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Foreign Workers in Czechoslovakia in 1945–1950

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 April 2024

Tomáš Dvořák Open the ORCID record for Tomáš Dvořák [Opens in a new window]
Tomáš Dvořák*
Affiliation:
Department of History, Masaryk University Faculty of Arts, Brno, Czech Republic
*
Email: tdvorax@gmail.com
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Abstract

Foreign workers were a common feature in the economy of postwar Czechoslovakia in various periods of the second half of the twentieth century. This article focuses on foreign labor practices during the first economic plans, namely the two-year plan and the first five-year plan between 1947 and 1950. The number of foreign workers at this time didn't exceed twenty thousand persons and their stays in the country were, with only individual exceptions, short. Workers, who found employment in Czechoslovak agriculture and industry in this period, came from different countries including neighboring Poland, Bulgaria, and Romania, but also from Italy. Recruitment of other groups such as workers from Hungary, the Netherlands, or even China is also considered by the article. These foreign laborers worked in Czechoslovakia under various conditions depending on their methods of recruitment and contracting, the duration of their employment, and other important factors. The basic question this article aims to answer is what the role of Gastarbeit was in Czechoslovakia's communist economic policy. It also examines the motivations of countries that sent workers as well as those of the workers themselves. Finally, the article also attempts to analyze the opportunities and limits of these workers’ strategies in the Czechoslovak labor market.

Keywords

foreign workerslabor policyplanned economypostwar Czechoslovakia
Type
Article
Information
Austrian History Yearbook , First View , pp. 1 - 15
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Copyright © The Author(s), 2024. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Regents of the University of Minnesota

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References

1 See Lucassen, Leo, Feldman, David, Oltmer, Jochen, “Immigrant Integration in Western Europe, Then and Now,” in Paths of Integration. Migrants in Western Europe (1880–2004), eds. Lucassen, Feldman, and Oltmer (Amsterdam, 2006), 7–23CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Geddes, Andrew P., “Analysing the Politics of Migration and Immigration in Europe,” in Geddes, The Politics of Migration and Immigration in Europe (London, 2003), 14–17CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Adamec, Jan, “Hosté, kteří zůstali. Jak hlad po pracovní síle změnil charakter poválečné západní Evropy?” Paměť a dějiny 15 (2021): 82–94Google Scholar.

2 However, in contrast to Czechoslovakia, the employment of foreigners in East Germany dates back to the beginning of the 1960s at the earliest. See Bade, Klaus J., Europa in Bewegung. Migration vom späten 18. Jahrhundert bis zur Gegenwart (Munich, 2000), 338–39Google Scholar; Gruner-Domić, Sandra, “Zur Geschichte der Arbeitskräftemigration in die DDR. Die bilateralen Verträge zur Beschäftigung ausländischer Arbeiter (1961–1989),” Internationale wissenschaftliche Korrespondenz zur Geschichte der deutschen Arbeiterbewegung 32, no. 2 (1996): 204–30Google Scholar; Dennis Kuck, “‘Für den sozialistischen Aufbau ihrer Heimat’? Ausländische Vertragsarbeitskräfte in der DDR,” in Fremde und Fremd-Sein in der DDR. Zu historischen Ursachen der Fremdenfeindlichkeit in Ostdeutschland, eds. Jan C. Behrends, Thomas Lindenberger, and Patrice G. Poutrus (Berlin, 2003), 271–81; Dagmara Jajeśniak-Quast, “‘Proletarische Internationalität’ ohne Gleichheit. Ausländische Arbeitskräfte in ausgewählten sozialistischen Großbetrieben,” in Ankunft – Alltag – Ausreise. Migration und Interkulturelle Begegnung in der DDR-Gesellschaft, eds. Christian Th. Müller and Patrice G. Poutrus (Cologne, 2005), 267–95; Rabenschlag, Ann-Judith, Völkerfreundschaft nach Bedarf. Ausländische Arbeitskräfte in der Wahrnehmung von Staat und Bevölkerung der DDR (Stockholm, 2014)Google Scholar; Zwengel, Almut, ed., Die ‘Gastarbeiter’ der DDR. Politischer Kontext und Lebenswelt (Berlin, 2011)Google Scholar.

3 An important case study analyzes the employment of Polish women in Czechoslovak textile factories in 1970s and 1980s: Ondřej Klípa, Majstr a Małgorzata: Polky v továrnách ČSSR (Prague, 2021); see also idem, “Polish Women Workers in Czechoslovakia: What Made Them to Come?” Český lid 98 (2011): 31–52. In 2021, a thematic collection of articles entitled Gastarbeitři v Československu 1945–1989 also appeared in the journal Paměť a dějiny, see https://www.ustrcr.cz/publikace/pamet-a-dejiny-4-2021/.

4 An exception being Michele Colucci's dissertation on Italian labor emigration, which also includes a short but very stimulating chapter on Italian workers in Czechoslovakia, based on Italian documents: “Forza lavoro in movimento l'Italia e l'emigrazione in Europa, 1945–1957” (Ph.D. diss., Università degli studi della Tuscia di Viterbo, 2000), 212–22. Published as Colucci, Michele, Storia dell'immigrazione straniera in Italia. Dal 1945 ai nostri giorni (Rome, 2018)Google Scholar.

5 Steinová, Veronika, Pracovní poměr v letech 1945–1965 (Ostrava 2019)Google Scholar; Tomáš Dvořák, “Migration and Managing the Labour Market in Czechoslovakia 1945–1953,” in Forced Migration and Large-Scale Settlement in Modern European History, eds. Tim Buchen and Gerhard Wolf (forthcoming).

6 Národní archiv Praha (NA), fond Ministerstvo práce a sociální péče (MPSP), box 417, inv. 861, sign. 2350, correspondence between Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Ministry of Social Welfare in April 1946 on the case of the Agreement with Italy.

7 Ibid., box 60, inv. 70, sign. 1216, proposal for the mobilization of the workforce submitted by the IVth department of the Ministry of Social Welfare on 12 June 1946.

8 Ibid., box 417, inv. 861, sign. 2350, correspondence between the Ministry of Social Welfare and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs from April 1946.

9 NA, fond Ministerstvo pracovních sil (MPrS), box 47, inv. 75, sign. 103, Ministry of Labor for the Social-Political Commission of the Central Committee of the Czechoslovak Communist Party on 14 March 1950 on the case of the deployment of Bulgarian workers.

10 Cf. Nováková, Tamara, “Horská pastvinářská družstva ve východních Krkonoších 1945–1949,” Opera Corcontica 55 (2019): 5–63Google Scholar; Milada Ryšánková, “Pozůstatky bulharské etnické skupiny v Podkrkonoší (okres Trutnov),” in Materiály k problematice etnických skupin na území ČSSR sv. 8. (Prague, 1988), 89–96.

11 NA, MPrS, box 47, inv. 75, sign. 103, information about Romanian agricultural workers in Czechoslovakia on 8 July 1948 and more documents in dossier, including the undated holograph notes; NA, fond Úřad předsednictva vlády – Tajná spisovna (ÚPV-T), box 19, sign. 25/2, Information of the Ministry of Social Welfare about the Romanian agricultural workers from 15 July 1948 and documents including the transcript of the interstate agreement.

12 This original idea also appeared in internal documents among Italian government politicians, Colucci, Forza lavoro, 213.

13 NA, fond Ústřední výbor KSČ-Hospodářská rada (ÚV KSČ-HR), vol. 3, item 48, Report to protocol of Economy Council of 6 January 1949, sheet 13; NA, f. MPSP, box 417, inv. 861, sign. 2350, Correspondence about the negotiations with Italy from the period 1946–1948.

14 Colucci, Forza lavoro, 217–18.

15 Ibid.; NA, MPrS, box 47, inv. 75, sign. 103, dossier Itálie, Information for the minister on 4 December 1948.

16 NA, MPSP, box 454, inv. 990, list of arranged Polish workers in agriculture dated 4 March 1949.

17 NA, fond Úřad předsednictva vlády-Generální sekretariát hospodářské rady (ÚPV-GSHR), box 187, inv. 347, fol. 438, Holland's offer of workforce.

18 NA, MPSP, box 424, inv. 863, sign. 2359, Ministry of Foreign Affairs on the case of the question from the Argentinian chargé d'affaires on 25 March 1947.

19 Ibid., Interdepartmental correspondence between the Ministries of Social Welfare, Foreign Affairs, Industry and the Interior from the period April–July 1947, here specifically a letter from the Ministry of the Interior to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs dated 15 May 1947.

20 Ibid., here a letter from the Ministry of Industry to the Ministries of Interior, Foreign Affairs and Social Welfare dated 18 June 1947.

21 Tomáš Dvořák, “Jáchymovské doly a vznik pracovních táborů v souvislostech politiky řízení pracovních sil v poválečném Československu,” in Jáchymov: jeviště bouřlivého století, ed. Klára Pinerová (Prague, 2018), 142–159, here 144; by comparison, the influx of Italians to the border regions of France raised fears about the emergence of an undesirable Italian minority and potential irredentists as early as 1946, see Adamec, “Hosté, kteří zůstali,” 83.

22 Archiv DIAMO národní podnik (DIAMO), fond Jáchymovské doly Jáchymov národní podnik (JD), box 297, letter to Klement Gottwald of 11 October 1948; Ibid., MPrS, box 49, inv. 90, sign. 114a, sheet 508, discussion of the possibility of recruiting 2,000 workers for Jáchymovské doly held on 5 June 1950.

23 Okresní úřad ochrany práce, literally: District labor protection office.

24 Dvořák, Tomáš, “Těžba uranu versus “očista” pohraničí. Německé pracovní síly v Jáchymovských dolech na přelomu čtyřicátých a padesátých let 20. století,” Soudobé dějiny 12 (2005): 638–46Google Scholar.

25 NA, fond Zemský úřad ochrany práce Praha (ZUOP-P), box 20, situation report of the OÚOP Plzeň for September 1948.

26 Ibid., box 21, situation reports of the OÚOP Hradec Králové and OÚOP Karlovy Vary for October 1948 and situation report of the OÚOP Mariánské Lázně for November 1948.

27 NA, MPSP, box 424, inv. 863, sign. 2359, correspondence between the Ministry of Social Welfare, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the Czechoslovak Embassy in Rome from the period January–March 1947, rejection of the application of the Swiss participant of the brigade in Lidice for employment in the Kladno mines of 24 November 1947; ibid., box 417, i. č. 861, sign. 2350, application of Swedish young communists to immigrate to the Czechoslovak Republic of 26 December 1948.

28 Similar to the case of recruiting Italians to Belgium; see Adamec, “Hosté, kteří zůstali,” 84.

29 NA, ÚPV-T, box 19, sign. 25/2, information on Romanian workers, including the text of the international agreement.

30 NA, ZUOP-P, box. 19, situation reports of the OÚOP OÚOP Plzeň and České Budějovice for June 1948; box. 20, situation reports of the OÚOP Plzeň for September 1948.

31 Ibidem.

32 NA, ÚPV-T, box 19, sign. 25/2, information on the incident with Romanian workers in Svitavy of 7 August 1948.

33 See e.g., NA, ZUOP-P, box 20, situation report of the OÚOP Plzeň for October 1948; box 21, situation report of the OÚOP Jindřichův Hradec for November 1948.

34 Ibid., box 19, situation report of the OÚOP Jičín for July 1948; box 20, NA, box 20, situation report of the OÚOP Mladá Boleslav for September 1948; box 21, situation report of the OÚOP Jičín for November 1948.

35 NA, MPrS, box 47, inv. 75, sign. 103, dossier Bulhaři, personal secretary of the Ministry of the Interior Gríša Spurný for the Secretary of the Ministry of Social Welfare and Labor on 20 April 1949.

36 NA, ZÚOP-P, box 19, situation report of the OÚOP Náchod for July 1948 and situation report of the OÚOP České Budějovice for August 1948; box 20, situation reports of the OÚOP Klatovy and Plzeň.

37 Ibid., box 18, situation report of the OÚOP Plzeň for January 1948; box 19, situation report of the OÚOP Havlíčkův Brod for August 1948.

38 Ibid., box 19, situation report of the OÚOP Kladno for June 948; box 21, situation report of the OÚOP Jindřichův Hradec for November 1948.

39 Ibid., box 19, situation reports of the OÚOP České Budějovice and Náchod for June 1948; box 20, situation report of the OÚOP Strakonice for October 1948.

40 Ibid., box 18, situation report of the OÚOP Beroun for January 1948; see also in general Jiří Topinka, “Migrace pracovních sil v těžkém průmyslu 1945–1953 se zvláštním zřetelem na Kladno a Králův Dvůr,” in Nucené migrace v českých zemích ve 20. století, eds. Petr Bednařík, Helena Nosková, and Zdenko Maršálek (Prague, 2018), 255–62.

41 Ibid., box 19, situation report of the OÚOP Trutnov for August 1948.

42 Ibid., box 18, situation report of the OÚOP Jičín for February 1948.

43 Ibid., situation report of the OÚOP Benešov for January 1948, box 19, situation report of the OÚOP Strakonice for August 1948 and of the OÚOP Náchod for July 1948.

44 Ibid., box. 20, situation reports of the OÚOP Trutnov, Benešov and Beroun for October 1948; box 19, situation report of the OÚOP Jičín for June 1948; box 18, situation reports of the OÚOP Mladá Boleslav for February 1948.

45 NA, MPrS, box 47, inv. 75, sign. 103, dossier Itálie, Information for the minister on 4 December 1948.

46 NA, f. MPSP, box 424, inv. 863, sign. 2359, correspondence between the Ministry of Labor and Social Welfare and the Ministry of Domestic Trade from November 1947.

47 Colucci, Forza lavoro, 215–17.

48 See ibid., box 20, situation report of the OÚOP Plzeň for September 1948.

49 NA, f. MPSP, box 417, i. č. 861, sign. 2350, Ministry of Health for the Ministry of Social Welfare on 22 July 1947 regarding the transport of Romanian workers in the detention center in Svitavy; NA, ZUOP-p, box 18, situation report of the OÚOP Plzeň for January 1948; box 19, situation report of OÚOP Kladno for March 1948.

50 NA, MPrS, box 47, inv. 75, sign. 103, correspondence from 1950 regarding the transport of Romanian workers to their homeland.

51 NA, MPrS, box 47, inv. 75, sign. 103, dossier Italové, information for the Minister from 13 December 1948, fol. 453.

52 NA, ZÚOP-P, box 18, situation report of the OÚOP Kladno for February 1948; box 20, situation report of OÚOP Havlíčkův Brod for October 1948; box 21, situation report of the OÚOP Strakonice for November 1948.

53 NA, ÚPV-T, box 19, sign. 25/2, report of the Revolutionary Trade Union for Prime Minister Antonín Zápotocký from 16 July 1948.

54 Colucci, Forza lavoro, 212, 218–22.

55 NA, MPSP, box 417, inv. 861, sign. 2350, correspondence on negotiations with Italy from 1946–1948; NA, MPrS, box 47, inv. 75, sign. 103, dossier Italové.

56 Colucci, Forza lavoro, 221–22.

57 Dvořák, Tomáš, “Between Fraternal Help and Economic Realism. The Employment of Polish Workers in Czechoslovakia 1945–1950,” Historia Slavorum Occidentis 10 (2020): 101–31CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

58 NA, fond Klement Gottwald 1938–1953 (KG), vol. 45, item 854, sheet 125, report on conditions in the borderlands compiled on the basis of the findings of delegations of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia deputies, 1–3 September 1947.

59 On the Polish workers in the Ostrava region, see Dvořák, “Between Fraternal Help”; Dušan Janák, “Dopad polské měnové reformy v roce 1950 na Ostravsku,” in Měnové systémy na území českých zemí 1892–1993. Sborník z konference v Opavě 22. a 23. března 1994 (Opava 1995), 99–104; Friedl, Jiří, “Otázka zaměstnávání dělníků z Polska na Těšínsku v letech 1945–1947,” Slezský sborník 108 (2010): 79–91Google Scholar.

60 By October 1947, the authorities supposedly issued even more than 13,000 work permits to Polish workers. Cf. Friedl, “Otázka zaměstnávání dělníků,” 90; Janák, “Dopad polské měnové reformy,” 100; NA, MPrS, box 47, inv. 75, sign. 103, material sent on 27 March to the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia Rudolf Slánský, fols. 486–488.

61 NA, MPSP, box 441, inv. 957, sign. 5269, the text of the agreement concluded between the Regional National Committee in Ostrava and the Employment Office in Katowice.

62 NA, MPrS, box 47, inv. 75, sign. 103, sheet 518, extracted from the minutes of the meeting between Ministers Erban and Rusinko on 28–29 December 1949.

63 Janák, “Dopad polské měnové reformy,” 100.

64 NA, MPrS, box 47, inv. 75, sign. 103, report to Minister Erban dated 29 August 1948.

65 NA, fond Ministerstvo zemědělství-sekretariát, inv. 156, box 372, Secretariat of the Ministry of Agriculture to the Office of the Presidium of the Government on 19 August 1948.

66 NA, MPrS, box 47, inv. 75, sign. 103, sheet 528–529, Robert Obrusník to Minister Erban from Warsaw on 18 August 1948.

67 NA, KG, item 1494, vol. 143, minutes of the cabinet meeting of 7 September 1948, 21–24.

68 NA, MPSP, box 417, inv. 861, sign. 2350, correspondence between the Office of the Presidium of the Government, the Ministry of Labor and Social Welfare and the Central Council of Trade Unions from May to September 1947.

69 NA, ZUOP-P, box 20, situation report of the OÚOP Mladá Boleslav for October 1948; NA, MPrS, box 49, inv. 93, sign. 119, fol. 834–837, report to the minister from 11 May 1949.

70 NA, ZUOP-P, box 20, situation report of the OÚOP Mladá Boleslav for October 1948; NA, MPrS, box 49, inv. 93, sign. 119, fol. 834–837, report for the minister of 11 May 1949.

71 NA, MPSP, box 379, correspondence between OÚOP Strakonice and Ministry of Social Welfare from November 1948 – February 1949.

72 NA, ZÚOP-P, box 21, Situation reports of the OÚOP Mladá Boleslav, OÚOP Plzeň and OÚOP Benešov for December 1948.

73 NA, MPrS, box 49, inv. 93, sign. 119, fol. 834–837, report for the minister of 5 May 1949.

74 NA, ÚV KSČ-HR, vol. 3, item 48, report to protocol of the Economy Council of 6 January 1949, fol. 19; NA, fond Generální sekretariát KSČ, vol. 146, item 953, fols. 154–155, report of the Ministry of Labor and Social Welfare on the situation among the workforce dated 9 July 1949.

75 NA, MPrS, box 49, inv. 93, sign. 119, fols. 834–837, report for the minister of 5 May 1949.

76 Ibid., box 58, inv. 164, sign. 181, information on Bulgarian apprentices dated 24 August 1950 and report of 5 May 1951.

77 Ibid., box 47, inv. 75, sign. 103, dossier Číňané, information for Deputy Minister of Labor Kijonka dated 14 December 1949.

78 These were mainly workers from Poland, Yugoslavia, Cuba, or Vietnam; cf. the above-mentioned thematic collection entitled Gastarbeitři v Československu 1945–1989.

79 According to available information, however, the Italian-Hungarian treaty did not enter into real life. Prontera, Grazia, “Das Emigrationszentrum in Verona Anwerbung und Vermittlung italienischer Arbeitskräfte in die Bundesrepublik Deutschland 1955–1975,” in Das “Gastarbeiter”-System. Schriftenreihe der Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte Band 104, eds. Jochen Oltmer, Axel Kreienbrink, and Carlos Sanz Diaz (Munich, 2012), 90Google Scholar.

80 Dvořák, “Migration and Managing.”

81 Geddes, Analysing the Politics of Migration, 14.

82 Adamec, “Hosté, kteří zůstali,” 85–6.

83 Fijalkowski, Jürgen, “Gastarbeiter als industrielle Reservearmee? Zur Bedeutung der Arbeiterimmigration für die wirtschaftliche und gesellschaftliche Entwicklung der Bundesrepublik Deutschland,” Archiv für Sozialgeschichte 24 (1984): 424–26Google Scholar; Özdemir, Cem, Currywurst und Döner: Integration in Deutschland (Bergisch Gladbach, 1999), 71Google Scholar; Bade, Klaus J., Vom Auswanderungsland zum Einwanderungsland? Deutschland 1880–1980 (Berlin, 1983), 67–81Google Scholar; Herbert, Ulrich, Geschichte der Ausländerpolitik in Deutschland: Saisonarbeiter, Zwangsarbeiter, Gastarbeiter, Flüchtlinge (Munich, 2001), 206–16Google Scholar.

84 Dvořák, “Migration and Managing.”

85 Roberto Sala, “Die migrationspolitische Bedeutung der italienischen Arbeitswanderung in die Bundesrepublik,” in Das “Gastarbeiter”-System. Schriftenreihe der Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte Band 104, eds. Jochen Oltmer, Axel Kreienbrink, and Carlos Sanz Diaz (Munich, 2012), 82–87.

86 Hunn, Karin, “Nächstes Jahr kehren wir zurück … ”: die Geschichte der türkischen “Gastarbeiter” in der Bundesrepublik (Göttingen, 2005), 109–10Google Scholar.

87 Steinert, Johannes-Dieter, “Migration and Migration Policy: West Germany and the Recruitment of Foreign Labour, 1945–61,” Journal of Contemporary History 49, no. 1 (2014): 9–27CrossRefGoogle Scholar, here 12.

88 Steinert, “Migration and Migration Policy,” 12–19, 26.

89 Hunn, “Nächstes Jahr kehren wir zurück,” 102–5.