Walka kontrwywiadu wojskowego z Kościołem katolickim. Alumni w „ludowym” Wojsku Polskim w świetle dokumentów Wojskowej Służby Wewnętrznej
Military Counterintelligence Fight with the Catholic Church. Clerical Students in the Polish „People’s” Army in the Light of the Documents of the Internal Military Service

Summary/Abstract: In 1959, following the introduction of the law on universal military service, seminarians were conscripted into the Polish „People’s” Army as part of compulsory service, initially dispersing them into numerous units. This was a form of repression which, according to the communist authorities, was supposed to curb the „unruly” behavior of individual church hierarchs. In the following years, there were changes in the way clerical students were dispersed in the army – they started to be grouped into three subunits, which allowed for better communist indoctrination led by the Main Political Directorate of the Polish Army, but above all for the counterintelligence „protection” of the seminarians organized by the Internal Military Service (IMS). Initially, military counterintelligence did not do well with recruiting seminarians as agents. With time, as the cooperation with Department IV of the Ministry of Interior (civil anti-church department) was developing, the IMS authorities managed to improve their operational work in the battalions where future clergymen served. Despite the partial resignation of clerical students from their studies and recruitment amongst them by IMS, thanks to the efforts of the Catholic Church a large number of young seminarians were saved, and their conscription into the army only strengthened the Church by verifying future priests through their military service at the very beginning. Eventually, year 1980 put an end to the conscription of seminarians into the Armed Forces of the People’s Republic of Poland. One of the numerous actions of the communist authorities against the Catholic Church proved to be ineffective.

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