Język Polski
English
Scientific and Technical Intelligence of the Polish People’s Republic and Military Technologies – Selected Issues
Mirosław Sikora
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8623-9228
Instytut Pamięci Narodowej, Oddział w Katowicach
Bio(b. 1981), PhD in history; he graduated from the Faculty of Social Sciences of the University of Silesia. Since 2005, he has worked at the research department of the Katowice branch of the Institute of National Remembrance. He specialises in Polish history in the 20th century. His current interests include economic issues in the context of the activities of special services, scientific and technical progress in the Polish People’s Republic and the role played here by the illegal transfer of know-how. He also conducted research on the arms industry and the spatial planning and agricultural economy of the Third Reich in the context of the occupied territories of the Second Polish Republic. He has recently published Wyniki pracy wywiadu naukowo-technicznego MSW PRL 1971–1989 (IPN: Katowice–Warsaw, 2019).
Aparat Represji w Polsce Ludowej 1944-1989, No. 19 (2021), pages: 242-274
Publication date: 2023-03-29
https://doi.org/10.48261/ARPRL211907
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Abstract
The aim of this article is to reconnoitre a new field of historical research. It may be defined as: the effects of the work of the scientific and technical intelligence of the Polish People’s Republic (PRL) in the field of technologies of military use. Research on civilian technologies is relatively advanced, while the transfer of (mainly Western) solutions from the field of armaments industry has so far constituted only a margin of various historical works on the history of intelligence of the People’s Republic of Poland, including military intelligence, as well as the history of science and technology. The author focuses on a few selected aspects. The first is the widely understood arms market in the People’s Republic of Poland (PRL), including Poland’s obligations as a member of the Warsaw Pact, as well as its political and economic dependence on the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). The second part discusses the approach of NATO countries trying to slow down the technological progress of the Eastern Bloc, mainly by controlling and hindering the purchase of modern products of so-called dual (i.e. civilian and military) use by countries such as the PRL. In the next chapter, the author discusses perhaps the most spectacular example of the successful infiltration by the intelligence community of the Warsaw Pact countries into the Pentagon’s armament programmes. He points out, however, that Poland achieved marginal gains from this operation, mainly based on its agent assets. The last section of the article is devoted to the prospective theatre of armed conflict between the superpowers, which, since the 1980s at the latest, was space. The orbital weapons race began as the communist states, especially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) and the People’s Republic of Poland, fell into irreversible economic crisis. Despite this, the intelligence services of these states at least tried to get an idea of the progress of the USA in the field of militarisation of space. The author conducted his research mainly based on sources held in the Archives of the Institute of National Remembrance (IPN). However, documents obtained from the archives of the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs are an important supplement.
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