Knut Olsson
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Knut Mauritz Gotthard Olsson (November 4, 1907 – November 13, 1986) was a Swedish communist politician. A talented speaker and prominent personality the local politics of the Swedish capital, he was commonly nicknamed stadens kommunist ('the communist of the city').[1]
Olsson grew up in Malmö, and was active in the temperance movement during his youth. Olsson graduated from a private secondary school in Lund in 1926.[1] He studied sociology, political science and languages.[2] He started working at the newspaper Folkets Dagblad Politiken, where he remained until 1929. He became the publisher of the newspaper Ny Dag in 1930, a position he held until 1945.[1] Following the 1931 Ådalen shootings, Olsson was sentenced to eight months hard labour for the reporting of Ny Dag regarding the Ådalen events.[3]
War years
In 1936 he was included in the Central Committee and Political Bureau of the Communist Party of Sweden. During the Spanish Civil War he was an organizer of Swedish Relief Committee for Spain.[1] The Communist Party put Olsson in charge of organizing the passages of Swedish volunteers travelling to Spain to fight in the International Brigades.[4]
He was also the secretary of the Swedish branch of the International Red Aid. Between 1940 and 1946 he served as the chairman of the Young Communist League of Sweden and editor of Stormklockan. During the Second World War Olsson, along with many other communists, was detained at Sveg. In 1946 he became the secretary of the Communist Party, a position he held until 1977.[1]
