Swedish Historiography
When discussing the history of Sweden, it must be mentioned how this history has previously been presented. The importance of this is not to see how these bickerings about the tellings of history shape each other, but rather how we, as Marxists, can have clear delineations, clear marks of demarcation to the bourgeois historical science.
When writing about Sweden, particular tellings of its history are dominant. One such telling that I find specifically interesting to discuss is the idea that Sweden, as a state like no other, has a heritage of dialogue between the rulers and the ruled. This telling of history is founded in the fact that Sweden had free small-holding peasants and that these peasants, along with the richer peasants, had their own Stånd in the medieval parliaments. This basic fact that peasants in Sweden had a stronger position compared to the peasants of the other parts of Europe and even neighbors like Denmark, should not be misconstrued into believing that there is a transhistorical vulgar Swedishness that creates preconditions for belief in parliaments or that rulers dialogue with the ruled. The origins of Swedish reformism and the lack of militant organization, in particular the years of 1917-1923, should not simply be seen as a historical unchanging fact but rather must be consulted with the proper study of the development of the capitalist mode of production in Scandinavia.
The refrain that the North European countries had a special relationship to peaceful dialogue and “popular influence” and that this tradition is the root of the right deviation of these countries’ parties must be challenged. The Norwegian Labor Party (Arbeiderpartiet), far from being a reformist and passive party, did not disavow violent revolution and opted to join the Third International, of which it was a member from 1919 to 1923. Then, of course, as most parties of the period, it had a split and left the Comintern, with the Stalin-aligned Norwegian Communist Party (NKP) and Arbeiderpartiet going their separate ways. The specific study on why the Norwegian party diverged from the Swedish will have to be its study. Still, it is safe to say that the idea that the Scandinavians are naturally inclined to the type of social chauvinism that plagues the worker’s movements in these countries today at least was not an overarching principle for the entirety of their histories.
As a matter of fact, the idea that Sweden had this tremendous influence on the peasants is overstated, as the small-holding peasants oftentimes were not as influential as the academics of the 50s and 60s liked to claim.
Origins 1840-1879
Preface to the Origins chapter
We will begin our study of the Swedish labor movement at the beginning of the 18th century. However, it did not pick up much steam until the late 1880s we measure that the historical context of this rise is rather essential in understanding the developments thereafter.
The text could have been started at a much earlier date, such as 1520, when the Swedish war for independence started. However, although the period of the ascension of merchants is interesting to us, this would simply overcomplicate things for this first text on the history of the labor movement. Further work is always possible.
The literature on the period in question is not limited, and a lot has been written about it. Still, as we are most interested in the perspective of the producing class, the study will rely on the work of a smaller number of sources.
Conditions of production.
Sweden has been thoroughly intertwined with merchant capital since at least the 1520s when the Lübeckian Hansa supported the creation of the independent Swedish state under Gustav I in exchange for being exempt from duties and tariffs. However, the rise of industrial capitalism in England and the interaction of that country’s industrial capitalism with the backward Swedish economy became the foundations of the new bourgeois society in Sweden. Namely, the imports of timber first from Norway, which was at that time under the Union with Denmark, would change in 1814 when Norway fell under a personal union with Sweden, then onto the timber of the great Swedish north. The export of timber and iron, or as they are often called, the ‘old exports’ had expanded, and as such, the merchant companies facilitating the trade grew stronger. The Stockholm merchant companies had recently become victorious in their struggle against the nobility when the King sided with the bourgeoisie during the 1789 parliamentary revolution, resulting in the proletarianization of the agrarian population. During this episode, not only were the peasant holdings affected, but so were the nobility. The nobility, whose privileges had recently been curtailed—expressly, their exclusive right to serve as civil servants was revoked—lost their dominance. This opened the door for the bourgeoisie to take control of the civil service. The reform further consolidated the monarch’s authority by granting him the unilateral right to declare war and make peace without consulting the Riksdag. It also abolished the Riksråd (Council of the Realm), allowing the king to determine the number and selection of his advisors. Additionally, the reform established the Supreme Court, with the stipulation that half of its members must be non-nobles, and it granted farmers the right to purchase, acquire, and own crown lands, as well as the right to hunt on their property.
The development towards proletarianization began with the abolition of the small peasantry through various political reforms and the development of production conditions, particularly the abolition of the byalag (village law), which turned the land of the small farmers into a market commodity. This, together with the enormous increase in the production of grain and cereals, Sweden was, for the first time, a net exporter of agricultural products around 1820.
Naturally, with all of these simultaneous developments, the establishment of free movement for all classes was realized at the beginning of the 19th century. To this, it is also necessary to add that there was never serfdom (except at one manor in Scania), although other systems, such as the ‘statare’ system of contract workers, were well-established. Often compared to sharecroppers in the literature, the Statare were a sort of contract worker who was paid in kind and had their dwelling on the farm on which they worked. Naturally, in a precarious position, due to the right of the landowner to evict at will, the Statare often worked without any pay. This system gained prominence during this century and was not abolished until 1945 through a collective bargaining agreement. Small farms, naturally, were transformed into commodities and subsequently became consolidated large estates under one storbonde (literally, big farmer/peasant).
As the population grew, more and more people worked in agriculture, but as a percentage of the total population, the share of peasants and agricultural workers shrank. Previously, before the consolidation of farms into the hands of big landowners and the rapid population growth, it was customary for the children of peasant tenant farmers to work as servants on another farm for a period before marriage. However, with the dwindling availability of independent farms for them to inherit, they now married without the prospect of owning or managing a farm. Between 1810 and 1850, Sweden’s population grew by 1% a year, and the number of people working in agriculture fell from 80% at the beginning of the century to 49% in 1900. With most working people becoming landless and no longer bound by the previous rules on freedom of movement, they could thus seek employment elsewhere. The conditions for industrialization had arrived in backward Sweden.
With this population growth, the consolidation of farmland, and the need for labor-power elsewhere came extensive migrations, both internal and foreign. The internal migrations were to the industrial centers, such as the new sawmills on the high coast in northern Sweden, which had been able to increase production drastically with the advent of the steam saw, as well as the capital and the rising industrial cities, such as Borås, Gothenburg, Norrköping, etc. The steam saw allowed the sawmills to be located on the high coast, allowing for direct exports. During this time, the cities and villages of Skellefteå, Kramfors, and Örnsköldsvik were founded. They would become the center of the saw industry together with already-established cities such as Gävle, Umeå, etc.
Conditions were horrid in the north, cold and miserable, and during downturns, poverty was more widespread than ever before, with the Swedish famine of 1867–1869 hitting the north particularly hard. Work was seasonal for the proletariat and semi-proletarian classes. At this time, and into the 20th century, large parts of work were impossible due to, for example, rivers freezing over, with forestry being the most affected. Most of the timber workers were seasonally timber runners and seasonally farmhands. These frankly awful conditions, even in places where the industry was booming, served as a cause for foreign migration. As for this foreign migration, it was in large part to America, notably the midwest, and in particular Minnesota (where they apparently still cling to some Swedish traditions, like midsummer and an inclination toward corporatism).
As mentioned above Swedish industry had two main components: wood and iron. This development intensified in the 1860s, as Swedish forests began to replace the junior union partner Norway’s forests in meeting England’s demand. In the second half of the 19th century, the timber industry doubled in size. Still, after that, the production of pulp became dominant in forestry, and production shifted to that purpose. However, this development is moreso of the next period of the 1880s-1900s. Furthermore, with the rapidly increasing demand for iron for steel production, the southern mines in Bergslagen were no longer enough, however, the iron ore in Norrland could not yet be mined. With this, the expansion stagnated until the railways, Bessemer and Gilchrist/Thomas processes made it profitable to mine the ore in Norrbotten. Following this development, Swedish iron ore production increased from 270,000 tons to about 900,000 tons during the 19th century.
From the outset, Swedish industry was an export industry, first and foremost to England, then to a lesser but growing extent, Prussia. The early 19th century was a stormy time in connection with the bourgeois rise of the time, consisting of many things, amongst others, the Napoleonic wars, the loss of Finland (1809), the end of the absolute monarchy (1809), the election of the Napoleonic general Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte to crown prince (1810), and his subsequent conquest of Norway (1814-1905), add to this the 1848 uprisings and countless other events. In the mid-1800s, Sweden implemented free trade, and then in 1873 the Gold Standard and exports soared. In 1866 a constitutional reform was pursued by the minister of finance, J.A. Gripenstedt, who under the direction of the moderately liberal King Oscar I Bernadotte, replaced the Riksdag of Estates with a new bicameral parliament. This new parliament further castrated the nobility in favor of the bourgeoisie. While still excluding the proletariat, this new parliament implemented a series of reforms, most important for our study, this aforementioned Free Trade through the elimination of tariffs and abolition of the guilds. The reform was not without struggle as there were riots, although they were not revolutionary in nature and had no shot at stopping the reforms.
During this time, goods were mainly exported via Gothenburg in the west and then to England. However, it is quite the simplification to say that it was only this movement of goods, another crucial development is the entrance of Sweden-Norway into a free-trade agreement with Prussia and the Zollverein in 1865. As with all things, the development is not a linear progression between two national parties but part of a larger whole of the integration of those places not yet under the subsumption of Capital into it, and through this, Sweden became a valuable trading partner for both the Prussians and British, something that would continue, and this selling to both sides became a point of contention during the world calamity of the two imperialist wars.
The interesting part about the development of Sweden and Norway–the development of this country is, as usual, very intertwined with that of Sweden—was that they had reached quite a high concentration of Capital already by 1920 (in part due to the great rivers of the north and hydro-electric dams), where they, while still behind Britain and the US, had already begun catching up to Germany and France. While not yet on the same level in total production, it was clear that per capita, the consolidation of Scandinavian countries had accelerated quicker than that of the countries of the Rhine.
Consequently, Swedish industry at the beginning of the 19th century mainly was iron and wood, but with the ever-increasing demand of the Anglo-German industrial sectors, mines, blast furnaces as well as pulp industries began popping up in Sweden–having the advantage of being located closer to the great riches of resources in the north, something that is also true for Norway because of the Kiruna-Narvik railway (1903)–as well as the foundation of the Luossavaara-Kiirunavaara Aktiebolag (LKAB) in 1890, that would later go on to be held at majority stake by the government and then in 1976 being turned into complete government monopoly on mining. The snowballing mining and steel sectors kept rolling after the inventions of the English mining industry came to Sweden as well as the railroad reaching deep into the northern interior, along with Alfred Nobel’s invention of dynamite, amongst other inventions, allowed the extraction of the Kirunavaara mine’s ore much more profitably. Kirunavaara is the largest mine in the world, both in terms of tonnes extracted and geographical span. The mine is also one of the mines with the highest quality ore, with the rock around 60% iron.
Magnetite was discovered in Masugnsbyn (Kiruna Municipality) in 1642, and ore in Svappavaara was found in the 1640s or 1650s. The first samples of ore from the mountain date back to the 1660s, and the names Kiirunavaara and Luossavaara were first mentioned in 1696. However, the Sámi population of the area knew about the Luossajärvi deposits long before that. The mountains were not adequately explored until 1736. Mining began as open-cast mining, where ore was transported from the mountain while waste rock was dumped along the sides.
The Sámi population of the region was forcefully assimilated from the first contact and subject to many of the same methods of repression as indigenous people around the world, in an effort known as Swedishization, similar programs existed in Norway and Finland. This Swedishization program and racial biology, sterilizations, etc, continued until the mid-20th century, and the Sámi proletariat still experiences racist sentiments to this day. The Sámi proletariat has the unfortunate circumstance of being subject to racism while being discriminated against from accessing particular Sámi cultural heritage based on them not being allowed to take part in Reindeer Herding and the institutions controlling this industry. The Reindeer Husbandry Act (Rennäringslagen 1971:437) regulates reindeer herding in Sweden. According to this act, only members of a Sámi reindeer herding village (Sameby) have the right to engage in reindeer husbandry. Only this petty-bourgeois layer of Sámi, part of this Sameby, is granted the franchise to vote in the Sámi consultative parliament.
Swedish industry had also begun developing glass, brick, and flour production; these were all rural industries, and meant that Sweden did not undergo the painful and dirty urbanization that England did at the same time (except for the textile and manufacturing cities, like Norrköping, Stockholm, Gothenburg, etc), nor did the working class congregate in one place.
Urbanization occurred, and shanty towns did appear (such as Majorna in Gothenburg). Stockholm’s population increased from 75,000 people in 1800 to 300,000 by the end of the century. However, this doesn’t capture the full picture, as most of this growth occurred between 1880 and 1900, when the city expanded by about 150,000 people in just 20 years. There was industrial development in Stockholm, such as glass, porcelain, and others. However, the most profitable industries were the ones in the north, and the consolidation of the working class, seen in cities like London and Paris, was offset in Stockholm by a couple of decades.
With the rapid economic development came rapid proletarianization and the development of the labor movement. Between 1890 and 1900, industrial workers rose from 93 000 to 265 000. Capitalism was now slowly entering its monopolistic stage and demolishing the old society. The Unions and the Social Democratic Party, which, at least in Sweden after the 1938 Saltsjöbad agreement, had become a collaborative institution that furthered capital accumulation. Selling steel to both sides of the second war was the continuation of earlier developments, just now, under the joint leadership of Per-Albin Hansson led the social-democratic party and the capitalist ”business leaders,” such as the Wallenberg family.
It is not, as Scandinavian liberals would like it to be that there is some excellent ingenuity in Swedish invention, but rather that Sweden, which was already having quite the accelerated development from being a north European backwater into an imperialist state, escaped the carnages of the wars, and their already exponential accumulation of both industrial facilities, and the intense circulation of dead-labor from that expedition, but also from the rapid expansion into the brutalized countries of the continent, as well as in the modern era onto the third world.
These developments and the rampant poverty of the former landless peasants are the main reasons why trade union consciousness came to Sweden, but going beyond this and asserting that Social-democratic consciousness arose simply out of these developments is to miss the forest for the trees. Although there was internal strife and a general frustration within the working classes of starvation and suffering, the conscious struggle and the theoretical developments of socialism and communism came through Scandinavian travelers in more advanced Europe. This was because of the backwardness of the Swedish economy until the end of the 19th century. The industrial revolution had arrived late, and Sweden was in immense hardship. 1.2 million Swedes emigrated to America during this period.
Furthermore, due to its military non-intervention in the carnage of the imperialist wars, Sweden began to prosper as a middleman, supplying both sides. By the end of the two great wars, Swedish capitalists were well-positioned to make substantial profits from the post-war reconstruction of Europe. As a result, there was a limited political consciousness and a newborn and backward labor movement, and it was due to the international situation that communism came to Sweden.
The First Workers’ Associations 1848-1855
There were attempts to bring the working class together to form socialist societies as early as the 1830s, of course, based on utopian forms. But few and none of them got anywhere significant or are of much note to us. It was not until the 1880s that the social-democratic movement finally took off, often said to have been founded with the speech of August ”Master” Palm at the Stockholm Hotel in Malmö in the fall of 1881.
In the 1840s and 1850s, several communist societies are said to have existed, often founded by returning émigrés to Paris, some of whom were participants in what became the Communist League of Marx and Engels in 1847-53. The most noteworthy product of these societies was a translation of the Communist Manifesto that came to Sweden through Per Götrek and his Scandinavian Society in 1848. This translation is, however, a monstrosity. Just to name one change in Götreks Christian retelling of the manifesto is that ”Working men of all countries, unite!” became “Vox populi vox dei”.
Around the time of the revolution of 1848, there was an upsurge in political activity in Sweden, too. However, things were much calmer in Sweden than in continental Europe, which is a returning feature of much of the history of Sweden in the 19th and 20th centuries. (This passivity of the Swedish proletariat in contrast to the proletariat of other European countries will be further studied in the sections on the 1880s-1900s). What happened was that, in connection with the events in France, the Reform Society (Reformsällskapet) held a banquet on March 12, 1848, at Brunkebergstorg. The Reform Society was in no way a communist-affiliated organization. Still, it was part of the bourgeois-democratic movement, which aimed at completing the transformation of Sweden into a fully constitutional monarchy. Sweden has just recently, in 1809, ended it’s absolute monarchy. Outside the meeting, a crowd gathered, mainly of workers, while inside the banquet itself, virtually the entire head of the Swedish democratic movement was gathered. After a while, a large crowd had gathered at the square of Brunkeberg and began marching on the Palace, where they were met by the Royal Guard, who quickly used violence to force the crowd away. Both the military and the crowd were bloodied, and the revolt continued the next day. The movement was not robust and dispersed. It had no leaders or conscious goals, even the police could not identify anyone as a leader. After and in connection with the revolt, a law was passed the following year that made rebellion more complex and the movement successively died out. The repression had started.
But that did not stop Götrek & co. At the turn of 1849-50, the Worker’s Reading Society (Arbetarnas läsesällskap) was founded, the first independent organization for workers in Sweden. The organization was small, and its membership was composed mainly of petit bourgeois Utopian and Christian Socialists. Franz Sjöberg joined the society the following year and his idea of imitating the workers’ organizations of the developing countries in Europe was adopted. The association was transformed from a reading society into a society to facilitate the connection between the working class in Sweden to ‘improve their social position, conditions and for participation in legislation’. Working for the increase of wages, voting rights in parliament, and the liberal idea of a higher degree of social respect for the workers. They would work for these concessions under the condition of obedience to the law.
Due to gag laws, their activities were watered down. They took a different, bordering on religious, tone, which was altogether different from what they had previously pursued as a collective, although some members were Christian socialists. None of this led to much success, and the associations that had previously spread to several major Swedish cities began to die out with repression and the lack of a greater concentration of urban proletarians. Some socialists emigrated, and Götrek moved south to the port city of Karlskrona.
The first newspapers 1848-1855
As a result, there were men sympathetic to the workers who founded the first workers’ newspapers in connection with the European uprisings. In 1849, Folkets Röst was established as a newly formed offshoot of Söndagsbladet, which, in 1848, was the newspaper most favorably disposed towards the events in Paris. Franz Sjöberg founded Folkets Röst after leaving his position as editor of Söndagsbladet, which was increasingly becoming an anti-worker newspaper aligned with the bourgeois intelligentsia of the study clubs. Sjöberg’s newspaper closely aligned with Louis Blanc’s political views and remained undecided on reform or revolution. Franz Sjöberg emerged as the foremost defender of the proletariat during this period, attracting strong criticism from the liberal press, including Lars Hierta of Aftonbladet.
In contrast, Sjöberg was warmly received by the working class. In a tragic but common occurrence of the time, Sjöberg was imprisoned for his writings. However, his imprisonment sparked protests among the working people, demonstrating his broad support. While his newspaper was not the only democratic voice, Franz Sjöberg was unrivaled among learned men in his commitment to the cause of the working class.
The parole of Universal Suffrage and participation in parliaments was not yet in the mid-19th century, and it was not the same futile effort that such a would be today. We wrote in 1997 about the very same period, but in England, that ”When we look back on this period, we should bear in mind how little adapted parliament was to the needs of the rising bourgeoisie.” In fact, at the time, the Swedish parliament had been subjected to a coup d’etat in 1772 by King Gustav III, a contemporary of George III of England’s early reign. We continued, “bear in mind that only fifty years before it was still in a struggle against the attempt of George III to restore the power of the monarchy; that it was yet struggling with the landed aristocracy. We can easily speculate how the yet protean, and unformed nature of Parliament might have been transformed by having a majority of representatives of a revolutionary and militant working class!” It is in this sense that Marx taught that “In England’s present condition, ’legal process’ and universal suffrage would inevitably result in revolution.” However, this does not mean that Franz Sjöberg himself was a Marxist.
However, this working class, still in its early stages of development, could not pose a significant threat to the existing bourgeois order. It was unable to effectively organize due to a lack of theoretical grounding and practical experience, compounded by the absence of strong leadership. Furthermore, the urban proletariat, who were more advanced than the rural proletariat, the segment of the class that first founded the unions, remained small in number, making it difficult for committed individuals like Sjöberg, Götrek, and others to leave a lasting impact on history. Alas, organizing the urban proletariat is easier than the rural, just based on geography; the workers in the factory, close to other factories, have an easier time fraternizing, amongst other things. Social movements and transformative change arise from material conditions; they cannot be brought into existence solely through the force of will, no matter how noble the intentions – these conditions were not yet ripe.
So, we can conclude that when Karl Marx proclaimed that the specter of Communism was recognized in every country, it resonated with segments of Swedish intellectuals and some workers here and there in Sweden as well. However, this specter was overshadowed by the liberal democratization movement and temporarily dispelled by repression and the relatively backward state of Swedish industry compared to the rest of Europe.
Strike action and unions 1850-1878
By the mid-1850s, economic problems were again rearing their heads in Sweden, and widespread poverty became dire. Food prices had risen due to, among other things, the prioritization of brandy production over grain production. Thus, the average worker’s ability to acquire grains and cereals became fraught with more incredible difficulty, sometimes leading to borderline starvation. In response, the working masses in many cities organized as a collective unit and executed actions against the oppressors. Most of the risings were put down, but in places like Norrköping, Visby, and Uppsala, workers forcefully protested grain exports and in some cases, managed to drive away grain merchants and secure food for themselves at prices they set. The unrest became known as the ”brödoroligheterna” or bread riots, which erupted in several cities, including Kalmar, Borås, Västerås, and Halmstad, as desperate workers sought relief from starvation and exploitative practices.
The most significant upheaval occurred in Jönköping, where workers and peasants had united and marched on a grain merchant’s house on the eve of September 25, 1855, axes in hand and faces marked with great indignation. The next day, no work was carried out in the city, and when the mayor summoned 2 workers for questioning and when he summoned two workers, he was met by some 60 workers, who demanded a total stop to the burning of all brandy. After clashes later that night, a workers’ train from the nearby town of Huskvarna (today just a district of Jönköping) joined up and the united mass of small people decided to head for Governor Frick’s country house. The workers then met the conscripted military in a bloody battle. The workers met the violence of the authorities resolutely and as a unit and managed to hospitalize several soldiers. Further demonstrations raged during the night in the city center at the town hall. The next day, the 26th, the workers returned to their places of work.
The working masses surrounding the city of Jönköping, mostly rural workers, succeeded in bringing prices down. Still, at a significant cost, 41 people were imprisoned for 191 years if we add each sentence up. It was during these years, and with such uproar, that the strike cae to Sweden. In 1856 sailors went on strike in Stockholm, and in 1857 miners in Falun. These continued over the next decade and became more widely known tools in the fight against the employers.
The strike mechanism involved workers coming together in meetings, discussing and drawing up price lists of what they thought were reasonable living costs, and then threatening to strike or take action. At this early stage of union organization, strikes were often averted by the employer simply agreeing to wage increases to as high as 25%. This high number was not the general rule, but was not an exception either. The 25% hike sounds extreme to us now, but at a time with starvation wages such a hike should not be seen as benevolence. Instead, it was a consequence of the growing militancy of the working masses and the general upturn in the economy at the time that these general material improvements were seen as the best option for the capitalist.
When the good times of the 1850s-1860s gave way to the recession of the 1870s, these measures were not forthcoming, but striking still remained in use as a tool of the class. In 1873, 800 bakers went on strike and won their case. It was during this time that workers, especially those of higher qualifications in urban industries, began to join trade unions, but gradually the affiliation spread. Their political outlook was liberal rather than socialist and most resembled the now reborn Stockholm Workers’ Association (the same one from which Sjöberg had been expelled, which in his absence had adopted a liberal orientation).
In 1874, the first nationwide trade union in Swedish history was created, the foundrymen’s union. Their demands were for reduced working hours and increased wages, and in the context in which they existed, these were ahead of their positivist peers, but their language and mood was still liberal.
After that, trade unionism came to a bit of a standstill due to the repression mentioned above, as well as general economics, and this era is reaching its end.
Framåt Barbarer 