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the rising incidence of hooliganism, economic crimes, and "social indiscipline." The law of June 1967 evidently was designed to transform ORMO into an "independent social organization" and improve its public image by dissociating it from the general police apparatus of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Nevertheless, the role played by the hard core of ORMO's thugs during various crises, including participation in some of the instances of brutality during the workers' riots of December 1970, has hindered official efforts to give this organization a better public image.
No reliable figures on the strength of the MO are available, in keeping with the various degrees of public secrecy surrounding the security apparatus as a whole. The entire Ministry of Internal Affairs, excluding ORMO elements, reportedly employs close to 200,000 persons. The SB (UB) components are estimated to number about 23,000, and the strength of the regular police is estimated at about 100,000 uniformed militiaman.
The responsibility of the Ministry of Internal Affairs for law enforcement brings it into contact with all other governmental agencies. In addition, the ministry is responsible for "assisting" local government organizations. At this level, close contact exists between the MO, especially the local component of the SB, and the appropriate commissions of the local people's council. It also centrally administers all vital statistics, issues and controls personal identity documents, investigates and passes on applicants for passports for foreign travel as well as visa for visitors, and conducts mail censorship, wiretapping, and other physical means of surveillance. These activities necessarily call for close coordination with other central government agencies on a continuing basis.
The attitudes of the public towards the MO have most often been only a facet of attitudes toward the entire apparatus of internal security and, by derivation, the political forces which it served. These general attitudes thus fluctuated from fear, suspicion, and hate during the pre-1956 period, to pleasure over the apparent weakening of the system during the initial months of Gomulka's rule. As the security forces - the MO included - regained their power, the average citizen again became highly resentful of their ubiquitous nature and their practices, which were characterized by arbitrariness and intimidation.
Nevertheless, many Poles - especially the educated - have tended between to differentiate between the MO and the rest of the security apparatus, which they view as being far more culpable for the excesses of the past and more symbolic of the potential for repression that rests in the hands of the regime. Moreover, they tend to understand that members of the MO, being inevitably in the "frontlines" of any violent or potentially violence confrontation between the people and the regime, would likely be motivated in their action as much by fear of an aroused populace as by loyalty to their commanders. For example, popular resentment against what was acknowledged police brutality during the riots of December 1970 has been tempered in some quarters by the passage of time and by the realization that because the MO was first on the scene its members were also among the first casualties of the violence. These considerations, however, do not obscure the widespread resentment, especially among workers, of the role of the MO - in conjunction with the militarized security units - in December 1970. This legacy helps in parts to explain the relatively intensive public relations campaign subsequently employed by the Gierek regime to refurbish the image of the police. This campaign has sought to stress the normal responsibilities of the MO for public order and for crime fighting. Combined with a campaign to foster a new sense of police-community relations, this approach has had some success in differentiating in the public mind between those elements of the security apparatus which are viewed as repressive of the people as a whole, and those - like the MO - who are charged with protecting the population against crime and politically unmotivated antisocial behavior.
2. Countersubversive and counterinsurgency measures and capabilities
The internal security forces of the country are well trained, adequately equipped, and sufficiently loyal to the precepts of state and party power to fulfill their mission of safeguarding Communist rule in Poland. The ultimate failure of these security forces to prevent political upheaval in December 1970 was not a result of their own lack of efficiency, but rather of the weaknesses and strains inherent in the political leadership, the absence of Soviet support for that leadership, and the subsequent collapse of clear command channels. Indeed, the acknowledged brutality of the internal security components - as distinct from the bulk of regular army units deployed during the disturbances - demonstrated that these security forces were responsive to the Gomulka regime even as its power was crumbling. Despite a politically motivated housecleaning of some of the upper echelons of the security forces by the new regime of Edward Gierek, the prominence and power of these
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