SocialismToday Socialist Party magazine | |
TWENTY-FIVE years ago, in February 1986, Sweden’s
prime minister, Olof Palme, was shot dead on a street in Stockholm. Two
days after the murder, 40,000 people gathered in Gothenburg, one of the
many manifestations around Sweden. Shock and sadness were mixed with a
growing concern that the Social Democrats’ golden age was over. No-one
symbolised the welfare reforms more than Palme. Today, the Swedish
Social Democratic Party (SAP) is in its deepest crisis since the 1910s,
having ruined both its own reforms and its base in the working class.
Two new biographies of Olof Palme put the SAP’s development in
perspective. The weight of the labour movement shaped Swedish
society during the long period of social-democratic governments, from
1932-76. The party was ‘in tune with the times’, as the historian and
socialist Kjell Östberg has called the first part of his Palme
biography. It was a completely different party than today, with strong
roots and support in the working class. This meant that SAP,
particularly in the 1960s and 1970s, could be influenced by world
events, increased class struggle, and radicalisation among young people. Although capitalist rule was never seriously
challenged, the stated ambition of the social democrats was to transform
Sweden ‘step by step’ in the interest of the working class. The party
programme talked about placing "decision-making over production in the
hands of the entire people". In the 1968 general election, SAP got more
than 50% of the votes. When Palme was appointed party leader and prime
minister a year later, his congress speech was far to the left of any
‘red-green’ politician of today: "What more and more is perceived as the
rich industrial nations’ failures are social tensions, the unreasonable
gap between the classes, the concentration of power, environmental
degradation, the difficulty of meeting people’s demands for
participation". He predicted further radicalisation: "Now demands are
growing for influence. In the workplaces, in schools, in residential
areas, in economic life in general". The pressure of the working class increased
dramatically with the miners’ strike in the far north of Sweden in
December-January 1969-70, expressing the expectations for change –
against low wages and harsh conditions, but also for an end to the
dictatorship of the employers in the workplaces. It was the first major
strike since 1945 and the SAP leadership did everything to stop it,
fearing that the class struggle would undermine what it considered to be
the basis of the Swedish model: co-operation between the labour movement
and the capitalists. It was also concerned about movements that it did
not control. But the miners’ strike was followed by many others
in the first half of the 1970s, culminating in the forest workers’
strike in 1975. Within the labour movement there was strong support for
the strikes. The answer from the SAP and the trade union federation (LO)
leaders was extensive labour law reforms and study circles, meetings and
speeches on workers’ participation and ‘economic democracy’. Henrik
Berggren, editorial writer at the liberal Dagens Nyheter, says the SAP
leadership had an "exaggerated fear of radicalisation". But this
underestimates the strong pressure from the workplaces, rightly
considered by the leaders to be a challenge to their own power. From the 1930s, the social democrats had aimed for
cooperation with the bourgeois parties and the employers. Especially
from the end of the 1940s, the trade unions and the SAP governments
offered ‘calm’ in the labour market: in exchange, the working class
received rising living standards and comprehensive reforms. But it was in the 1970s, under pressure of the
radicalised strike movement plus the protests against the Vietnam war,
that the reforms really took off. "It could be argued that never have
such wide-ranging reforms been implemented in such a short time
anywhere, as during Palme’s first seven years as prime minister", says
Östberg. The state budget increased during the 1970s, from 26% to 38% of
GDP. Among the reforms were improved health insurance, lowered costs for
visiting a doctor, dental care reform, improved unemployment benefits, a
retirement age of 65, a series of trade union rights reforms, housing
grants, and increased child benefits. There was also a massive public
housing programme, of one million new homes in ten years. The radicalisation was particularly strong among
women. The need for labour coincided with increased demands for
equality. In 1966, 66% of women were housewives, in 1974 27%. In the
1970s, came reforms such as separate taxation (previously a married
couple were taxed as one economic unit) and the right to abortion. The radical reforms affected public opinion and even
the bourgeoisie. Östberg describes the election campaign in 1970: "The
bourgeois parties chose largely to accept the proposals – or to attack
the Social Democrats for not being sufficiently radical". In 1976, the
Wall Street Journal praised the centre-right election victory and the
first non-SAP government in 40 years: "The Swedes have finally kicked
out the Socialists". It was, however, this government that conducted
large-scale nationalisations when the economic crisis of the mid-1970s
reached Sweden. The bourgeoisie later regretted that they had become
‘social democratised’. Olof Palme also personified the increasingly radical
foreign policy of the SAP. In practice, after the second world war,
Sweden co-operated with the US and Nato against the Soviet Union, while
officially being a neutral country. In internal documents, the US State
Department said that its views were transmitted to Europe via the SAP.
In the 1950s, the SAP government even considered acquiring an atomic
bomb. But simply obeying the White House would not work.
Public opinion in the 1960s radicalised more rapidly than in many other
countries, particularly among young people and workers. Already in 1965,
only 12% supported the US war in Vietnam. That same year Palme made his
first high-profile speech criticising the US administration on Vietnam.
It was followed in 1968 by a demonstration where Palme marched
side-by-side with North Vietnam’s ambassador. Over Christmas 1972, when
US planes dropped 20,000 tonnes of bombs on North Vietnam, Palme made a
comparison with Nazi war crimes. Palme reflected public opinion in Sweden, but also
encouraged this opinion, giving the SAP the green light to criticise US
imperialism. The criticism was necessary in order to keep their social
base and limit the influence of the new left; it was possible because of
the existence of the Stalinist states in the east. Trade and military
cooperation with the US were not affected, however. Palme’s radical positions were also useful for
Swedish companies’ exports, particularly to ‘third world’ countries.
Also US imperialism could use him as a messenger or mediator. Palme
visited Cuba, for example, and spoke at a mass rally alongside Fidel
Castro, who often praised Palme. At the same time, Palme warned Castro
against supporting the Portuguese revolution of 1974-75. While, in some contexts, Palme could even say that
an "armed revolution may be inevitable", social democracy’s role was to
try to curb and prevent revolutions. SAP and the LO, but also the
Swedish state, gave aid to liberation movements, such as the ANC in
South Africa and the MPLA in Angola, socialist parties in southern
Europe, as well as to Solidarnosc in Poland in 1980-81. In all these
cases, it was to steer these movements into a Swedish and European
social-democratic, reformist path. For example, LO argued that "the
Polish workers should refrain from all political and social changing
activity". Olof Palme’s image as a radical politician eroded
gradually. The first big blow came with revelations in 1973 about IB, a
secret intelligence service of the army which was led and organised by
social democrats. The IB registered and monitored 30,000 people, mostly
communists and trade unionists, and had its own workplace network. When
the two journalists who uncovered the IB, Jan Guillou and Peter Bratt,
were sentenced to one year in prison for espionage, 7,000 people
protested in Stockholm. It is now clear that IB activity continued even
after these revelations, including sponsoring the Social Democratic
Youth, SSU, to organise ‘education’ against the rest of the left. These
methods were used against Offensiv (CWI Sweden), launched by Marxist SSU
members in 1973. Östberg describes how "Palme followed with great
commitment leftist developments throughout his life. When the [SAP]
executive committee at the beginning of the 1980s discussed expelling
Trotskyite infiltrators in the SSU he recalled: ‘It’s important that we
block them early’." He suggested in particular that SAP should use the
Swedish embassy in London for information on Offensiv’s British
counterpart, Militant. From the late 1970s, criticism increased from the
SAP grassroots and the left. Expectations gradually faded about the
promised ‘economic democracy’, that the power of capital would be
broken. The social democrats’ alternative to growing socialist demands
in the 1970s was ‘wage-earner funds’, launched by the LO. The normally
cautious chairman of the metalworkers’ union, Bert Lundin, proclaimed
that "with these funds, we take over gradually": 65,000 social democrats
took part in party study groups on these funds and argued for workers to
have power over companies. The two biographies emphasise, however, that Palme
and the SAP leaders never had any intention of challenging the
dictatorship of the market. This was confirmed when the ‘wage-earner
funds’ were later diluted so that they only became a new way to finance
investment. The dilution undermined workers’ support for the funds, but
it still did not satisfy the employers’ confederation, SAF. The
toothless funds were attacked with an incitement campaign against
‘socialism’: over 50,000 people participated in a right-wing rally
against them in October 1983. So it was the capitalists that first broke the class
collaboration of the Swedish model. As early as 1980, SAF had sought to
challenge LO in the wage negotiation round but suffered a major defeat.
After ten days of strikes and lock-outs the employers were isolated and
workers won a 6.8% wage rise: 800,000 people marched in May Day
demonstrations in support of the labour movement. The bourgeoisie then
switched to a political offensive, with an austerity package in August
1980. When SAP came back in government in 1982 the reform
period was over. Right-wing economists influenced by the then new
neo-liberal ideas became Palme’s main advisers. The goal was to increase
corporate profits, and the new government began with a huge devaluation
of 16%. The growth of the public sector stopped and, in 1983, cuts were
introduced – medicine became more expensive and rents higher. In 1985,
the deregulation of capital and finance started, leading to the deep
banking and property collapse of the early 1990s. In the 1980s, the Social Democrats also stood
side-by-side with the right-wing parties in the hunt for alleged Soviet
submarines. Simultaneously, JAS fighter aircraft became Sweden’s largest
industrial project ever and arms exports flourished. When the labour
movement backed off defensively and managed right-wing policies it
resulted in public debate being driven sharply to the right. But there were also counter forces. Union activists
pushed LO to criticise the party’s right-wing course. In 1986, a new
grassroots movement planned a conference of the trade union left. The
murder of Palme, however, temporarily postponed this criticism from
below. It was inevitable that the SAP would turn sharply to right in the
1980s: it did not want to challenge capitalist rule. Today, its
programme is close to the conservative Moderates. Swedish social-democratic reformism had a strong
tailwind for decades. The Russian revolution, capitalism’s crisis of
1929-39, the Nazi defeat in the second world war, the liberation
struggle in the former colonies, were all huge historical forces
strengthening the international position of the working class for a
whole era, and forcing the capitalists to avoid confrontation when
possible. In Sweden, big businesses’ enormous profits were an additional
important factor during the reform years. But capitalism was only pushed back, and its reply
would come sooner or later. Social democracy’s guiding principle, to
constantly seek a new consensus, eroded and weakened the labour
movement. The SAP was forced to break its own reforms – a public sector
without profit interests, attempts at state control over industry and
banks, housing subsidies and so forth. Wages, unemployment and sickness
benefits were reduced and, finally, the ATP pension system – the SAP’s
‘trump card’ when introduced in the 1950s – was buried. When the
post-war economic upswing was over, welfare reforms could only be
defended by massive struggle, a line alien to social democracy. This
requires a genuine socialist programme and a struggling workers’ party. The far-right hated Olof Palme, and many older
labour movement activists still admire him. In both cases, he is seen as
a symbol of the post-war social-democratic movement, still delivering
reforms as well as a few limited blows against the right. For socialists
today, the lesson lies in understanding the limits of even progressive
and sometimes far-reaching reforms and influence. Leaving capitalism and
the bulk of the state apparatus untouched paves the way for their
destruction. TWENTY-FIVE YEARS after the biggest murder
investigation ever in any country – 225 metres of documents are
stored in the basement of Stockholm’s police HQ – who killed Olof
Palme is still unknown. The police made a mess of the investigation from
the beginning. They followed a ‘Kurdish lead’, suspecting the
Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). Some time later, a Swedish
alcoholic, Christer Pettersson, was declared guilty in a trial. He
appealed, however, and was freed. Wrong focus meant that more likely political
motives were never properly followed up. In the years up to the
murder, the rightwing in Sweden had conducted numerous smear
campaigns presenting Palme as a Soviet agent or an extreme
left-winger. Within the police and the military there were people
celebrating his murder. The effect of the murder was to delay the
process of radical working-class criticism of Palme’s government. In
that sense, it was a shot against the entire labour movement. |
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