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Norse Brothers. Social Democratic Anti-Communism in Norden 1945-1962 Iben Bjørnsson

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Norse Brothers. Social Democratic Anti-Communism in Norden 1945-1962 Iben Bjørnsson Norse Brothers. Social Democratic anti-Communism in Norden 1945-1962 Iben Bjørnsson To cite this version: Iben Bjørnsson. Norse Brothers. Social Democratic anti-Communism in Norden 1945-1962. History. University of Copenhagen. Faculty of Humanities, 2012. English. tel-00763882 HAL Id: tel-00763882 https://tel.archives-ouvertes.fr/tel-00763882 Submitted on 11 Dec 2012 HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci- destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents entific research documents, whether they are pub- scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, lished or not. The documents may come from émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de teaching and research institutions in France or recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires abroad, or from public or private research centers. publics ou privés. NORSE BROTHERS Social Democratic anti-Communism in Norden 1945-1962 PHD-THESIS University of Copenhagen, SAXO Institute, Department of History, August 2012 Author: Iben Bjørnsson Supervisor: Poul Villaume 1. INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................................ 4 SOURCES ............................................................................................................................. 5 ABOUT THE TITLE ............................................................................................................... 6 ORGANISATION NAMES ..................................................................................................... 7 DEFINITIONS ....................................................................................................................... 8 Anti-communism ............................................................................................................... 8 Security ............................................................................................................................. 9 Securitisation ................................................................................................................... 10 Intelligence and propaganda ........................................................................................... 11 Norden and Scandinavia ................................................................................................. 12 A NOTE ON THE USE OF THEORY .................................................................................... 14 THE THESIS ........................................................................................................................ 14 What I will not write about .............................................................................................. 15 2. COLD WAR HISTORIOGRAPHY ...................................................................................... 16 ‘CULTURE’ AND THE COLD WAR ..................................................................................... 17 THIS THESIS IN EXISTING HISTORIOGRAPHY .................................................................. 18 NORDEN AND THE COLD WAR ....................................................................................... 20 SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC INTELLIGENCE ACTIVITIES ........................................................... 22 Denmark ......................................................................................................................... 23 Sweden ........................................................................................................................... 24 Norway ........................................................................................................................... 25 Fragments: on the topic of this thesis ............................................................................... 26 3. ON ELITES & CORPORATIONS ........................................................................................ 27 THE POLITICS OF SOCIAL NETWORKS ............................................................................. 28 4. ON STATE, PARTY AND POST-WAR (SOCIAL) DEMOCRACY ......................................... 31 LABOUR NORDISM ........................................................................................................... 31 BECOMING ‘THE PEOPLE’: DE-RADICALISATION ............................................................ 33 THE SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC STATE .................................................................................... 37 5. SEEDS OF HATRED: SOCIAL DEMOCRACY AND COMMUNISM .................................... 40 PRE WWII: PARTING .......................................................................................................... 40 POST WWII: CEMENTING ................................................................................................. 45 6. EDUCATE! AGITATE! ORGANISE! .................................................................................... 48 MIRRORING THE ENEMY .................................................................................................. 55 7. DENMARK ........................................................................................................................ 57 AIC ..................................................................................................................................... 57 INTELLIGENCE AND REGISTRATION ................................................................................ 59 CONTACT TO OTHER ANTI-COMMUNIST ORGANISATIONS ......................................... 60 8. SWEDEN ........................................................................................................................... 62 PERSONNEL CONTROL ..................................................................................................... 63 THE MAKING OF GROUP B/IB .......................................................................................... 64 GROUP B AT WORK .......................................................................................................... 66 9. NORWAY .......................................................................................................................... 68 HAAKON LIE AND ROLF GERHARDSEN ........................................................................... 68 HAWKS AND DOVES: THE SPLIT ....................................................................................... 72 10. SCANDINAVIA: COMMON CONCLUSIONS ................................................................. 75 11. FINLAND ........................................................................................................................ 81 TANNER, LESKINEN AND THE LEGACY OF WAR .............................................................. 81 1 THE FCMA TREATY ............................................................................................................ 83 FINLAND AND SAMAK ...................................................................................................... 84 THE NORWEGIAN CONNECTION .................................................................................... 85 WITH A LITTLE HELP FROM THEIR FRIENDS: FINANCIAL SUPPORT FOR ANTI- COMMUNISM ................................................................................................................... 87 SAK, WFTU AND ICFTU ..................................................................................................... 92 TROUBLES ......................................................................................................................... 94 12. ICELAND ......................................................................................................................... 99 A STORY OF TURMOIL ...................................................................................................... 99 SETTING THE ICELANDIC HOUSE OF LABOUR IN ORDER: SCANDINAVIAN INVOLVEMENT ................................................................................................................ 104 13. ODD ONES OUT: COMMON CONCLUSIONS ............................................................ 112 14. COOPERATION: THE ANTI-COMMUNISM OF NORDEN ........................................... 115 15. 1945-49: STARTING UP AGAIN ................................................................................... 118 THE OFFICIAL SETTING: SAMAK ..................................................................................... 118 LABOUR CONFERENCES ................................................................................................. 125 BACK IN SAMAK .............................................................................................................. 127 A SPECIAL MEETING: HELSINGBORG 1949 .................................................................... 129 Communist organisation ................................................................................................ 129 Militancy ....................................................................................................................... 130 Finances ........................................................................................................................ 130 1945-49: IN CONCLUSION ............................................................................................. 131 16. 1950-54: SETTLING INTO THE COLD WAR ................................................................. 134 A SECOND MEETING: STOCKHOLM 1950 .....................................................................
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