Foreign Workers in Czechoslovakia in 1945–1950

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.