Folkhemmet — Red Sweden!

[Vanguard44]

We will explore the history of Sweden and the Scandinavian states during The People's Home era via extracts from both primary and secondary sources. The development of Red Sweden, its approach to global socialism, its domestic military and technological achievements, and its nuclear program will all be featured. Welcome to...

Folkhemmet — Red Sweden!
Sweden 1936 Historic/Normal

Translations from Swedish and explanatory notes will be provided in square brackets throughout. Numerical notations, dates, spellings and grammatical conventions will be in British English.

Contents
Ch 1: March, 1936
Ch 2: September, 1936

 

[Vanguard44]

Foundations — March, 1936
Interview extract dated 11/4/1955

Interviewer: Right, that makes sense. So what was so important about 1917?

Zeth Höglund: The Party — SAP [Sveriges socialdemokratiska arbetareparti, Swedish Social Democratic Worker's Party], I mean — nearly split in '17. I was nearly expelled, you see, and there were a lot of people who would have rallied around, I think. But in the end, we worked things out. From that time SAP, right up until 1936, was able to command all the left-wing parties in the Riksdag [Swedish Parliament].

IR: But obviously 1936 was more important.

ZH: Yes. It — well, from that point onwards, everything changed.

IR: Can you give a brief description of the events of early 1936?

ZH: The SAP was busy laying the grounds for what would later be called a welfare state in countries like Britain and Canada. This was not a universally believed in thing, you know, at that time. Sweden was not the country then that it is today. There was opposition... Per [Per Albin Hansson, SAP leader] wanted to scale the program back. Financial stress. Bourgeoisie angry. But we were still Members of the Riksdag and we'd been elected by the people. So on the 11th of March, I stood up and said that I am leaving the SAP, and forming the SKP [Sveriges kommunistiska parti]. It was not a popular move...

IR: But some people supported you.

ZH: Yes. A few members. But when the civil war in Spain began, SAP members began moving to the SKP. I think at that time we were all very...

In 1917, Höglund was actually expelled from the SAP, and formed the Swedish Communist Party. This is the "Point of Departure" so to speak.

 

[Vanguard44]

Spain — September, 1936
Six Textbook and Newspaper Extracts, Contemporary and Recent

...While the Spanish Civil War, which had broken out in September 1936, shocked and galvanised the SKP, the remainder of the Riksdag wanted little to do with the war…

...its effects were far-reaching. After the September elections, the SKP's strategy was confirmed. Despite Höglund being arrested for inciting a violent revolution, every SKP member who had defected was returned to the Riksdag, and according to party sources, there were members in the SAP who despite having won their Parliamentary seats, were still willing to talk defection. Nothing seemed to be able to stand in the way of the SKP, which was gaining enough momentum to...

...Linderot, who had succeeded control of the SKP following Höglund’s arrest, made speech after speech in the Riksdag and in public, but the Swedish neutrality policy held. Even after the appalling actions of the Spanish fascists began to rock the world the bourgeoisie of Sweden and the other “democratic powers” continued to…

...which was usual policy for the Communists. Always ignorant of economics, they had no idea of the cost, both financially and diplomatically, that supporting the Republicans would have on the nation. A People’s Home, they said! But for whose people? The King of Sweden summarised the views of his people when he said, in November 1936, that if Sweden tried to right every world in the wrong, the world would run out of Swedes before it ran out of wrongs...

...from all corners. Indeed, military intelligence estimated that if the Communist surge in popularity, as well as the constant, nearly weekly, defections from the SAP to the SKP in Parliament continued, Sweden could well be red by Christmas. While they could be accused of jumping the gun, military intelligence had a point, and General Olof Thörnell
commanding the First Army, began to make extensive preparations…

...although Linderot would later be proven right. The encirclement and capture of Madrid in early February of 1937 mobilised the Swedish Communists to serious action. In September they had all risen in the Riksdag to demand Sweden give assistance to Spain, but when spontaneous street protests by the Communists broke out after the fall of Madrid…

 

[Nikolai]

This will be an interesting ride!

 

[Machiavellian]

Interesting so far. I am intrigued by the path you are going down. The communists working within the government apparatus.

 

[Communitnerd92]

This is as it should be subbed man

 

[germandjinn]

Subbed