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On the wrong side of the Iron Curtain: Hungarian agricultural workers in Sweden 1947-1949.
| The Swedish Labor market showed signs of severe shortage of labor force as early as under the first years of the Second World War. However the problem was less visible under these years, because thousands of refugees from Norway, Denmark and other neighboring countries were employed as more or less free workforce in the Swedish economy. Nevertheless the shortage of indigenous labor force became evident when these refugees begun to return to their countries after the war. This shortage became particularly severe in the Swedish agriculture because of the low salaries and difficult working conditions which prevailed. These conditions pushed away the native work force from the countryside and accelerated the migration to the towns and the much better paid industrial employment. The only solution - regarded at first only as temporary – was to import work force from the war-torn Europe, full with unemployed workers of every kind. Contract was signed with Italy and the allied authorities in Germany to allow the import of industrial workers and with the Hungarian authorities to import a contingent of 600 Hungarian agricultural workers. The contract expired after two years in the case of the Hungarians and the Swedes were eager to prolong it, but the new communist Hungarian government sad no. They wanted the workers back, both for economic and propaganda reasons. The Swedes understood the anticommunist propaganda value of convincing the workers to stay in Sweden and “a silent propaganda war” was unleashed between the Hungarian and Swedish government. The Hungarian embassy sent out his new officials, communist agitators, to convince the workers to return and the Swedes promised them protection and security if they decided to stay. I won’t reveal the results of this struggle but I think this was one of the first proofs about Sweden’s side preferences in the Cold War which just had begun. These preferences are evident today, but were kept “secret” under those days.
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