A comeback for Swedish Social Democrats?
candidates to the left of the established the bourgeois parties to step up their aus-
The general elections coming up on September 19 in Sweden are the second since the Social Democrats lost control of the government in 1976, for the first time in 44 years. In the previous elections in 1979, they came within 4,000 votes of regaining their parliamentary majority.
The polls now strongly indicate that the Social Democrats will get back into office, although their lead over the bourgeois parties is less than it was a year
It is now predicted that they will edge out their rivals by 3% or 4%.
However, even if the bourgeois parties get a minority vote, the Social Democrats and their allies could still fail to get a majority in parliament. other party in the so-called Socialist Bloc, the Swedish Communist Party (Vansterpartiet kommunisterna-Vpk) does not top the 4% threshhold needed for representation in parliament, it will lose all its seats (and most of its income). Its votes will not be transferred to the Social Democrats, but will be simply lost. The parliamentary seats will then among the parties that got more than four percent of the vote.
The Vpk should top the barrier, with 5% of the vote, but the margins are narrow, and this party is in a very vulnerable situation for the following reasons.
1. It exists in the shadow of the Social Democrats, who are now waging a very right-wing campaign.
2. Its campaign is highly dependent on the media, since it is organizationally too weak to wage a campaign based on mobilizing its supporters.
3. In order to top the 4% barrier, it needs the votes of a lot of Social Democrats who have been willing in the past to cast their votes for it for tactical reasonsin order to assure that it would be represented in parliament or to increase the pressure on the Social Democracy. Special studies indicate that such voters account for about a third of the Vpk
4. A new environmentalist party is getting a big boost from the media and threatens to cut into the Vpk vote. The polls indicate as of now that it will get
THE SWEDISH TROTSKYISTS' CAMPAIGN If the undemocratic 4% rule hangs like the Sword of Damocles over the Vpk, it has a more immediate effect on the
It creates an extraordifor voting only for those parties that have a chance right now to get over 4%.
The Socialist Party, Swedish section of the Fourth International, is running for parliament all over the country, as well as in some local government elections about 200 candidates in paign, in the present conditions it is impossible to get more than a very small
THE VOTE HUSTLING CAMPAIGN
OF THE ESTABLISHED PARTIES
Since the September 19 election is going to decide who governs Sweden for the next three years, that question obviously dominates the campaign. present conditions, however, the tug of war between the two blocs is more intense and the argument emptier than in previous elections.
The Social Democrat line of attack is "Back to the reliable course the country steered under the Social Democratic governments. End the mismanagement of the bourgeois parties. In a period of crisis, a strong government is what we need, not a fissured bourgeois coalition."
The reply of the bourgeois partiesthe Liberals, Center, and Moderates-is "Give us your support so that we can keep putting our economic house in order, after the Social Democrat years when the country lived beyond its means. End the 'socialist experiment,' no more empty promises."
These are the terms of the debate in an election where there is more heat and less real differences between the established parties, in which the basic problems of the society are being more carefully sidestepped.
Despite the lack of real debate, this election can have not unimportant conse-
If the Vpk loses its representation, this will set off an unprecedented crisis within it and create a completely new relationship of forces to the left of the Social Democracy.
If the workers parties fail to regain the government, the feeling of a lack of perspectives among the workers will
This will open up the way for terity drive and social cutbacks. Relatively few workers would draw the conclusion that a new leftward course was needed.
Victory for the workers parties will give the reformist leaders a breathing space. At the same time, it would increase tensions in the bourgeois bloc. But the Social Democrats would find themselves facing the problem of having governmental responsibility in a period of economic crisis, with all the demands and pressures to which this can expose them.
SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC VICTORY
WILL NOT CREATE A "FRENCH-TYPE" SITUATION While scattered focuses of resistance have been developing to the bourgeois austerity drive, in general the workers movement has moved to the right since the last elections.
The slowness of a workers fightback to develop is not surprising in view of the relatively favorable situation of Swedish capitalism in the past period and the strength of the Social Democratic Par-
In these conditions, it will take considerable time for a real sicoailst alternative to emerge.
Thus, the response to the Social Democratic victory will be different from what happened in France after the Mitterrand triumph or even in Greece following Papandreou's success.
There will be a general feeling of relief if the bourgeois parties are defeated but no spectacular outburst of joy and upsurge of demands for radical changes.
The Social Democrats have been very careful not to make any promises that would tie their hands or prompt the workers to take any action on their own.
However, there will be one inevitable result of a Social Democratic victory. For years, the reformists have used the perspective of such an electoral suc cess to divert the workers from struggle against the bourgeois offensive.
For example, in the big strike in 1980, the Social Democrats advised the locked out workers to keep trade-union matters and political questions separate.
In 1981, when protests were growing against the bourgeois government's economic policy, the Social Democrats proposed new elections several times without doing anything to mobilize workers to force them.
In 1982, the Social Democracy counterposed the prospect of these elec-
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tions to the demand for political strikes against the bourgeois government and its proposal to cut sick pay.
Once they are in the government. the Social Democrats will no longer be able to resort to such arguments. At the same time, they will face the "moment of as regards the few promises they have made to the masses.
They have pledged to rescind some of the bourgeois government's most unpopular measures, such as its cut in sick pay, its cut of cost-of-living allowances for old-age pensioners, and reduced allotments for daycare centers.
The promise to "go back to what we had before" is not so much in comparison with the social needs that exist in a period of rising unemployment and decline in real wages. cases, it is a step in the right direction.
The Social Democrats, however, want to take back with one hand what they offer with the other. The increased state expenditures are through an increase in direct taxes, which will fall heaviest on the worst off layers
This is quite consistent with their approach in this campaign of proposing to solve the e