Sbor národní bezpečnosti

The Sbor národní bezpečnosti (SNB, in Slovak: Zbor národnej bezpečnosti, ZNB), or National Security Corps, was the national police in Czechoslovakia from 1945 to 1991.

At the end of World War II, on April 4, 1945, Edvard Beneš headed the first postwar government at Košice, dominated by the three socialist parties, including the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (KSČ). The SNB was established by the coalition government as part of the Ministry of the Interior during a meeting in Košice on April 17, replacing the traditional police and gendarmes. Control of the Ministry of Interior was sought and obtained by the KSČ, whose Václav Nosek was appointed minister and began converting the security forces into arms of the party. Between 1945 and 1948, anti-Communist police officials and officers were fired, non-Communist personnel were encouraged to join the KSČ, and all were subjected to Communist indoctrination. Nosek's replacement of the upper police hierarchy with Communists caused the protest resignation of anti-Communist government ministers in February 1948, leading to the Czechoslovak coup d'etat of 1948. When the coup took place, Nosek's Communist-dominated security forces ensured an easy takeover. The SNB was abolished and replaced by the Czech Police on July 15, 1991, after the changes that followed the Velvet Revolution of 1989 in which the SNB attempted to suppress the demonstrating students.

The SNB consisted of two separate organizations - the VB (Veřejná bezpečnost) or Public Security, and the StB (Státní bezpečnost), or State Security. Public Security was the uniformed force that performed routine police duties throughout the country. State Security, the secret police, was a plainclothes force, also nationwide, that is at once an investigative agency, an intelligence agency, and a counterintelligence agency. Any activity that could possibly be considered antistate fell under the purview of State Security. In mid-1987, strength figures for the SNB were not available. A 1982 article in the Czechoslovak press indicated that 75 percent of the SNB members were either members or candidate members of the KSČ and that 60 percent were under 30 years of age. In 1986 about 80 percent of the SNB members in Slovakia came from worker or farmer families.

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