Securitas Imperii 37 (2/2020)

The 100^th anniversary in 2017 of the establishment of the Soviet Cheka (All-Russian Extraordinary Commission for Combating Counter-Revolution and Sabotage) provided the Institute for the Study of Totalitarian Regimes an opportunity to organize an international conference on the history of Soviet-type security services, political police, and intelligence in Communist Party dictatorships. It focused on the repressive apparatus that arose out of the revolution and on the further development of its organizational structures, as well as various phenomena connected with politically motivated oppression in countries under Communist Party rule.
This volume of Securitas Imperii contains nine articles, which are extended versions of papers presented at the conference. Not all of them could be included because of limited space. Despite this constraint, we believe we have gathered a set of articles that suitably reflect the diversity of the conference program. The articles cover topics from the Soviet Union, both from the Moscow centre and at the level of the regional republics (Estonia, Moldavia, and Lithuania). There were also papers on Soviet bloc countries: Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary, and Poland. Somewhat unusually, we also brought Yugoslavia to attention, especially insofar as the Stalinist period of 1945–1953 was concerned. One study focused on the Spanish Republic during the civil war, something that lies outside of the standard framework commonly used for studying Soviet-type regimes and their security forces.

Contents

Editorial

About the Authors

Studies

• Jens Gieseke: The Post‑Stalinist Mode of Chekism: Communist Secret Police Forces and Regime Change After Mass Terror
• Evgenia Lezina: Soviet State Security and the Regime of Secrecy: Guarding State Secrets and Political Control of Industrial Enterprises and Institutions in the Post‑Stalin Era
• Witold Bagieński: The Polish People’s Republic and KGB Intelligence Cooperation after 1956
• Igor Cașu: The Mass Deportation from Bessarabia/Moldavian SSR in mid‑June 1941: Enhancing Security, a Social Engineering Operation, or Something else?
• Aigi Rahi‑Tamm – Meelis Saueauk: Relations Between Soviet Security Organs and the Estonian Communist Party in 1940–1953: A Case of Mass Deportations in March 1949
• Éva Petrás: The Struggle of Hungarian Christian Democrats for a Democratic Hungary, 1944–1957
• Aleš Gabrič: Communist State Security’s role in the persecution of “the old communists” in Slovenia
• Martin Previšić: Tito–Stalin Conflict and the Yugoslav Secret Police (UDBA) in 1948–1956
• Mária Palasik: From the Budapest Dance Palace to the Autopsy Table: The Lapusnyik Case, or the Defection and Death of a Secret Agent at the Beginning of the Kádár Era
• Fernando Jiménez Herrera: Between Spain and Russia: The Long Shadow of the Soviet Cheka and its Use in Propaganda in Spain in the 1920s and 1930s as well as during the Spanish Civil War

Documents

• Michal Miklovič: Czechoslovak Security Advisers in Mali in the Years 1960–1964 (Study and Selected Documents)

Interview

• Ondřej Vojtěchovský: Every Assassination Led into a Circle of Violence: An Interview with Christian Axboe Nielsen on his Research and Forthcoming Book on the Yugoslav State Security Service’s “Illegal Operations”

Reviews

• Ondřej Vojtěchovský: PREVIŠIĆ, Martin: Povijest Golog otoka (History of Goli otok island)

Summary

Information for the Authors

Citation Standard

Securitas Imperii 37 (2/2020). Published twice a year by: The Institute for the Study of Totalitarian Regimes | Editor in chief: Adéla Rádková, Ondřej Vojtěchovský | Executive editor: Patrik Virkner | Chairman of the Editorial Board: Doc. PhDr. Ladislav Kudrna, Ph.D. | Members of the Editorial Board: PhDr. Lukáš Babka, PhDr. Petr Blažek, Ph.D., PhDr. Jan Kalous, Ph.D., Mgr. Norbert Kmeť, CSc., PhDr. Stanislav Kokoška, doc. PhDr. Karel Konečný, CSc., prof. Igor Lukeš, prof. Jan Malicki, Mgr. Matej Medvecký, Ph.D., doc. PhDr. Jan Němeček, PhDr. Jiří Plachý, Ph.D., DrSc., Mgr. Světlana Ptáčníková, PhDr. Jiří Rajlich, PhDr. Jaroslav Rokoský, Ph.D., prof. PhDr. Jan Rychlík, DrSc., Mgr. Jerguš Sivoš, PhD., PhDr. Jakub Šlouf, Ph.D., Dr. phil. Tobias Weger | Secretary of the Editorial Board: Mgr. Libor Svoboda, Ph.D. |  Technical redaction: Patrik Virkner | Translation  and proof-reading: Robert Cameron, Coilin O’Connor, Eva Misits, Borut Praper, Gillian Purves, Robert Wright | Graphic design: Jaroslav Ježek | Address: Siwiecova 2, 130 00 Prague 3, Czech Republic, mailing address: nam. Winstona Churcilla 1800/2, 130 00 Prague 3, Czech Republic | ISSN 1804-1612 | Evidential number: MK ČR E 19249 |

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