Język Polski
English
Historia pewnej prowokacji. Sprawa Zofii Kuszyńskiej
Przegląd Archiwalny Instytutu Pamięci Narodowej, Nr 11 (2018), strony: 139–166
Data publikacji: 2023-04-05
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Abstrakt
The “Zofia Kuszyńska case” refers to the operations of the apparatus of repression and judicial authorities carried out in the years 1951–1953 against a group of Wrocław residents. They were suspected of belonging to an anti-communist organization, for which in early 1953 they were sentenced to penalties ranging from several years in prison up to capital punishment. The article first describes the methods by which the civilian and military security apparatus led to the conviction of the accused, then the gradual withdrawal from the accusations related to them, which were considered as completely fictitious, and finally the outcome in the form of the rehabilitation process of convicts – which started just at the turn of 1953 and 1954 and lasted until the nineties. The political aspect of the Kuszyńska case was equally significant. In 1953, the communist authorities already recognized her as a glaring example of the violation of the “people’s rule of law” and “the preeminence of the security apparatus over the party”. Primarily it resulted in the punishment of a group of high UBP officers, beginning with the head of the Department of Investigation of the Ministry of Public Security Józef Różański, and secondly, the gradual emancipation of the prosecutor’s office from their dependence on the security apparatus. In this sense, the Kuszyńska case brought crystallization of the attitudes of the PRL and party elite officials in 1954–1956 and became a pretext for actions attempting to create new “political identities” and grafting them onto the liberalization trends inflowing from the USSR’s after Stalin’s death.
