Official data: Romania’s communist secret police recruited over 121,000 people in 1970-1979

The Securitate, the secret police agency of communist Romania, recruited more than 121,000 people between 1970 and 1979, according to official data released by the Council for the Study of the Securitate Archives, CNSAS. These were new collaborators who joined the existing information network.

Of these new collaborators, approximately 99,000 were men, and 21,000 had higher education. Over 800 were pupils, minors at the time of recruitment, and 1,700 were students.

According to the same report, almost 1,500 were doctors, 1,200 were active in the legal environment, about 2,000 were clergy members (from all religions recognized by law), and 6,300 worked in education.

Among the different directorates in which the Securitate was organized, the first four were the most important from the perspective of information work. Their work plan for the period 1970-1979 looked roughly as follows:

• Directorate I (internal information): over 500 new collaborators, to whom were added the 38,000 recruited by Service I of the county units and of the Bucharest Securitate office (total 38,500);
• Directorate II (counterintelligence in the economic field): over 1,600, to which were added 17,000 recruited by Service II of the county units and of the Bucharest Securitate branch (total 18,600);
• Directorate III (counterintelligence): over 3,000, plus 11,000 recruited by Service III of the county units and the Securitate of the Municipality of Bucharest (total 14,000);
• and Directorate IV (military counterintelligence and prisons): 12,200.

“Comparing the figures above, it can be seen that the largest number of informants in the 70s was in Directorate I. Although the entire Securitate was political police, Directorate I was the main department involved in this activity,” CNSAS said.

(Photo source: Inquam Photos)