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The Swedish Left Party
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True or false? The Left Party was formed by people expelled from the Social Democratic party.
World War I is raging in Europe. In Sweden, there is a shortage of food. People are hungry, and angry. The conservatives have lost governmental control to the Liberals and Social Democrats. The Social Democrats want to reform society, gradually.
But some of them aren’t happy with that. They want to change all of society at once. They are inspired by this man: Karl Marx, from Germany. Marx has said that society is divided into groups: social classes. And that the classes have different amounts of power: the rich, who own land and factories, the capitalists; and the poor: the working class.
Capitalists abuse and oppress the working class. Therefore, says Marx, the workers should revolt, seize power, and create a worker’s state, which eventually should lead to a classless society, where everything is owned communally. This is called communism. These radical, revolutionary, Social Democrats are expelled from the Social Democratic Party. They form their own party: Sweden’s Social Democratic Left Party.
The new party collaborates with the communists in Russia. They have taken power in a revolution, and established a new country: the Soviet Union. This will become a brutal dictatorship. Those who formed the new party in Sweden, have difficulty staying together. The party changes its name, members quit, or are expelled, and start new parties.
At one point, there are even two parties with exactly the same name, the Communist Party of Sweden. When World War II breaks out, parliament appoints a new government, consisting of all parties, except the communists. They are not included in this collective government, as they are too connected to the Soviet Union. After the war, the party changes its program, and stops talking about revolution. Now, the Social Democrats are willing to cooperate.
The Social Democrats move a bit to the left, politically, and in exchange, they get support from the communists in parliament. By cooperating like this, the Social Democrats can control the government for many years. The communist party changes its name again, to The Communistic Left Party, and continues to be a supporting party of the Social Democrats. The party now claims to fully endorse democracy. But they still keep in contact with dictatorial communist regimes in Eastern Europe, the Soviet Union and, North Korea who also provide them with financial support.
Then, in 1989, Europe changes quickly. The communist regimes in Eastern Europe fall, one by one. The countries move quickly toward democracy. Soon, the Soviet regime also collapses. It’s no longer possible to deny the oppression that has been taking place, and the word “communist” becomes too hard to defend.
The Communistic Left Party changes its name again, and simply becomes The Left Party. Gudrun Schyman becomes party leader in 1993. She says a clear no to revolutionary communism. The party is still for equality between the rich and poor, and against the class divide. But the fight is undertaken by democratic means.
She also adds another cause: now, equality between men and women, feminism, is also an important issue for the party. The Left Party becomes more popular than ever. Time passes, party leaders come and go. The issues of environment and climate become a central part of the party’s policy. The party keeps supporting the Social Democrats in parliament, in exchange for the Social Democrats accepting some of their demands.
But the Left Party is never part of the government. The Left Party has changed, from revolutionary to democratic. But they are still inspired by Karl Marx’ way of understanding society, focusing on how power is distributed among classes, or groups. They want to support the groups that are oppressed the most, those with the least power: the poor, women, LGBTQ people, and immigrants or children of immigrants. Today, the leader of the Left Party is Nooshi Dadgostar.
She, and the party, still wants to show that they take a stance for equality and fairness between groups in society. But society consists of individuals, who don’t always fit into the groups that the party is talking about. Balancing justice between groups and justice between individuals is not that easy. It will continue to be one of the Left Party’s challenges as they approach the 2022 elections.