Publication details
Příslušník kontrarozvědky do vedení Sekretariátu pro věci církevní
| Title in English | Was the "normalization church policy" controlled by the State Security Service? : Infiltration of a counterintelligence officer into the Secretariat for Religious Affairs |
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| Authors | |
| Year of publication | 2015 |
| Type | Article in Periodical |
| Magazine / Source | Sborník Archivu bezpečnostních složek |
| MU Faculty or unit | |
| Citation | |
| Field | History |
| Keywords | policy towards church; actors; normalization; Communist Party of Czechoslovakia; State Security Service; Secretariat for Religious Affairs |
| Attached files | |
| Description | The article deals with the relationships between the actors of the “church policy” (policy towards the church) in the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic during normalization — in particular, with the fact whether the State Security Service (StB) managed to gain control over the agenda at the central level. This is based on a case study of the infiltration of an StB officer into the management of the Secretariat for Religious Affairs, the central government authority for matters of churches, and on a political–science analysis of the actors of “church policy”. Given that the national Secretariat for Religious Affairs was the tip of the state apparatus, the StB’s attention was directed at this body. However, it was not the only place where the counterintelligence service managed to establish itself during the emerging normalization. It also had its person in the Department of Propaganda and Agitation of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (KSC), in the party apparatus that prepared documents for the highest party bodies. The success of the State Security Service in the early years of normalization was caused by personnel control and assertion of the state—security perspective, yet we cannot speak of the control over “church policy” at the central level. In the following period, the personal control was reduced and the disproportionate relationship between the Secretariat for Religious Affairs and counterintelligence was gradually balanced. Besides the clarification of the relations between the various actors “church policy”, the article highlights the rather neglected activity of the State Security Service and agenda-setting, and supports the findings of the existence of partial plurality behind the facade of the unity of the communist regime. |
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