Works of classified records offices of central administration: case of classified records office of the Ministry of Treasure in Warsaw in 1945–1950

The Ministry of Treasure was created with the legislation on creating Provisional Government of the Republic of Poland from December 21st, 1944. Competencies of the Ministry encompasses all affairs of the state treasure and financial politics, taxes, customs, budget, as well as credits, monetary issues, flotation issues, control over banks, insurance and assurance companies. As a result of law from March 7th, 1950 the office was transformed into the Ministry of Finance. Activity of the classified records office between 1945 and 1950 was regulated by four succeeding instructions, but they all were based on one system of managing records. The primary office register was a journal of classified cases – a typical office register, where all classified documents getting into or out of the office, were registered with subsequent Arabic numbers, starting with 1 for each year. Between 1945 and 1950 records of classified cases were stored according to their number in the journal of classified cases. From the point of view of history of records and bureaucracy, this system can be called an office system based on journal registers. This kind of processing classified records was, in that time, generally applicable for all state administration. This system was grounded in the mid-war period classified records offices and it is still used in this day.