Józef Światło

Who was Józef Światło?

Józef Światło was a high-ranking official of the Ministry of Public Security of Poland. He was nicknamed "Butcher" – the torture master – by the MBP prisoners. After the death of Stalin and the arrest of Lavrentiy Beria in 1953, Światło travelled on the Berlin subway with Fejgin through the West Berlin sector where he "slipped away" and defected to the West.

After his defection on 5 December in Berlin, he worked for the CIA and the Radio Free Europe. Światło's written and broadcast incriminations shook the Polish United Workers' Party, and ultimately contributed to the reform of the Polish security apparatus at the end of the Stalinist period, as one of the factors leading to the political liberalisation of the socialist Polish October revolution.