General elections show bankruptcy
SWEDEN
Holds is permitted by Article 129. The retirement age, however, is left open to be decided by the individual The length of maternity leave is to be decided by the Social Security Organisation. The demotion of older workers because of "reduced physical of reformist parties and mental capacities" is permitted
Article 42. All restrictions have been removed on the amount of overtime that can be demanded of workers
THE ONLY ruling Social Democratic Party in northern Europe,
Sweden's SAP faced the polls on September 15. This was the first
Even the meager protections that the code offers occasion in some time in the heartland of the European Social Democunder the shah) are not binding on racy that a reformist government has had to go to the voters with private employers. If a record of austerity policies and cutbacks. Moreover, Sweden has do not accept these provisions, they been one of the main models, if not the main one, for "welfare"
"may" be denied governmental vices. For firms employing less than capitalism, or the so-called Social Democratic third way. So, these ten workers, moreover, the Ministry elections attracted international attention in particular as a test of how well the most "socially reponsible" of capitalisms was weathering partial exemptions (Article 207). This applies to 300 thousand the harsh winds of the world economic crisis. Gerry Foley discussed employing almost half the results with Tom Gustafsson, a leader of the Socialist Party,
Swedish section of the Fourth International (SP-IV).
If workers have "failed repeatedly to carry out their duties or have disobeyed the workplace code of discipwarnings," they can be sacked. The code of discipline is to be formulated by the Ministry of Labour at a later date.
bills show the real majority of the the governmen jot of the workers, whilst not allowing political power to slip out of the hand of the
However, the bourgeoisie is not wants to regain direct control of the government, an end to the war with its huge costs, and a more definite shift towards a pro-
Western international policy.
trends indicate that the regime on the whole is moving in that direction, but not fast enough and smoothly to satisfy the bourgeoisie.
The latter, therefore, is still economically blackmailing the government by not in vesting.
The economic and political crisis will therefore continue and the war
The only way the clergy can keep the bourgeoisie under control is by keeping its war machine rolling.
The main losers are the masses. There unemployed, over a million refugees, and a swelling flood from the land to the main urban now has almost twice the population it did before the revolution). And repressive measures are being stepped up continually.
the workers and back more and the state of more. I will take up the mass resistance today in an article in a coming issue of International
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Despite a continuing decline in the standard of living of of Swedish the rule of Olof Palme, who resumed power after the 1982 elections, the
15. However, seats, being left 159 in a 349seat parliament. They are able to form a majority only the support of
Party (Vpk), which itself lost one seat, retaining 19. The SAP-Vpk majority thus held 178 seats to 171 for the three bourgeois parties. the left of the established parties was by the Swedish section of the Fourth International (SP-IV). It quadrupled its vote from the parliamentary elections, gained its first city council seat, getting 1% of the vote or over in a number of key industrial centers.
Within the bourgeois bloc itself, a notable shift took place. The big the Conservatives, or Moderata, the largest of the parties on the right. They lost their overall majority in the bourgeois bloc, dropping from 86 to 76 seats. The Center Party suffered a setback, going from
44 seats. At the the Liberals (Folkpartiet) increased their representation in the parliament, or Riksdag, from 21 to 51 seats.
fact that they had managed to hang on to the government did not keep the Social Democrats from celebrating a great victory for themselves and for the 'welfare
"One more victory like this and they will be lost," Tom Gustafsson from the national leadership of the author of a book on the Swedish Social Democracy (1) told
"They waged a campaign under Sweden on the right defending their three-year in government. But many people have direct bitter experience of what this period meant, especially low-wage earners and people in the social services sector. For them, the claim that Sweden was on the right course was hard to take."
So, why were the SAP losses only relative, I asked. Gustafsson explained:
"Sweden still has relatively little unemployment. The growing unemployment has been covered up by all sorts of partial jobs programs." The official unemployment rate is 3%, but it rises to 6% or 7% if you count the number in 'retraining' or other schemes. "So, there was not a complete crisis of Social Democratic credibility yet. Moreover, at the end of the campaign, the SAP was able to refurbish their reformist image by strong attacks on the Conservatives, who they accused of wanting to wipe out the welfare system altogether.
"Moreover, it has to be remembered that this election came after three years of economic boom in
Sweden has profited consider"Igaar, idag, i morgon Svensk socialdemokrati i tre akter, ("Yesterday,
Tomorrow, Swedish Social DemocThree Acts, " Stockholm, Roede Rummet, 1984. International Viewpoint 28 October 1985
ably from an increase in exports to the US, in particular. In the coming years, on the other hand, we face the prospect of depression. And Sweden will have to face the new downturn in worse circumstances than at any time since the Second World War.
"That is, we already have high unemployment figures by Swedish standards. The Social Democrats are going to go ahead and cut back social services and public spending in general more and more. They have made that clear. They have not explained actly how they will do it. But it is very clear that they are going to take away the social gains the working people have made in the past decades.
"So, the sort of campaign the Social Democrats waged in election could boomerang, if people remember what they said. The credibility gap will grow, especially for wage earners with low incomes and the unemployed.
"The difference between the SAP vote at the local and national level points to the widening of this credibility gap. In the parliamentary election, their absolute vote down by 50,000. But in the local elections, they lost a lot more, and it is evident that their greatest losses were in industrial areas, working-class neighborhoods, immigrant neighborhoods.
"At the same time, the Social Democrats gained a certain popularity with a marginal layer of the upper middle classes, who might otherwise have voted for the bourgeois parties.
"Another indicator is the abstention rate. Of course, the turnout for the elections in Sweden is traditionally very high, more than 90%, and it remained high at this point. But there was a decline of 1.5% overall, and it was much more in the working-ciass and immigrant neighborhoods." Social democracy's little brother
What about the Communist Party, I wondered. In Sweden, as in other countries, the CP's strategy is occupy the old reformist ground left vacant as the Social Democracy moves to the right. The very respectable Eurocommunist Vpk should have been in a good position attract Social Democratic voters critical of the Palme government's policies. In fact, the pre-election polls had pointed to that. Why did that not happen?
"The Vpk in fact had an opening for increasing its vote, if it had waged a sharp campaign against the right, against the bourgeois parties, against austerity, against the cutbacks,
International Viewpoint 28 October 1985
SLUTDISKAT!
6-timmarsdag
Bre dogis at alla barn
Valy =
Socialistiska partiet 'A six-hour day, equal pay and quality day-care centers for all children' (DR) preserving and developing the social with concrete criticism of the governyears — the increase in unemployment and the decline in real wages, especialthe start of the government's term, when it devalued the currency by 16%. They could have gained if they had criticized the social backs, the government's ungenerous policies toward immigrants and political refugees, or its very weak, and environmental program. But they did not do that.
"The Vpk's main gambit is to present itself as a left pressure government. Well, in the most recent period, its pressuring role has been very relative. It has supported austerity packages after getting only minor modifications. In line with has had to give up some of its key demands, such as the demand for an end to indirect taxes on food and the net result Vpk was a decline of 0.3% in votes, in a situation where they should have seemed in fact to be of future do the Swedish Eurocommunists have to look forward to now?
"The center of gravity in the Vpk is shifting more and more to its parlinow hold a decisive balance of power spot. The SAP government rests on them. If they do not vote for its the bourgeois parties will get the majority. This is a fantastic for a Social Democratic government to blackmail the Comdon't go along, they will be isolated and exposed to the traditional Social Democratic
"agitators" or "Stalinists." The Vpk leadership will long and hard before itself be put in such a situation."
Not very long ago, the Vpk leaders in a town in southern Sweden joined the SP-IV. Could more opposition currents develop in this situation?
"There has been and will continue to be a certain opposition in the Vpk to compromises with the government. We expect that these tensions the next period, immediately, but as the direction the party's policies becomes clearer."
Among the bourgeois parties, the Liberals, who have a tradition, put their siblings shade. Could that "wets" are too, that bourgeois political forces themselves are getting cold feet about launching a hard-fisted attack on the workers' gains?
"I think that there were two main was the kind of campaign the Conservatives waged. It was a very aggressive one, partially modeled on those of the bourgeois parties in the United States. It reflected the first flight of the young guard of the around Ulf Adelsohn. They are called the 'broiler', or 'fledgling' politicians. That is, to mix a metaphor, who aren't yet dry behind the ears. They are on fire to preach the rightist gospel, but have no experience of practical polities.
"So, the Broilers waged a campaign that went politically further than part of their electorate They demanded far-reaching cuts in childcare, in transportation facilities for old people, cuts in the hospitals, in unemployment benefits, etc. They made that an important part of their tax reform that very clearly meant a reversed Robin -Hood policy -take from the poor and give to the was set rather early in the campaign.
"On top of that, the Broilers tried to introduce a very un-Swedish showbusiness' style. For example, at one point, a Conservative leader had the idea of taking a bath in the water reservoir of one of the nuclear power plants. That was an for bourgeois people.
made very extreme statements on immigration policy, demandgovernment begin to German side of the border to stop the influx of Iranian, Iraqi, and Turkish sort of thing did not go over at all well with the traditional base of the Conservatives, which,
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as in the case of its counterpart in Norway, is the respectable middle of the liberal professions, teachers, professors. They were not see, the campaign reflected really reactionary currents among the youth who have been attracted to the Conservatives, but who are out of traditional base. So, by the end of the campaign, the Liberals were able to pick up a section of the Conservatives repelled by this strident new rightism.
"Moreover, the Liberals claimed to defend both the market economy and social reponsibility. At the same time saying that they defended essential pillars of the welfare society, declared that cuts sary. In fact, if you look at their actual the national and local parliaments, they go as far Conservatives, but they have a dif-
"In addition, the leader of the Liberal Party, new and young (42 years old) and is not associated with any scandals or any unattractive personal features. So, he was able to help the Liberal Greens, right and left
Of course, it was not just the erals. The Center Party of Torbjoern Faelldin, who presided bourgeois governments between 19761982, also took a shearing.
"The center party won a lot of votes in the early and mid-1970s because it was seen as kind of a Green
La bourgeois because of its apparent opposition to nuclear power. It has lost a lot of that image since because of its
In these elections an oppositionist Green Party got significant votes in one aspect of the growth of discontent with the established parties and a search for alternatives.
can see the beginning of a political vacuum developing to the left of the established parties. There is now a certain layer of trade unionists, youth, etc. who cannot stomach the policies of the government, are starting to pose questions, and some of them alternatives. We expect this process to develop in the future and tensions to grow between the leaderships and base of the parliamentary workers parties.
also people who do not think of themselves standing to the left of the established parties. There is a feeling, especially among youth, of opposition all established political parties.
right to left, they are open to alternatives.
"This discontent was expressed in these elections in a protest vote that took different forms. It's an important phenomenon that there are now 52 municipalities in Sweden where local parties, either Green parties, linked to the National Green Party, or other local parties, hold the balance of power. That is, there are 52 municipalities in which neither the bourgeois parties nor the parliamentary workers parties hold the majority.
"It's true that in the last elections the Greens got 1.9% and this time they got 1.5%, a decrease on the national scale. But in national elections there is a kind of blackmail, since you have to get over 4% to get representation in parliament. That creates a very established parties. Obviously, pressure is less on the local and there the Greens were channel significant discontent."
In a situation of growing dissatisfaction with the parliamentary workers parties, it is proving possible, even in a country as exceptionally politically stable as revolutionists to small but important sections of the working class. That is, this is possible when revolutionists can link up their perspectives to the concerns of those sections masses becoming exasperated with the
Sweden, the alternative to the left of the parliamentary workers parties was offered by the SP-IV campaign. "All the other so called left groups, the [right-wing] Maoists in the SKP and the [ultraleft ] Maoists in the KPmir, and the pro-Moscow split from the Vpk, the APK (Workers Communist Party) decided not to run. The APK withdrew in the last period before the
So, we offered the only established parties."
It is particularly difficult to chalnational elections in Sweden because of the very strong centralism in the country, which has deep historical roots. A good deal of what from the like democracy actually well-oiled authoritarianism. Sweden did not have a bourgeois revolution but modernized in a way not so different from Prussia.
complete news blackout on our campaign in the mass media. get one second on national television, second on national radio, second on the Stockholm local radio, not one millimeter in the big bourgeois and Social Democratic It was better than we dared hope. We got 16,200 votes in tions for the Riksdag, and a few thousand more than that if you add the local elections. We got one seat on the city council in Koping, an industrial of Stockholm, and we were close to getting seats in several important industrial towns, including Kiruna in the far north, Borlaenge, Umeaa, and in Nacka, just outside Stockholm.
"In a number of places, we got quite significant votes. In we got 2% of the vote. In Orebro, got 1,5%, in Goteborg [the and the city of Stockholm, we got around 1%. The of our vote is very clear. We areas, little in the central parts of the big towns. Our vote was concentrated in working-class and immigrant areas, many cities, we got 4%,
"It was also notable that in working class areas we do not seem to have syndrome, that is people with radical views voting for the Vpk, for example, to 'make their votes count? On the other hand, this was a problem in student areas. This is indicated by the fact that in working-class areas, the difference between our national and vote was less. In general, those workers who voted for us tended to vote for us on all levels."
What exactly did people vote for when they marked their ballots for 'No more gifts to the rich' (DR) NOG MED GÅVOR
ÅT DE RIKA!
Vay =
Socialistiska partiet International Viewpoint 28 October 1985
"We have gained a political profile built on consistent opposition to austerity policies, the reversed Robin Hood policies the government, disadvantaged groups — immigrants, political refugees, for jobs and a place to live. It is also built on interAfrica. In the latter case, we have played an important role in supporting which was a campaign focused on the September, just before the elections.
"Metalworkers Against Apartheid was a broad campaign for Swedish of a call launched by workers in factories that have investments in South Africa and for trade unions holding shares in companies
South Africa selling their stocks as a gesture of support for the resistance in South Africa.
"Some two thousand metal workers advertisement that was published in the big Social paper on the day of the disinvestment
But this campaign laid the groundwork for building an important current of public opinion.
of Workers in the Elections of We tried to set an example of unity appealed to other organizations to join with us, socialist youth organizations, immigrant organizations. independent organization participated, as did a couple of immigrant organizations. We also tried to make the campaign attractive to unorganized socialists, invited to participate as independents. So, this was a first test
And in some local areas where systematic work was done to people, there were good results.
"We tried to give an example of a non-sectarian electoral campaign, in which our party was the backbone but open to all sorts of collaboration with other forces that agreed on the need to offer this sort of alternative. Since the SP-IV was the only registered party involved, the votes were cast on its line. But we did not want to run simply an SP-IV campaign."
The campaign was a major step for the SP-IV's perspective of offering a consistent and for the SP-IV itself.
"I don't think that the tactical vote argument will work against us
International Viewpoint 28 October 1985 in the same way in the future. We pressure on the left parties that did not run. The debate with them will continue. Our situation has changed now. None of us in the organization has experienced a situation in which such important openings. The decisive factor in what we achieve period lies with our-
"We have to be able to do two things. We have to appear as a current actions around the key political issues.
we have to appear as both a spark and the relay, because we are
There than, mark, where there are a whole range of parties to the left of Social Democracy. We are in a much more relatively isolated position. We have a resonance but the party itself is in a different position. We can't relate in the same way to other parties as Danish revolutionists. We will try to the Vpk and the Social Demobackbone in most of the unity actions build. That doesn't mean sectarianism, but we have to understand the importance of the role our organization has to play." Building the party the SP-IV National Committee decided to take a number of measures to strengthen party organization and adjust it to the new openings.
"We decided to create a structure for supporters, that is, people who declare their loyalty to the party and prepared to pay sustainer. They will be invited to our major activities. But they are people who are not able to play the sort of active role that regular members of a revolutionary party have
•We adopted the goal of recruiting 500 organized supporters belore our next congress half a year from now. We also adopted a plan to stabilize the subscriptions to our paper, Internationalen. We have 2,600, and we will build on that.
"With the contacts we have made, we expect to be able to build branches in ten more cities. We are planning to go into neighborhoods where we
La high vote with leaflets, and local initiatives. And in Stockholm, example, strengthen our public presence through our bookstore and by holding open houses where people can come and meet representatives of the party.
DE STJÄL DIN
FRAMTID!
ARBETE
BOSTAD
EN LÒN ATT
LEVA PÅ partiet 'A job, a place to live and a living wage
"In a more general way, we are aiming at a change in style, in tone, at adopting ways of diseussion that are more open, using the paper other publications from that. That is, we have to adjust our so-called internal discussions to take account of the thousands of people who look to our party but are not members, in order to be able to integrate them the discussions. All measures are summed up in a recruitment campaign under the slogan 'Our party is your party, join now!'"
Gustafsson said, SP-IV intends to pay special attention to youth and women.
"Now, it's a good thing to have organization because it shows that we are not an ephemeral organization. In the factories in particular, it is important to have people who are forty, 45, fifty or more, who have experience credibility as people who know what it's all about and are not lightminded. But when the average age is going up as it is in the party now, it means that the number of young or very young comrades is decreasing. So, we have to take deliberate measures. In particular we have to build major campaigns to defend the interests of women. We are now involved in local campaigns against job discrimination.
for example, is in the north against the mining company LAB, discriminatory against the Sandvik steel company in mid-Sweden which also has discriminatory policies. the workweek has special importance for women, for real women, against force women back into cuts in childeare, and 23