Communist crimes ( pl, zbrodnie komunistyczne) is a legal definition used in the Polish Penal Code. The concept of a communist crime is also used more broadly internationally, and is employed by

human rights Human rights are moral principles or normsJames Nickel, with assistance from Thomas Pogge, M.B.E. Smith, and Leif Wenar, 13 December 2013, Stanford Encyclopedia of PhilosophyHuman Rights Retrieved 14 August 2014 for certain standards of hu ...

non-governmental organizations as well as government agencies such as the Unitas Foundation, the

Institute for Information on the Crimes of Communism The Institute for Information on the Crimes of Communism (IICC) ( sv, Upplysning om kommunismen, ''UOK'') is a Sweden-based non-profit and non-governmental human rights organization, founded in 2008, with the stated purpose of "spreading essen ...

, the Institute for the Study of Totalitarian Regimes, the Institute for the Investigation of Communist Crimes in Romania, and the Office for the Documentation and the Investigation of the Crimes of Communism.

Polish law

In legal terminology – as defined by the Article 2.1 of the Journal of Laws (Dziennik Ustaw, DzU) of the

Republic of Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populous ...

issued 18 December 1998, "communist crimes" constitute crimes committed by the functionaries of the

communist Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, ...

apparatus between 17 September 1939 and 31 December 1989. The crimes defined therein form either

political repression Political repression is the act of a state entity controlling a citizenry by force for political reasons, particularly for the purpose of restricting or preventing the citizenry's ability to take part in the political life of a society, thereby ...

or direct violation of

of an individual or a group; including those, otherwise named in Polish

criminal law Criminal law is the body of law that relates to crime. It prescribes conduct perceived as threatening, harmful, or otherwise endangering to the property, health, safety, and moral welfare of people inclusive of one's self. Most criminal law ...

of that particular time. The concept also covers several other illegal activities prohibited by Polish laws already in place since 1932, such as falsification of documents and using them with the intent to cause harm to people mentioned in them. . Art. 2.1. . Retrieved as of 8 May 2007. The concept of communist crimes was legally introduced in 1998 and revised several times.''Ustawa..'', see headings of document for list of legal acts published in Dziennik Ustaw modifying the original document It was designed to facilitate studies of events and prosecution of people in

authority In the fields of sociology and political science, authority is the legitimate power of a person or group over other people. In a civil state, ''authority'' is practiced in ways such a judicial branch or an executive branch of government.''T ...

who committed crimes against Polish citizens as well as the Polish state.The concept of a communist crime is also applicable if the victim was not a Polish citizen but was wronged on Polish territory. The definition is conceptually similar to the legal concept of a Nazi crime.

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A functionary of a communist state is defined as a

public official An official is someone who holds an office (function or mandate, regardless whether it carries an actual working space with it) in an organization or government and participates in the exercise of authority, (either their own or that of their s ...

including those who received legal protection similar to public officials, particularly government officials and leaders of the

Communist Party A communist party is a political party that seeks to realize the socio-economic goals of communism. The term ''communist party'' was popularized by the title of '' The Manifesto of the Communist Party'' (1848) by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engel ...

.''Ustawa..'', Art. 2.2. The functionaries involved would most likely work for Polish intelligence, security service and other internal affairs (particularly

censorship Censorship is the suppression of speech, public communication, or other information. This may be done on the basis that such material is considered objectionable, harmful, sensitive, or "inconvenient". Censorship can be conducted by governments ...

and religious affairs) departments. Particular organisations named as examples include

Ministry of Public Security of Poland The Ministry of Public Security ( pl, Ministerstwo Bezpieczeństwa Publicznego), commonly known as UB or later SB, was the secret police, intelligence and counter-espionage agency operating in the Polish People's Republic. From 1945 to 1954 it w ...

, Służba Bezpieczeństwa and

Główny Zarząd Informacji Wojska Polskiego ''Główny Zarząd Informacji Wojska Polskiego'' (''GZI WP'' - "Main Directorate of Information of the Polish Army"), was a name of a first military Police and counter-espionage organ of the Polish People's Army in communist Poland during and aft ...

.''Ustawa..'', Art. 5.1. The communist crimes could have also been committed in Poland by members of foreign civil or military services,''Ustawa..'', Art. 5.2. such as the KGB,

NKVD The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (russian: Наро́дный комиссариа́т вну́тренних дел, Naródnyy komissariát vnútrennikh del, ), abbreviated NKVD ( ), was the interior ministry of the Soviet Union. ...

SMERSH SMERSH (russian: СМЕРШ) was an umbrella organization for three independent counter-intelligence agencies in the Red Army formed in late 1942 or even earlier, but officially announced only on 14 April 1943. The name SMERSH was coined by Josep ...

, and

Stasi The Ministry for State Security, commonly known as the (),An abbreviation of . was the state security service of the East Germany from 1950 to 1990. The Stasi's function was similar to the KGB, serving as a means of maintaining state autho ...

. Crimes, recognised by

international law International law (also known as public international law and the law of nations) is the set of rules, norms, and standards generally recognized as binding between states. It establishes normative guidelines and a common conceptual framework for ...

crimes against humanity Crimes against humanity are widespread or systemic acts committed by or on behalf of a ''de facto'' authority, usually a state, that grossly violate human rights. Unlike war crimes, crimes against humanity do not have to take place within the ...

crimes against peace A crime of aggression or crime against peace is the planning, initiation, or execution of a large-scale and serious act of aggression using state military force. The definition and scope of the crime is controversial. The Rome Statute contains an ...

, and war crimes, are not affected by the statute of limitations in Poland. Those crimes are not affected either by the former

amnesty Amnesty (from the Ancient Greek ἀμνηστία, ''amnestia'', "forgetfulness, passing over") is defined as "A pardon extended by the government to a group or class of people, usually for a political offense; the act of a sovereign power offici ...

or abolition decrees issued in communist Poland before 7 December 1989.''Ustawa..'', Art. 4.3. In case of murders, the Polish statute of limitations begins on 1 August 1990 and runs for 40 years, and for 30 years for other crimes.''Ustawa..'', Art. 4.1. The concept has replaced the term Stalinist crime (''zbrodnia stalinowska'') previously used in Polish law for similar acts, just as the concept of Nazi crime has replaced that of the

Hitlerite Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Na ...

crime. Both ''Stalinist'' and ''Hitlerite'' crimes were first defined by Polish legislation in 1991. While drafting the concept of the communist crime, Polish legislators specifically discarded the notion that a communist crime is equal to a Nazi crime, or that the legislation of the communist crime can be based on that of the Nazi crime (already defined in the legislation of 31 August 1944), as while similar on some levels they are different enough on others to make

analogies Analogy (from Greek ''analogia'', "proportion", from ''ana-'' "upon, according to" lso "against", "anew"+ ''logos'' "ratio" lso "word, speech, reckoning" is a cognitive process of transferring information or meaning from a particular subject ( ...

unacceptable. Communist crimes are primarily investigated by the

Institute of National Remembrance The Institute of National Remembrance – Commission for the Prosecution of Crimes against the Polish Nation ( pl, Instytut Pamięci Narodowej – Komisja Ścigania Zbrodni przeciwko Narodowi Polskiemu, abbreviated IPN) is a Polish state resea ...

, a special

research institute A research institute, research centre, research center or research organization, is an establishment founded for doing research. Research institutes may specialize in basic research or may be oriented to applied research. Although the term often i ...

with prosecution powers, created by the same legislation that defined the concept of the communist crime in 1998. Two examples of such unsolved communist crimes are the

Augustów roundup The Augustów roundup (Polish ''Obława augustowska'') was a military operation against the Polish World War II anti-communist partisans and sympathizers following the Soviet takeover of Poland. The operation was undertaken by Soviet forces with t ...

and Kąkolewnica massacre, also known as the Baran Forest massacre.

Sources

Communist Crimes (hosted by the Unitas Foundation)

* ttp://www.doomedsoldiers.com/augustow-roundup.html The Augustow Roundup
Hitler vs. Stalin: Who Killed More? by Timothy Snyder

Notes and references

{{Prague Process Decommunization Law of Poland Crimes Commemoration of communist crimes

Polish law

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See also

Sources

Notes and references