Malenkij robot

The topic of forced labor of Hungarians in the Soviet Union in the aftermath of World War II was not researched until the fall of Communism and the dissolution of the Soviet Union. While exact numbers are not known, it is estimated that up to 600,000 Hungarians were captured altogether, including an estimated 200,000 civilians. An estimated 200,000 citizens perished. It was part of a larger system of the usage of foreign forced labor in the Soviet Union.

In addition, an uncertain number of Hungarians were deported from Transylvania to the Soviet Union in the context of the Romania-Hungary Transylvanian dispute. In 1944, many Hungarians were accused by Romanians of being "partisans" and transferred to the Soviet administration. In early 1945, during the "degermanization" campaignall Hungarians with German names were transferred to the Soviets in accordance with the Soviet Order 7161.

In Hungary and among the Hungarian minority of Transcarpathia the phenomenon has been referred to as málenkij robot, a corrupted form of the Russian malenkaya rabota (маленькая работа), meaning "little work". The expression originated during the first wave of deportations of Hungarian civilians: after an occupation of a Hungarian town, civilians were rounded up for "little work" regarding the removal of ruins. The largest single deportation during the first wave occurred in Budapest. Allegedly Marshal Rodion Malinovsky overestimated in his reports the number of Prisoners of War taken after the Battle of Budapest, and to make the numbers some 100,000 civilians were gathered in Budapest and its neighborhood. The first wave took place mainly in north-western Hungary, on the path of the advancing Soviet Army.

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