During the Cold War, the interest organizations of business and labor, in particular the Swedish Employers’ Association (SAF) and the Swedish Trade Union Confederation (LO), worked together to strengthen Sweden’s total defense and protect Sweden in the event of an invasion. At the core of this cooperation was an armed civil resistance movement, which is the focus of this project.
Until now, practically no qualified research on this unique phenomenon in Swedish contemporary business history has been undertaken. The first aim of the project is therefore to chart the resistance movement and ask, for instance, how developed it was and which the primary tasks of the organization were.
The second purpose is to ask what the parties on the Swedish labor market and today’s total defense may learn from the cooperation between business and labor during the Cold War.
The research is based on oral recollections as well as written accounts in private and public archives.
The project is financed by around fifteen private individuals and foundations.