The Secret Police as a Means of Social Engineering in the Polish People’s Republic: The University Enrolment Process in 1947-1956

The part that security authorities played in the process of university enrolment was an example of how the social policy of the Party authorities got implemented. UB employees had been executing tasks connected with the negative selection of university candidates since the first decree of the Ministry of Education that regulated that issue came out (1947). Student profiles, prepared by the Policy Secret (UB), were one of the major factors deciding whether a given Young person would be allowed to matriculate. In this case the aim was to “protect university communities,” which in fact meant that persons deemed by the authorities undesirable would be prevented from studying (preventive actions) and those with “proper class origins” (peasants’ and workers’ children) would have their academic future secured. Ministry of Public Securuty (MBP) officers, cooperated with the various actors: the party structures of different levels (from central to local ones), political and social organisations. Employees of the security apparatus rejected a large percent of candidates. In 1953 about 47 percent of students they vetted were put on the proscription lists. Therefore one could risk a statement that the UB played crucial part in establishing the social origin of student communities in 1947-1956.Keywords: communist security apparatus, universities in communist countries, education system in communist countries, communist social engineering, The Polish Peoples’ Republic, the university enrolment process.   Resumen: El papel que los servicios de seguridad jugaron en el proceso de selección de personal universitario es un ejemplo de cómo la política social del partido se practicó e impuso. Empleados de la Policía Secreta llevaron a cabo tareas relacionadas con la selección de los futuros estudiantes desde el primer decreto del Ministerio de Educación que reguló esta cuestión en 1947. Los perfiles de los estudiantes, elaborados por la Policía Secreta, fueron determinantes para saber si podrían o no matricularse. El objetivo era “proteger a la comunidad universitaria” pero en el fondo suponía señalar a las personas consideradas indeseables por las autoridades. Se les impedía estudiar (como acción preventiva) y los que tenían “orígenes de clase adecuada” (hijos de campesinos y de trabajadores) tenían el futuro académico asegurado. Los funcionarios del Ministerio de Seguridad Pública (MBP) trabajaron en esta tarea junto con las estructuras del partido en sus diferentes niveles (desde lo central a lo local), así como con las organizaciones políticas y sociales. Los empleados del aparato de seguridad rechazaron un gran porcentaje de los candidatos. En 1953 alrededor del 47% de los estudiantes fue vetado e inserto en las listas de proscritos. Podríamos pues decir que la policía secreta tuvo un papel crucial en el establecimiento de los orígenes sociales de la comunidad estudiantil entre 1947 y 1956.   Palabras clave: Aparato de seguridad comunista, universidades en países comunistas, sistema educativo en países comunistas, ingeniería social comunista, República Popular Polaca, proceso de selección universitario

John Italos Seen by Anna Komnene

The historical work of Anna Komnene is one of the main sources which provides crucial information about John Italos. It is worth noting though that princess Komnene sketches in the Alexiad a portrait of this eminent Byzantine thinker that is anything but flattering. Despite the wide range of perspectives and diverse representations of the philosopher, it is actually quite difficult to find in her opus any comments or opinions of decisively positive nature. As a matter of fact, the final opinion regarding the famous “Consul Philosophorum” is formed solely on the basis of downright hostile statements. John Italos is not regarded as an outstanding figure, but rather as a controversial thinker that hardly deserves any recognition. While the present paper investigates the figure of Italos as shown in the Alexiad by Anna Komnene, its aim is to unravel those elements in the work that caused Komnene to express such an opinion about the philosopher

Thermal properties of structurally balanced systems on classical random graphs

The dynamics of social relations and the possibility of reaching the state of structural balance (Heider balance) under the influence of the temperature modeling the social noise level are discussed for interacting actors occupying nodes of classical random graphs. Depending on the graph density $D$, either a smooth cross-over or a first-order phase transition from a balanced to an imbalanced state of the system is observed with an increase of the thermal noise level. The minimal graph density $D_\text{min}$ for which the first-order phase transition can be observed decreases with system size $N$ as $D_\text{min}\propto N^{-0.58(1)}$. For graph densities $D>D_\text{min}$ the reduced critical temperature $T_c^\star=T_c/T_c(D=1)$ increases with the graph density as $T_c^\star\propto D^{1.719(6)}$ independently of the system size $N$.Comment: 10 pages, 10 figure