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hailed the alleged formation of similar "clandestine, truly Marxist-Leninist" parties in most of these countries.
F. Maintenance of internal security (S)
1. Police
The regular, blue-uniformed police, called the Citizens Militia (MO), is responsible for the maintenance of normal public order and safety, including traffic control. Although theoretically the MO is at the service of, and in practice indeed cooperates closely with, the executive units of local government organs in both urban and rural areas, it is in fact a unified, national, and closely centralized police force under the direct operational control of the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MSW). The MO generally, but not always, patrols in pairs, whether on foot or in vehicles, and is normally armed with sidearms. In times of civil disturbances, truncheons, helmets, submachine guns, and tear gas are among the equipment available.
The MO is functionally and organizationally a component of Poland's integrated internal security and intelligence system, whose broad functions are the protection of state and party power and the collection of foreign intelligence to serve Polish and Soviet interests. The entire system has been modeled on the Soviet pattern in purpose, organization, and techniques, although several organizational variations were introduced after 1956 and in 1965. The MO is a component of that part of the system which is subordinate to the Ministry of Internal Affairs; this group of services is charged with the peacetime security of the state in both its domestic and foreign aspects and with foreign political, economic, and scientific technical intelligence. Services under the control of the Ministry of National Defense (MON) are responsible for military intelligence, for security within the armed forces, and for broad rear area defense - including population control and the security of key installations - during time of crisis or war. At such times, as in December 1970, both the services under the MON and the MSW are brought into coordination. Thus the MO is merely the most publicly visible component of the regime's system for public order and security of the state.
Although piecemeal improvements in the efficiency and facilities of the MO were noted after 1957, more significant measures to strengthen the organization were particularly evident after 1965. These gains included an increase in wages and salaries, especially for the lowest paid policemen, increased educational qualifications, and a recruitment campaign among reservists leaving the regular armed forces. Criminological facilities, which are generally pooled by the MO and the secret police, also were improved. Organizationally, a new plainclothes detective service was formed within MO units in the larger cities, with plans for eventual expansion throughout the country. This element evidently was created in part to free the secret police from conducting detective work and investigations in routine, non-political cases. In addition, special MO units, the so-called Frontier Service, were created to perform customs control at frontier entry and exit points.
The secret police, or the Security Service (SB), remained the most important and most powerful arm of the regime's security and intelligence apparatus. Since 1956 the SB has been theoretically subordinate to the MO commands on the local level in the performance of its internal security functions. Although the SB functionally cooperates with the MO, its organizational links to the MO are tenuous at best. Only slightly camouflaged, the SB is the successor to the UB (Security Bureau), the main agency of police terror that existed before 1956, and is sometimes informally called by its former name or called Bezpieka (Security), which was also the nickname of the UB. Except for a period from late 1954 until late 1956, it has remained, in practice, an autonomous service within the Ministry of Internal Affairs. It is responsible, as in the past, for non-military foreign intelligence and counterintelligence, domestic political security and counterespionage, and surveillance of foreigners.
The Volunteer Reserve of the Citizens Militia (ORMO) continues to be an important auxiliary of the MO. Its officially claimed strength in 1970 was 379,400. According to the law of June 1967, control over the activities of ORMO is vested in the executive bodies of local government organs, although close operational coordination with local MO units is maintained. The organization, whose members are distinguished by a red armband bearing the letter ORMO in white, is in effect a regular police reserve whose core consists of former police informers, and includes citizens frequently pressured into service. As such, it is highly unpopular.
A thriving adjunct of police terror during the Stalinist period, ORMO steadily declined in numbers after 1956, reaching a low point of some 99,000 members in 1960. Thereafter, however, the regime has stressed its changed role in the support of "socialist justice" and the need for its revitalization because of
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APPROVED FOR RELEASE: 2009/06/16: CIA-RDP01-00707R000200070029-7
