The example of a
International Viewpoint 16 September 1985
We also have a member of the Nacka branch of the SP in Nicaragua working in public health. She will return for three weeks in August and we will organize meetings for her to speak on Nicaragua in the framework of the
Fourth Internationalist campaign.
Q.
What role does the immigrant unionist at Volvo Goteborg issue play?
F.
We have put immigrants in high positions on our slates. They are allowed to vote in municipal and regional elections but not for parliament. they also have the right to vote for demand THE FOLLOWING interview was given to Gerry Foley in Milan the national government. Moreover, in March by Gote Kilden, the leader of the Socialistiska Parti/Swedish the flow of refugees from third world section of the Fourth International organization at the Volvo motor dictatorships has increased and that vehicle complex in Goteborg, following new successes by the SP-IV is becoming a big issue in Sweden. For the first time, small racist and Nazi sects are trying to start agitation against immigrants. The border police are getting very racist and try to turn refugees back whenever they can. This sort of thing is in the newspapers every day now.
We had a case in a town near Nacka where there was a Chilean refugee family that had been waiting for three years for permission to stay, and it was finally denied. The pupils at the school where this family's nine-year-old girl was enrolled demonstrated and petitioned the government. The local nursery school petitioned the government. Unfortunately, the Social Democrats and the VpK did not do anything, although they had the majority in the town.
Another case is Sodertaelje, an industrial town just south Stockholm. There is a big Assyrian community there, about 4,000 out of 100,000 inhabitants. They all live in one area. The authorities are trying to keep them from living together. So, we are campaigning for their right to live where they want. Socialist Party election poster (DR) Valj (ROTEST | ARbETAR
Socialistiska partiet in union elections.
and the left generally in do you explain fact that the SP-backed slates continue to make progress in the elections?
The trade-union opposition in Goteborg has been active for ten years now. In the beginning, it included different political forces, such as the Communist Party, our party, and other left-wing groups. In recent years, all the other organized political forces have gone away. they dissolved or owing to the changes in political and trade-union life in Sweden.
You could also say that we well have been hit by crisis in some respects. Some of the cadres in the opposition and some SP members have also demoralized, although not to the extent that they have lost or left our party. But after spending many years at physically hard jobs and young enough to change, many of them have gone on to skilled jobs, such as electricians. But that has meant that we have lost some capable cadres among assemblyline workers.
Moreover, the right has been having a field day, as in many other countries. And now with a Social Democratic government pushing down wages, instituting an austerity program, there has been further demoralization among many left Social Democratic sympathizers and for the first time we can see some very young workers, representing 10 to 20% in general elections, turning to the right. Some young workers even wear right-wing party badges. This does not happen, on the other hand, in the Volvo truck factory, where we are very strong. The relationship of forces there is such that it is impossible to act as a rightist.
Our position is that there has been no real change among workers in general, although there has been a certain shift among younger workers to the right. We talk rather about a political vacuum. That is, you have workers turning their backs on politics in general, all parties. Of course, this means problems for us. But we have stood up against the right. One important example of what can be achieved in this respect happened after the right held a demonstration of tens of thousands of people in Goteborg. Formally, it was against a proposal by the Social Democratic government to set up funds through which the workers could Earners Funds.
the public sector, social security, and to press for greater the working class. The right wants big differences between skilled and unskilled workers, like in the US. In Sweden, there is still very little difference.
The Social Democratic Party and the big unions refused to reply to this offensive. But we took an initiative and got support from dozens of local unions, most of them small but managed at first to organize a demonstration of 2,000 people. Second, managed to circulate 100,000 copies.
held a lot of neighborhood meetings, going around working-class areas. The big press was send reporters to our news confer-
We have taken many initiatives like that, such as our work in support of the British miners. We have taken representatives of the FMLN of El Salvador to our union meetings.
19
The union should be cut
Democratic leaders
The program.
Sweden.
field it activists to
Democrats more that if they the unions, alternative.
an steel where they and at some
20 did joined in our initiative against not buy and threw the leadership out.
right that I mentioned before. But their party leadership ordered
So that's is another example of the them fact to withdraw, saying that Trotskyists were in the leadership. They refused, inevitable.
If you have replying that whatever else these people may be they are good unionists and this initiative is a good one, even if we don't agree with them about the Soviet Union. The upshot that they expelled, them to a was were
35 of them were expelled, including campaigns, openly we half the leadership and many of its most active members. They are not
Trotskyists, but they are very open average vote of to discussion and to common activities.
Q in
Does the AKP have a very different line in the unions from the has a thousand
Vp
K?
call our
A. Yes. In the split, they kept three experienced ran some with many unionists. They were not necessarily our more Stalinist than those who went
Eurocommunist VpK, but to the that a political they had the feeling that in the party transformed into nobody cared anymore about workers.
the for a new
They had no alternative but to be more radical than the VpK. Otherwise, they would have no reason for existence. But they also tend to be very weak with respect to the
Social Democracy when it comes to national questions. On the other hand, the people who were expelled not only collaborated with us but criticized also their leaderparty ship for having a weak line toward the saying are
Social Democrats.
These no say, OK but it
Q.
What sort of national impact more. Social did your gains in the Volvo elections and union have?
A.
The Social Democrats' big for goes the paper, Arbetet ('Labor") devoted a editorial it.
The whole
How much of a factor
Q in on me as a the union elections your success in
"splitter" of the workers movement.
is the close identification between only argument was that we the government and the union bureautook an initiative against the rightist it cracy?
Are you seen as the force forces without the Social Democrathat is not controlled by the governtic Party supporting it.
ment?
A. I think that in these elections
Q
But you did try to get the the close relationship of the bureaucompeting with
Social Democrats to support it?
to the government favored crats
Of course, and many
A.
did,
They came against us with antimany individuals, even of
Communist slander, a red-baiting some their representatives in the city governcampaign, calling terrorists
The Social ment came up to us and embraced this because we not worked, told them us, saying that this initiative was the have been working in the union for best one in ten years. So, we didn't many years. People know us as serious would not have a sectarian line. But the Social socialists, union people. They don't
Democrats refused to participate, accept such slanders any more.
because if they mobilize people to
Q. What sort of a role does the is another respond to the rightist attacks,
Workers Communist Party (AKP), the tomorrow the same people are going orthodox Stalinist splitoff from the CP to ask questions about the governplay? It claims to represent a workers steel, ment's policy. So, the Social Demo.
alternative to the "petty bourgeois"
Aluminium, crats are paralyzed in the face of the politics of the regular CP (the VpK, right. We hope that we can begin been
Left Party of Communists)?
to get across the idea of an alterna-
A.
It's a minor party, but it has tive on a broader scale in our cam paign some forces. The group here originally for the parliamentary elections.
International Viewpoint 16 September 1985
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STC The ove larg bro has any mas to say the bee KJ out in f Tha of earl mili mov But so ci tran tion adv by t wha the wha shou and high an Anc the moc wor and for
International Viewpoint 16 September 1985 embezzled about 140,000 crowns.
The consequence of this was that the entire club leadership was forced out.