State Security ( cs, Státní bezpečnost, sk, Štátna bezpečnosť) or StB / ŠtB, was the

secret police Secret police (or political police) are intelligence, security or police agencies that engage in covert operations against a government's political, religious, or social opponents and dissidents. Secret police organizations are characteristic ...

force in communist Czechoslovakia from 1945 to its dissolution in 1990. Serving as an intelligence and counter-intelligence agency, it dealt with any activity that was considered opposition to the

Communist Party of Czechoslovakia The Communist Party of Czechoslovakia ( Czech and Slovak: ''Komunistická strana Československa'', KSČ) was a communist and Marxist–Leninist political party in Czechoslovakia that existed between 1921 and 1992. It was a member of the Comint ...

and the state.

History

From its establishment on June 30, 1945, the StB was controlled by the

. The Party used the StB as an instrument of power and repression; State Security spied on and intimidated political opponents of the Party and forged false criminal evidence against them, facilitating the communists' rise to power in 1948. Even before Czechoslovakia became a

communist state A communist state, also known as a Marxist–Leninist state, is a one-party state that is administered and governed by a communist party guided by Marxism–Leninism. Marxism–Leninism was the state ideology of the Soviet Union, the Comint ...

, the StB obtained

forced confession A forced confession is a confession obtained from a suspect or a prisoner by means of torture (including enhanced interrogation techniques) or other forms of duress. Depending on the level of coercion used, a forced confession is not valid in rev ...

s by means of

torture Torture is the deliberate infliction of severe pain or suffering on a person for reasons such as punishment, extracting a confession, interrogation for information, or intimidating third parties. Some definitions are restricted to acts ...

, including the use of

psychoactive drug A psychoactive drug, psychopharmaceutical, psychoactive agent or psychotropic drug is a chemical substance, that changes functions of the nervous system, and results in alterations in perception, mood, consciousness, cognition or behavior. ...

blackmail Blackmail is an act of coercion using the threat of revealing or publicizing either substantially true or false information about a person or people unless certain demands are met. It is often damaging information, and it may be revealed to fa ...

, and

kidnap In criminal law, kidnapping is the unlawful confinement of a person against their will, often including transportation/asportation. The asportation and abduction element is typically but not necessarily conducted by means of force or fear: the p ...

ping. After the coup d'état of 1948, these practices developed under the tutelage of

Soviet The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...

advisers. Other common practices included

telephone tapping Telephone tapping (also wire tapping or wiretapping in American English) is the monitoring of telephone and Internet-based conversations by a third party, often by covert means. The wire tap received its name because, historically, the monitorin ...

, permanent monitoring of apartments, intercepting private mail, house searches, surveillance, and arrests and indictment for so-called "subversion of the republic". After the coup, the StB conducted Operation Border Stone to capture citizens who attempted to defect and cross the

Iron Curtain The Iron Curtain was the political boundary dividing Europe into two separate areas from the end of World War II in 1945 until the end of the Cold War in 1991. The term symbolizes the efforts by the Soviet Union (USSR) to block itself and its ...

. StB was the main supporter of the

Red Brigades The Red Brigades ( it, Brigate Rosse , often abbreviated BR) was a far-left Marxist–Leninist armed organization operating as a terrorist and guerrilla group based in Italy responsible for numerous violent incidents, including the abduction ...

, an Italian far-left militant organization. In cooperation with the

Palestine Liberation Organization The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO; ar, منظمة التحرير الفلسطينية, ') is a Palestinian nationalist political and militant organization founded in 1964 with the initial purpose of establishing Arab unity and sta ...

(PLO), the StB conducted logistic support and training for Red Brigades in PLO training camps in North Africa and Syria. The StB's part in the fall of the regime in 1989 remains uncertain. The reported murder of a student by police during a peaceful demonstration in November 1989 was the catalyst for wider public support and further demonstrations, leading to the overthrow of the communist regime. According to StB agent , he was used to impersonate a fictitious dead student, Martin Šmíd. However, in 1992, the Czechoslovak parliamentary commission for investigation of events of November 17, 1989, has ruled out Zifčák's testimony, stating that "the role of former StB lieutenant L. Zifčák was only marginal, without any connection to critical events and without any active effort to influence these events. Investigation of related circumstances has indisputably proved that L. Zifčák's testimony that attributes a key role in November's events to himself is based on facts, which are either technically impossible and unfeasible, or contradict actions of persons mentioned by him, which aimed to completely different goals." State Security was dissolved on February 1, 1990. The current intelligence agency of the Czech Republic is the

Security Information Service The Security Information Service (BIS) ( cs, Bezpečnostní informační služba), is the primary domestic national intelligence agency of the Czech Republic. It is responsible for collecting, analyzing, reporting and disseminating intelligence ...

. Former employees and associates (informers) of the StB are currently banned from taking certain jobs, such as legislators or police officers. The Act on Lawlessness of the Communist Regime and on Resistance Against It states that the StB, as an organisation based on the ideology of the Communist Party, "aimed to suppress human rights and democracy through its activities" and thus based on a criminal ideology.Petr Blažek, "Transitions to Democracy and the 'Lustration' Screening Process", p. 173, ''Transformation: The Czech Experience'', Prague 2006, published by People in Need/Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Czech Republic

Organization within the Czechoslovak government

The State Security was a part of the National Security Corps ( cs, Sbor národní bezpečnosti, SNB; sk, Zbor národnej bezpečnosti, ZNB) along with Public Security ( cs, Veřejná bezpečnost, VB; sk, Verejná bezpečnosť, VB)a uniformed force that performed standard police duties. Both forces worked at regional and district levels, supervised by the Ministries of the Interior of the Czech and Slovak Socialist Republics, but operationally directed by the federal Ministry of Interior.

List of StB agents and collaborators

In the early 1990s former dissident and "StB hunter" Petr Cibulka published the names of over 200,000 alleged StB officers and collaborators, who spied and reported on family members, friends, neighbours, and colleagues.Czechs wait thirteen years for official names of secret police collaborators
"

Radio Prague Radio Prague International ( cs, Český rozhlas 7 – Radio Praha) is the official international broadcasting station of the Czech Republic. Broadcasting first began on August 31, 1936 near the spa town of Poděbrady. Radio Prague broadcasts in ...

. 23 March 2003. Pavel Bret, a deputy director of the Office for the Documentation and the Investigation of the Crimes of Communism, criticized Cibulka's lists, saying: "It's dangerous to apply sweeping blacklisting. We shouldn't forget who compiled them. If ibulkawants to be objective, he should also inform the public how people had been recruited -- that it was often through compromising documents, extortion, beatings -- or their collaboration was falsified."Blowing the Whistle on the Past
. ''

TIME Time is the continued sequence of existence and event (philosophy), events that occurs in an apparently irreversible process, irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various me ...

''. 24 April 2000 In 2003, the Czech Interior Ministry released an official list of 75,000 StB agents and collaborators, including 3,000 names of collaborators from abroad. According to

, "The Ministry says it contains less names than that of Petr Cibulka because it only lists those who collaborated with the StB knowingly, and not people who were considered as potential informants."

In popular culture

Monster A monster is a type of fictional creature found in horror, fantasy, science fiction, folklore, mythology and religion. Monsters are very often depicted as dangerous and aggressive with a strange, grotesque appearance that causes terror and fe ...

'', a manga written by

Naoki Urasawa is a Japanese manga artist and musician. He has been drawing manga since he was four years old, and for most of his professional career has created two series simultaneously. The stories to many of these were co-written in collaboration with his ...

from 1994 to 2001 that later received an anime adaptation, uses the StB as a plot element and involves the idea that they still operated in the shadows after their alleged dissolution. Several former members of the StB are secondary characters in the manga and anime series.

References

{{Authority control Czechoslovak Socialist Republic Law enforcement agencies of Czechoslovakia Collaborators with the Soviet Union Defunct intelligence agencies Eastern Bloc 1945 establishments in Czechoslovakia 1990 disestablishments in Czechoslovakia Secret police Government agencies established in 1945 Government agencies disestablished in 1990

History

Organization within the Czechoslovak government

List of StB agents and collaborators

In popular culture

See also

References