„Terapia czarnorynkowa”. Pomoc wywiadu MSW dla branży farmaceutycznej i biotechnologicznej w PRL 1960-1990

Until now, studies on the PPR’s intelligence have been focused mainly on international relations and the issue of defence. On the one hand, there were analyses of secret operations aimed at infiltration of political and military structures of NATO states and on the other, of attempts of secret exertion of influence on foreign agencies of the anti-systemic opposition (e.g. Solidarity) and, in wider sense, on the stance of the whole Polish community abroad. In general though, historians didn’t pay much attention to the intelligence’s activity in obtaining technological-exploitation documentation, samples, or utility models for the Polish science, industry, and, as a result, for the whole society. Still, judging only from the picture of scientific-technological department of the Ministry and its organisational evolution, we can say that it became a more and more important element of the PPR’s economy. In some fields of science, particularly in development and implementation, operations conducted on the territory of OECD countries by officers of the department generated considerable savings for the Polish State Treasury. An important addition to the assets of the PPR’s intelligence was co-operation and exchange of information with analogous services of other Comecon countries in the framework of socialist intelligence co-operation. This study concentrates on one of the most important, next to microelectronics and IT, aspects of activity of the Interior Ministry’s scientific-technological department. Intelligence channels supported consecutive governments of the PPR in avoiding high costs of licences and enabled access to solutions totally unavailable with foreign contractors. The subjects of operations were, inspired by the needs of the Institute of Pharmacy or chemistry industry, mainly antibiotics, vaccines, heart disease and immunologic drugs, as well as technologies used in transplantology. Other beneficiaries of those secret pursuits were also agriculture and animal husbandry, interested in GMO fertilizers, insecticides, or steroids for animals. Although the drowsy planned economy was not always able to manage innovative solutions, their illegal influx considerably improved PPR’s export balance and contributed to modernization of some segments of chemical industry.