The Case of the Separated Archives in the Polish Archival Network in the Theses and the Draft Act on Archives and Archival Materials from 1970–1971 – the First Competency Clash Between the State Archives and the Ministry of Internal Affairs

Abstract

In Poland, on the basis of archival law, some of the archives belong to the state network, but at the same time are beyond the supervision and control of the State Archives. These are the so-called separated archives in the Polish archival network. They were created after World War II and their existence is related to the communist system, when some ministries (especially the Ministry of Public Security, and then the Ministry of Internal Affairs) in the realities of the Polish People's Republic constituted a kind of state within the state. After the collapse of the communist rule, these archives not only were not subject to the control of the chief director of state archives, but their number was also expanded. Polish archivists realized the dysfunctionality of this situation. In the years 1970–1971, still in the reality of the Marxist dictatorship, the State Archives made the first attempt to gain control over the documents stored in the separated archives in the Polish archival network during the work on the new Act on National Archive Resources and Archives. This sparked a clash with the Ministry of Internal Affairs, which eventually blocked these activities. Based on the documents of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and scientific literature, the author presents the course of this clash, which took place under the guise of consulting theses and the draft of a new archival law.