Sluzba Bezpieczenstwa
Służba Bezpieczeństwa (SB, until 1956 Urząd Bezpieczeństwa, UB) was the name of the intelligence agency and security police in the People's Republic of Poland.
It was a plainclothes section of the Ministry of Internal Affairs with a remit to investigate those regarded by the government as subversive both internally and abroad. It was established in 1944 as the Urząd Bezpieczenstwa (UB), from which the slang name for secret policemen in Poland - "Ubeks" - is derived.
Throughout the late 1940s and 1950s, the UB was heavily under the influence of the Soviet Union. It was renamed as the SB in 1956, and entered a period of relative inaction during the era of reform insituted by Władysław Gomułka. After 1968 it was revived as a stronger body, responsible for the implementation of political suppression, most notably in the case of the Solidarity movement, the leader of which, Lech Wałęsa, was under constant SB surveillance, until its replacement by the Urząd Ochrony Państwa in 1990 after the fall of communism.
