish People’s Republic (PRL) and at the beginning of the Third Polish Republic (III RP). The article uses the method of analysing documents found in the resources of the IPN archives and analogous reasoning regarding the period of the first months of the UOP’s activities. An important aspect of the presented analysis is the location of the subject matter and scope of information work of counterintelligence against the background of turbulent geopolitical events in the examined time period. The adopted methodology made it possible to identify: new topics not previously undertaken by counterintelligence, a new form of transmitted data, as well as attempts to adapt the forms of information work developed during the Polish People’s Republic to the needs of new decision-makers in the Third Polish Republic.