Komisja Specjalna do Walki z Nadużyciami i Szkodnictwem Gospodarczym (1945-1955)

The Special Commission for Combating Misappropriation and Economic Sabotage (1945--1955) worked in the years 1945-1955. It was a typical institution of Polish Stalinism – an extra-constitutional administrative organ with police-prosecutor-judicial powers. A government department “to do anything”. A tool of repression in the hands of the Communist authorities of that time trying to liquidate free market economy and capitalist property as well as any opposition by all means. It played a decisive role in the so-called “battle over trade” (1947--1954), the result of which was an almost complete liquidation of the private industrial-commercial-service sector. The Special Commission imposed punishment for acts that were not crimes or even petty offences. In the scale of the whole country the Special Commission made over 460 thousand judicial decisions condemning the accused and sent more than 84 thousand people to forced labor camps. In 1946-1949 alone 33.322 people were detained in custody pending inquiry on the strength of decisions made by organs of the Special Commission. In the whole period when the Commission was working on the legal level its chairman was Roman Zambrowski vel Nusbaum Rubin.