Workers and youth protest raised slogans on seven or eight of we issues.
tha
This common platform does
B wa:
as a party from not prevent us in general election talking about socialism, Nicaragua,
"Br
Poland, and everything else we want
Soc to talk about. It was just a way of tha concentrating what we had said in on the rather long that program
Car we had drawn up initially. At the ist same time we went out to get
THE FOLLOWING interview was given to Gerry Foley during the annual summer camp of the Socialist Party/Swedish section of the
Fourth International by Haakon Blomqvist, the editor of the SP's paper, Internationalen; and Dick Forslund, an SP leader from the town of Nacka in the Stockholm suburbs. The camp was held in early July on a smaller lake just north of Vanern, the largest of the
Swedish lakes. The attendance this year was the biggest in the history of the event, 150 adults and 65 children. This year most of the workshops and lectures were devoted to preparation for the SP's campaign for the general elections to be held on September 15.
Question.
What sort of an election campaign do you intend to run this time?
Blomquist. Well, from the beginfrom the time the Political ning,
Committee and the National Leadership first discussed it a year ago, we of running a broader had the idea
The campaign than just an SP one.
original idea to get a united was that could include many campaign
Social Democratic workers who were
Social disgusted present with the of
Democratic government
• Olof
Palme. He came in in the 1982 elections with the slogan of "freedom instead to of more belt move tightening." But since then things have continued to get steadily worse for ordinary people.
So, we started to get better and better contacts with both
Social
Democratic workers oin opposition to the austerity policy and even some
Communist Party workers as in
Bolange.
Forslund. The Communist workers were disillusioned with their party, the VpK's [Venstrepartiet Kommunisterna - Left Party of Communists] cooperation with the Social Democratic government.
You know, the VpK members of parliament always end up accepting the Social Democrats' austerity measures, no matter how much they may object.
vacuum has been
B. A political developing in Sweden because of this disillusionment with the bigger workers parties.
We think that a lot of people who voted for the
16 independents to run on our ticket.
par
We had some rather important
F.
Th
In Koeping, an industrial successes.
imr we got five independents on town, tha our slate of ten.
were very
But the results
B.
the still
Many branches uneven.
real approached the election in a routinist enc way. They never really understood thi the importance of trying to broaden the the campaign.
1S
F.
We have not yet been able to get this idea across to the entire the party. But we hope to make some for progress in this camp.
for
Pol
Q. How many candidates are you of
Social Democrats or the VpK as a running?
lesser evil may not vote this time.
ver
We have about 250 candidates.
left
So, we thought that it was important to try to offer an alternative,
Q. Is this election just for parlianot just run a routine us ment?
left campaign of our own. So, the National
F. No, it is for three different municipal, levels government, gave the Political Bureau a mandate in regional, and national.
to test the water for a united workers par
We got only
Par
How many candidates are you pol running for parliament?
uni say, "Well, it's a good idea, but...
WO1 are a total of three hundred
But we only contacted people the the parliament. Moreover, in five or six places, and only the top dor
Sweden the slates are generally made oppositionists, trade-union leaderships,
Soc as big as possible for demonstration effect. For example, the Social Democrats run more candidates than there clear now that we were are places to be filled.
too timid in our testing have pressed harder. But when we
F. Swedish voters also look at the professions of got this initial lukewarm response, the candidates, we decided that we had to put up which are listed on the slate. This our own party slate. But we would still try to make it broader by inviting
It is also very important to independent socialists and people from have local candidates in small towns.
other parties to stand on our slates.
In such places, it is a bit of an event
A couple of weeks after that, the when a local person is on a national
Socialist League, a small grouping slate, even if everyone knows that affiliated to the Moreno current there is no chance that the slate will
[which split from the Fourth Interbe elected. On our slate, there are national in 1979] and the youth about 15 independents, about twenty
"Benny," which it
Young Socialists [from the youth organization initiated but which has become a organization in solidarity
SP], about 15 from much
Workers Protest five or six from the Socialist League.
The "Benny" is a large organization campaign. After meetings with them, in Stockholm.
decided to draw up a simplified we
"Benny" also plays an importplatform for the coalition.
ant role in Vaexsjoe, a town of about
F. -We simplified it to a short text explaining our viewpoint on the government and what the Social
This town has a special importance
International Viewpoint 16 September 1985
International Viewpoint 16 September 1985 because when a Nazi group tried to hold a rally there a few months ago, more than 3,000 of the local people chased them into the toilets of the railway station. That means that nearly 10% of the population was out chasing the Nazis.
B. And we had no branch there. "Benny" has a local there and the Socialist League has an organization that functions. So, all the names on the Workers and Youth Protest Campaign slate in Vaexsjoe are Socialist League or "Benny" members.
F. Nonetheless, the name of our party is at the top of the slate. There are also two Latin-American immigrant organizations in the area that are supporting the campaign.
B. Of course, the forces behind the campaign are tiny. The only real organization, and that's small enough, is the SP. But the important thing is that the campaign nonetheless has a broader profile. This is something new in Sweden. It's a very nonsectarian way of gathering the forces that are against austerity, for youth, women, immigrants and for solidarity with Nicaragua and Poland. Moreover, this combination of Central America and Poland is a very important thing for the Swedish left.
F. It's the dividing line between us and the other currents on the left.
B. There are a lot of elements in the VpK or the orthodox Stalinist party the AKP, Workers Communist Party] who are against the austerity policy and the bureaucracy in the unions. But for the Social Democratic workers who are breaking from their traditional allegiance today, who don't feel comfortable anymore in the Social • Democratic Party,
"Communist" currents are no alternative, even if they have positions on austerity, etc. that these workers
Because these people look at Poland, Latvia, and other Baltic countries.
Q. Is this a factor: because you have a lot of refugees from the Baltic countries in Sweden?
B. Yes. That's important. But the largest number of refugees are from Poland.
Q. What sort of response did you get from the other far left organizations, the AKP for instance? campaign. Besides, they have been
La rampage against Trotskyism, running long articles denouncing the Trotskyist menace. In Goteborg, they expelled their whole active membership for collaborating with us on the October 4 demonstration against the last parliamentary elections, they got about 6,000 votes, and we got about 4,000. In some communities in the north of Sweden they have strong traditional support.
They have a backbone of older workers in their party. When you talk to AKPers, you can be impressed that they have been in the struggle for so long. But then you feel very sad, because you realize that these people are finished.
Q. That they are fossils?
B. Yes. I think that we will outdistance the AKP this time.
Q. What about the VpK?
B. They are growing today, in membership. The polls show a slight upturn for the Social Democrats and a sharper one for the VpK. That's not surprising. They are extremely close to the Social Democrats now, I have never heard them sound so Social Democratic in my lifetime.
Q. That is, they look like Social Democrats but a bit to the left?
B. Yes.
F. The way it works is - this: The Social Democrats make austerity proposals. The VpK says, "No, no, we can't have this." But the Social keep pressing, and then says that it has no choice
B. One Social Democrat leader even said publicly that they always propose measures harsher than they intend to implement, so that they make some compromises the VpK and make it appear that the VpK got something. So, the VpK has and that must convince the leadership that they are on the right track. But on the ground, they are going to
Sweden, there is a feeling spreading among Social Democratic unionists and workers, and among Communist Party unionists and workers, that there are no longer any workers parties.
F. On my job, they say that to me. They don't support us. Maybe only a few of them will vote for us on the quiet. But they say, "It's perfectly understandable that you are trying to run a ticket to the left of the VpK and the Social Democrats. It doesn't make any difference for us whether a Social Democratic government or a bourgeois govern.
these
NEJ TILL AVSKED
BORT MED SKAD
ASKA PARTIE electoral support, not in activity or
Demonstrating for workers rights (DR)
SJUKFORS
RALE ment is in power."
If you look at the Social Democratic rarty slates, you see "social worker," "professor," and all sorts of top academic titles, or just party full-timers. Then, maybe on the twentyfifth or twenty-sixth place, you may
"metalworker." They keep some sort of front, after all. Sweden now. The Social Democrats have been very inactive. Their electoral workers seem not to have dared to go out. It's a very bad state of affairs when a Social Democratic government and says that Sweden is on the right track again, and then a year later everything starts getting worse for ordinary people. And all the official propaganda is that everything is getting better. It's a 1984 situation. It creates an atmosphere where the Social Democratic election workers are afraid to go out. But at the same time the polls are getting better for the Social Democrats. And the VpK are in about the same state as the
17
Social Democrats.
They are very inactive.
B. The VpK youth has between 15,000 and 20,000 members on paper. But in Stockholm, when the local branch tried to assemble their members , they could get only four together. They have collapsed.
But we are also having some strange problems. The activity of our membership is down sharply. But our paper has the highest circulation it has ever had. This summer camp is the biggest we have ever had.
F. There are many new people here.
B. But there is a problem of flagging activity.
Q. Like people taking a vacation?
B. Perhaps, but not just in the summer, it has been going on since
People are feeling the pressure tend to seek private solutions, retire with the children, let the bad weather
The problems of the society affect us, too. For example, one of our main leaders is not here week. He had to work extra in the harbor so that his family could make
Part of the problem is slowness in rooting ourselves in the unions. We have, maybe, 40 or 50 percent of our membership in unions that Organizaiton (LO). Those members active in everything. But the members who are isolated in places where only a few people work, who often have higher education, feel a right wing wind blowing. But in the industrial workplaces, the wind is blowing in the other direction.
Q. It's not a life cycle thing is it, that is, that your membership is getting older, more have children,
F. Yes. I regret now that we didn't start the youth organization in 1975. We did not realize our membership was getting women are being pushed back in the as a result of these social pressures. There are fewer and fewer leading positions. On the recruits and sympathizers are women. getting so popular among women?
It's the course of the radicalimore critical. They are often alone, 18 over Stockholm with captions saying, with one or more children. They
"Benny wants a job," "Benny wants often work six hours a day, with apartment,"
lower pay. So, the austerity policy hits them much harder than men.
"Benny thinks," "Benny can
You can see the effect when you manage," "Benny knows."
are selling papers. When you're ringing on doorbells.
They have big banners in demonstrations with just this strange more interested in what we figure with big teeth, looking silly.
And they say, "Benny,"
more. They have aroused a lot of
What about the role of youth in this campaign?
comment in the media.
F. I read a long article about we changed the name them in a financial paper. They had of the campaign from the original some professor at Upsala explain
Workers Protest the symbolism of "Benny."
Workers and Youth Protest Campaign.
They have about 150 people
Stockholm, the first nine candiin Stockholm, but it is very loose.
They don't
Young Socialists;
have meetings.
just have parties.
educating the older members of the
They have about ten people in Nacka and I got them together for of the main issues is the new laws their first meeting to interview them for getting youth into work, in a for our mass paper.
very artificial way, at low wages.
The "Youth Units."
We are publishing a special
16-17 years of age and another for campaign paper in editions of a youths 18-19 years of age.
quarter of a million copies nationally.
It's not the paper of the SP but of the young people off the unemploythe coalition. It's mainly made up of ment rolls. They have put them into interviews with the different candi-
Youth Units and taken away all their social benefits. What happens is that on our slates and different members of the four component orgawhen they cut back social services, nizations. We assume about 90 percent for example, they lay off the hospital workers and replace them with Youth of the costs, but we give the other
Units, who get half the wages.
organizations equal space.
The interviews take up different
The most important demand for aspects of the platform. The main protest campaign is article in the latest issue describes the the right to real jobs. The other flow of money from the poor to are that young the banks, to the industrialists, and should have places of their own to the finance capitalists. There are to live and a right to happiness.
two articles on the back, one is on
Central America and one is on Poland.
The latter is mainly an attack on tion, exactly?
the way the bourgeoisie exploits
It's not this question.
The different organizations in the coalition will also distribute their own materials. For example, a number demands, in the pocket, of SP branches have made their own around much of a role do in the internationalist issues play campaign?
can't
The they vote.
Anyway,
The Polish issue is less active
F.
now, because the situation in Poland
The socialists anarchistic for the last two has not changed years. There is a more active interest in Nicaragua. That is a well established
We may
For issue now in Swedish politics.
example, in my city, the municipal government has twinned with a tion but
And one.
little town outside Leon called Santa
Rosa.
This has given the Nicaragua for socialism.
solidarity committee in Nacka the
They to invite representatives occasion of Santa Rosa to speak.
There is a collection going on now to gather for a school. Many
30,000 crowns with big a radicals go to Nicaragua to work.
International Viewpoint 16 September 1985
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