First Published: The Call, Vol. 5, No. 23, October 11, 1976.
Transcription, Editing and Markup: Paul Saba
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The class struggle in Sweden, a medium-sized Nordic country of 8 million people is in a period of upsurge. Last year, there were nearly 300 wildcat strikes, a new phenomenon here, including several in which the Communist Party of Sweden played an active role.
The Communist Party of Sweden (SKP) has doubled in size in the last two years. It now has branches in more than 50 cities and towns and publishes a weekly newspaper, Gnistan (The Spark), which has a circulation of more than 15,000. The party also leads two mass revolutionary youth organizations: Clarte, for university students, and Red Youth, for young workers.
But what are the special features of the class struggle in a second world country like Sweden? The bourgeoisie here exploits its “own” workers and the peoples of the third world. At the same time, it is subjected to superpower hegemonism and, on certain questions, will take a stand on the side of the third world. In regard to this complex situation, SKP leaders discussed their views in recent talks with The Call in Stockholm.
“All the main contradictions in the world are sharpening,” stated the SKP, “and factors for both war and revolution are on the rise. The U.S. and the USSR are the two main enemies of the world’s peoples, and the third world countries and peoples are the main force for revolution. The decline of U.S. imperialism and the rise of Soviet social-imperialism are also causing sharp contention for a redivision of the world.
The Soviet Union is the more dangerous of the two as the cause of a new world war. It is more aggressive. While both super-powers must be opposed, it is necessary at this time in the international united front to direct the main blow against the Soviet Union.”
What is the role of Sweden in this united front? The SKP pointed out that Sweden is an imperialist country, a member of the “10 Richest Club,” that has extensive investments in the third world.
“A socialist revolution in Sweden,” said SKP, “would be the best help to the third world. Our main line is to unite the working people of Sweden with the oppressed nations and peoples by carrying out the struggle against imperialism in our own country.”
“But this is not the only form of struggle,” SKP added. “Sweden is a country of the second world. It is not only possible for contradictions to develop between the European bourgeoisie and the two super-powers, it is a necessary and revolutionary duty to encourage them, relying on the people in each country as the main force in doing so. ”
“It is also possible,” SKP continued, “to develop unity between the second and third worlds against superpower hegemonism. Even Sweden today, when it asserts its independence from either or both super-powers, is also aiding the third world. ”
“The Vietnam movement here provides a good example. On one hand, the Swedish people compelled the government to take a stand against the U.S. On the other hand, the Swedish bourgeoisie had its own reasons for its move. There are profits to be made in “aiding” and trading with the third world. But the government also vacillates. On one hand, it condemned the puppet regime in Prague as similar to the Thieu regime in Vietnam. On the other hand, it supported ’detente’ and the European Security Conference in Helsinki.
“The line of our party,” SKP added, “is to support any correct stand taken by the government. At the same time, we expose the class interests behind these moves and criticize all vacillations.”
Of the two superpowers, the SKP states that the Soviet Union is more dangerous to Sweden today. This is true even though the U.S. economic penetration of the Swedish economy is greater than that of the Soviet Union.
“But things have changed in recent years,” says SKP. “The USSR now has greater influence politically, and the bourgeoisie is shifting in its direction. For instance, a big Swedish monopolist recently publicly proclaimed that the Soviet Union was a friendly ’Nordic’ country. Much of the press is now covering up Soviet aggression and control, even in Eastern Europe, and in many cases, bought-and-paid-for Soviet agents are penetrating Sweden’s media. ”
“In the event of war,” SKP added,“ we will most likely be occupied by the Russians. In that case, resistance to them would be a just war, and our line would be for a protracted anti-fascist people’s war, requiring a people’s army. We carry out revolutionary work in the Swedish army, but we cannot rely on it.”
What is the SKP’s view of NATO and the European Economic Community?
“NATO is mainly a tool for U.S. hegemonism,” the party leaders explained. “But it is necessary to oppose both NATO and Warsaw Pact together. It is also true that there are contradictions in NATO, particularly between the European countries and the U.S. imperialists. While we do not support NATO: it is a good thing that this contradiction should develop, that Europe should get more united and stronger against the superpowers in this arena as well. ”
“As for the EEC,” the SKP continued, “it is basically a logical development from the U.S. Marshall Plan after World War II. It has been encouraged and used by the U.S. to keep a grip on Europe. But today, the EEC has two aspects. The first is to enable the big monopolies to organize a common labor market and to attack the living standards of the working people and the smaller countries. This is why we opposed Sweden’s entry into the EEC and led the anti-EEC struggle. There is also a second aspect of European unity against the superpowers, but we don’t think it is the best way for this unity to develop.”
While the SKP is the main communist organization in Sweden today, it is not the only group. Several years ago, when the party was called the KFML (Communist League, Marxist-Leninist), a “left” deviation cropped up in its ranks and split, forming the “KFML (Revolutionary).” This group proclaimed that the working class had no allies in the struggle, that the trade unions had to be “pushed aside,” and that any mass work or agitation was “reformist.” Recently, however, this group has flipped over to the right, attacking China and proclaiming the Soviet Union as “socialist.” In the process, it has split, and some organizations of its honest cadres are engaged in unity discussions with the SKP.
The SKP has consistently developed in the course of struggle with modern revisionism. Some of its founders, for instance, were members of the old SKP and its youth group but broke with it when it degenerated in the 1960s. The revisionists have now abandoned the name Communist Party of Sweden.
“Since the founding of our party,” said an SKP leader, “we have had a generally clear and correct view of the Soviet social-imperialists. We have carried out some important battles against them.”
“But in relation to the revisionist party in Sweden,” he added, “we have made some mistakes, which added up to a right deviation within our own ranks. At our Second Congress, held this summer, we won an important victory against this deviation, although the two-line struggle still goes on.”
What were some of the features of this rightist line? The most blatant appeared in 1973, when it was proposed that the SKP enter into “united action” with the revisionist party in the elections. The rightist line held that the revisionists were merely “petty bourgeois reformists” and thus an “ally” in an “antimonopoly struggle.”
“Some of us were taken in by the ’Italian game’ of the revisionists,” said SKP, “when they tried to pose as a force ’independent’ of Moscow. We fell victim, due to our own low ideological level, to a few word changes, and it was argued that the revisionists had a ’progressive’ aspect. It is true that there are two aspects to the revisionist party. First and foremost, they are agents of the Soviet social-imperialists. Secondarily, they are agents of the Swedish bourgeoisie. But in neither case are they ’progressive.’ They are reactionaries. This is the correct line. ”
“This was the source of-the right deviation,“ SKP explained, “this conciliation to revisionism which objectively aided the Soviet Union as well. But it led to rightism in many aspects of our line.”
On the trade unions, for instance, the rightist line held that the labor bureaucrats were divided into reactionary and progressive wings, and the task of the party was to unite with the reformists and revisionists against the “reactionaries.” The party’s line as it has now developed aims at removing the revisionist and reformist union leaders, in order to “turn the unions into fighting organizations, united on the basis of class struggle against class collaboration.” In the youth organizations and cultural fronts, the rightist line held that they should have only “progressive” politics and stressed their “independence” from the party. SKP says today that these must be mass organizations, but with revolutionary politics guided by the leading role of the party.
On the woman question, the rightist line was first manifested by the party’s doing little or no work around the struggle of women for emancipation. Once this was criticized, however, the rightists came out as advocates of “feminism,” calling for independence from party leadership. The fight for a correct line on the woman question is now a component part of the fight against revisionism.
The struggle and debate on all these questions is being summed up and consolidated in the SKP today, after the Second Congress victory. The leadership has established a program commission to concentrate these conclusions in a general party program.
“We have not yet finished this two-line struggle,” said a SKP leader. “The rightist line still has to be corrected in many areas. But this struggle has been very good for us. It has demonstrated and strengthened our democratic centralism and has released a tremendous’ revolutionary enthusiasm among our cadres. We have a hard and complex struggle ahead of us, but if we keep to this path, we will certainly make great advances.”