SWEDEN BEFORE THE ELECTIONS by G-1 JOHNSSON & TOM GOSTAFSSON General elections to the Riksdagen, the Swedish parliament, will be held on September 19. The Observer's correspondent in Sweden recently compared the elecfions to the famous horse race the Steeple Chase. It is 24 impossible to predict who will win. Anything can happen. The result will be unknown up to the last jump, for one of the contestants can fall at the last ditch. The comparison is very accurate. At the moment the race has disappeared from the view of the spectators. It's on the far side of the course and we don't know who is leading. One thing can be said with certainty: It will be very difficult for the Social Democrats to once again retain their seats in the government. When the election compaign began before the summer holidays, opinion polis gave the Social Democrats 38 percent. This was the first time in several decades they have fallen below 40 percent. The immediate reason for the Social Democrats! loss of popularity was a series of scandals of which two of the best known are the smuggling of funds to the Finnish Metalworkers" Union and Ingemar Bergman's Flight from Sweden due to a dispute over taxes. The polls reflected the dissatisfaction of important middle layers who always tend to vacillate between the Social Democracy and the two bourgeois "center" parties, the Liberals and the Center, and who are tired of the often clumsy methods of the Social Democratic bureaucracy. The main question for the Social Democratic facticions has been how to win back these middle-layer votes. But the real problem, of course, is much more fundamental. In reality the choice is between seeking a more long-term cooperation with bourgeois center parties or trying to maintain an independent "left" position in the parliament. (During the last election period the situation of stalemate in the parliament gave rise to political cooperation with especially the Liberals.) For forty years the Social Democrats have been in the government continuously. During more than thirty of these years they have formed the government alone. Throughout the entire period they have succeeded in integrating and channeling the aspirations of the working class through the reforms the party has proposed and carried out. In several hard election fights they have appeared as the party devoted to defending the interests of the workers. But like all reformists, the Social Democrats are pragmatists. This, together with their often farsighted (From a capitalist point of view) reformist ideology, has created strong fies to leading sectors of the bourgeoisie, who have seen that the Social Democrats actually can serve many of their interests. And most important, they do so without losing hegemony in the working class! This double allegiance of the Social Democracy has been based on an expanding economy, which has allowed reforms that have corresponded to the aspirations of broad layers of the working class, even if in a distorted way. The disappearance of this basis drastically reduces the Social Democrats' ability to maintain the confidence of the workers and their parliamentary majority. The present crisis of the Danish Social Democracy is an excellent example of this. It must, however, immediately be said that the Swedish economy is still for from the drastic crisis of the Danish or other economies on the continent. The last deep international recession, for instance, hod only marginal effects on the Swedish
economy. But the trend is nonetheless clearly felt and has affected the politics of the Social Democrats. They have been forced to rationalize in the public sector, which means at least a slower expansion if not yet reductions. They are forced to keep the trade unions on a defensive policy, even if they have still avoided an open incomes policy. The petrified party Forty years of administering the capitalist state have left their scars on the party's organizational structure and social composition. At one time the party not only organized the working class but also activated it. Today the majority of the party's active members come from layers other than the working closs. Astudy of the class composition of the party's elected leaders and functionaries has shown that even at the regional level less than 20 percent are working class. More than 50 percent belonged to the middle layers and about 20 percent to upper petty-bourgeois layers. This social regroupment of the party's active members (as a whole, 8s percent of the members are workers, because of the system of collective membership practiced by most trade unions) is due to the party's close interrelationship with the state apparatus. A good part of the leaders and functionaries who lead the party are simply apparatchiki with their bose in the state apparatus or in party activity closely linked to the state apparatus. Together with the lack of a material basis for a political differentiation from and polarization in regard to the bourgeois parties, as was the case during the 1950s and 1960s, this lock of a base of active members in the factories and work places has created difficulties in gaining active support from the brooder layers of party members for the government's program.
Palme
Results of 1973 Electiors
Conservative party
Liberal party
Center party. .. total of 48.8%
Social Democracy
Communist party. . total of 48.9%
Opinion Pall of August 1976
Conservative party 17%
Liberal party 12%
Center party 22%.. total of 51%
Social Democracy 42.5%
Communist party 4.5%. total of 47% Thus it is a series of phenomena which together explain the difficulties confronting the Social Democrats in this election campaign. It is not only a question of strengthening the links to the working class and maintaining an influence over middle layers, but of doing this under partially new and more arduous social conditions and with a party more separated from the working class than ever before. The temporary solution The Social Democrats opened their election campaign in complete disarray. It looked as though they had no plan, no coordination. In fact, various leading figures seemed to be running different campaigns, in different directions. The result was an inability to put out a clear message to the voters and even on incapacity to create enthusiasm among the party's campaign activists. The parliamentary-based section of the leadership was preoccupied with wooing the important middle-layer voters who are wavering between the Social Democracy and the Liberals and Center. The trode-union section of the leodership, as well as lower-ranking party functionaries, is more concerned about the party's links to the workers and especially the party's inability to canalize the aspirations of broad layers of workers as in the past. These aspirations have increasingly been expressed outside the framework of the Social Democracy and the trade unions in the form of wildcat strikes af various moments. The solution arrived at by the party leodership is a division of labor between the various parts of the Social Democratic movement, While the trade unions can "disregard political realities" (as the chairman of the national trade union federation put it) and can concentrate their campaign on the working class, the party can concentrate on winning the middle layers. The main campaign of Landsorganisationen (LO - the national trade-union federation) speaks of "power on
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SWEDEN the job, while Prime Minister Olof Palme speaks about security for the aged, child care, and the national inTerest. As part of this division of labor Palme declared in an article in the country's biggest bourgeois daily newspaper that while LO is a pressure group or organization, the party takes all social forces into consideration and for that reason must maintain its independence of the trade-union movement. The importance of this article should not be overestimated, but it nevertheless is without precedent in the Social-Democracy's modern history. It is probable that the Social Democracy's tightening up of the election campaign will succeed in recapturing a large part of the voters lost at the beginning. Whether or not they can recapture enough remains to be seen. And the party leadership's tactic of moving toward the center in Swedish politics can definitely not appeal to the aspirations of broad layers of workers. Instead of solving their problems, the Social Democrats are only pushing them a bit into the future. They have found a temporary solution which may work until September 19, but the question is whether they will be able to enjoy the fruits of their possible victory. The bourgeoisie: innermost dreams and realistic goals "To be, but not to be seen" has been the motto that has guided Swedish big capital's actions on the political scene for a very long time now, During the forty years of Social Democratic rule it has been possible for big capital to apply this motto with great success. The economically, politically, and ideologically leading sectors of the bourgeoisie have been able to maintain generally good relations with the Social Democratic leadership. Social Democracy has also been able to play the role of intermediary between its parliamentary mass base and the needs of big capital. But one of the preconditions for this, which is now eroding, was economic expansion that provided the material basis for Social Democratic policies. | Leading figures of the bourgeoisie are conscious of the problems this poses for the future. One of them, Lars
Eric Thunholm, managing director of Skandinaviska
Enskilda banken, Sweden's largest commercial bank, wrote in an article in the conservative newspaper Svenska Dagblodet that "since we can't avoid inflation it's just as well that we learn to live with it, even if it mears extremely unpleasant consequences. The future inflationary society? It can't be democratic in the fraditional sense — democracy and inflation can't live together. An authoritarian regime is necessary to handle society's adjustment to inflation.
"IF we can't stop inflation, we'll have to get rid of democracy. Such a change, of course, cannot come all at once but must come gradually. Various government regulations, price controls, subsidies, fiscal measures, etc. will gradually undermine the free market economy.
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"One must, in this connection, remember that among the strong groups is the organized workers movement. Sooner or later this process must result in a collision between the political regime on the one side, which must secure for itself more and more authoritarian power, and the trode unions on the other side. This is a confrontation that is taking place in several European countries today." But Thunholm is speaking about the future. He realizes that it is necessary to go forward slowly. He is conscious that his ideas are not very practicable in Sweden at present. As yet, the bourgeoisie is not prepared to cut its fies to the Social Democracy: It is rather a question of scouting the political terrain to find new trails. to begin to discuss an alternative direction in the future. We see already how big capital has begun to abandon its motto "to be, but not to be seen." It has begun to use its own organizations like the Employers Association and the Industrial League for a direct political appearance. A taste of this was given last spring when the Industrial League presented its views on the government's economic policy in a ten-point program. The contents of the program amount to social service cutbacks, wage freeze, and increased efforts to make industry more profitable. To spread these ideas is no easy matter for the bourgeoisie. One would expect them to depend on the bourgeois parties. But these parties are prisoners in the parliamentary framework and incapable of fulfilling this function. In order to get the chance to play the role of intermediary between big capital's desires and the broad masses the bourgeois parties must first win a majority in the perliament. But their chances of doing so depend not on their becoming the direct spokesmen for big capital but rather on their ability to appeal to the dissatisfaction with the Social Democratic government felt by broad groups of wage-earners on the periphery of the working class and by sections of the middle classes, But this dissatisfaction does not coincide with demands for wage-freeze or cutbacks in social services. It is rather a dissatisfaction with heavy taxation and the worst forms of bureaucratism practiced by the Social
Democratic apparatus. Therefore the slogan "social reforms without socialism" Is used by the Liberal party to appeal to this dissatisfaction. The dilemma for a bourgeois government
The tactic of the bourgeois parties has some chance of success in the September 19 elections. But it is a tactic that can neither satisfy the needs of the employers nor reduce the economic and political struggle of the workers. A bourgeois government would have even greater difficulties than a Social Democratic one. On the one hand, the expectations of the bourgeoisie would be very great; on the other hand, such a government would find if extremely difficult to defuse and canalize the workers struggles. This is especially true in the case of the national contract negotiatiors, which will begin immediately after the elections. Direct representatives for the bourgeoisie as well as spokesmen for the bourgeois
parties are quite conscious of this problem. Curt Steffan Gisecke, chairman of the Swedish Employers' Association, has pointed out that a Social Democratic government would probably lead to a calmer climate for the contract negotiatiors. Gunnar Heckscher, ex-chairman of the Conservative party, formulated the problem in the following way: "There are a number of special difficulties which a non-socialist goverment will have to take into account. Among the most important are the lock of experience in government, the relationship to the frode unions and other economic organizations, the attitude of the administrative personnel and their relationship to the mass media. "Will the trade unions confine themselves to the framework of union activity or will they, as the British trade unions a few years ago, try to use union activities to sabotage the work of the government? "Will the other side, the employers and industrial organizations, restrain themselves or will they scent blood and make demands which the government can't satisfy without committing political suicide?" Thus, a bourgeois election victory on September 19 would offer no easier solution to the bourgeoisie's current problems than a Social Democratic government. For that reason the big bourgeoisie has refrained from throwing its full weight behind a change of government. The dilemma for a Social Democratic government A Social Democratic goverment, of course, would face basically the same dilemma. It would also have to steer a course between the expectations of the working class and the needs of the capitalist economy. "Hard times await the country's wage earners, regardless of the outcome of the elections on September 19," declared Gunnar String, Social Democratic minister of finance, in a television interview a few weeks ogo. The trade-union leadership has said the same thing in preparation for the national contract negotiations: Demands must be held to a minimum. But even if the dilemma is basically the same, a Social Democratic government has the advantage of being able to use its political influence over the working class. It would try to weather the storm through reforms for "participation in decision-making" in the enterprises, which the Social Democrats have proposed. By means of intensive ideological propoganda in which they point to long-term goals of a "workers' government" they will try to restrain wage struggles. The majority of the Swedish working class consider the Social Democratic government to be "their" government. For forty years they have been accustomed to having "their" party in power. In election after election the working class has been mobilized to ensure "early gains" and to make possible "future progress." A defeat in the elections and a change of government would be considered a setback. It would mean that workers had become passive and had either not voted or voted for one of the bourgeois parties. But there is no reason to believe that a change of govemment would lead to more than a very temporary passivity in the workers struggles, which during the last years have been the most extensive in decodes. If the Social Democratic government falls it will be entirely its own fault. It will fall because its policy has been unable to instill enthusiasm in the ranks of its own party and because it has chosen to solve its tactical problems by extending its positions toward the "middle area in Swedish politics, " os Palme put it. The choice facing revolutionaries in the elections is thus not to choose between a bourgeois government and the bourgeois politics of the Social Democratic government. It is rather to demonstrate that there is a third alternative capable of offering Thunholm and his friends a real fight in the struggle for the future of society. It is with this perspective that the Kommunistiska Arbetarforbundet (KAF — Communist Workers League, Swedish section of the Fourth International) is participating in the elections with its own candidates. It has been claimed that KAF's election campaign could help the bourgeois parties win a majority. This, of course, is nonsense. If the Social Democrats lose it will be because their bourgeois politics offer no solutions to the problems facing the working class. The Social Democrats have chosen to base themselves on the capitalist economy insted of the organized strength of the workers movement. Instead of building and strenghening the movement they have disarmed it through anti-labor legislation, class collaboration on all levels, and bureaucratic measures that pacify the workers, We do not want a bourgeois government. But as long as the Social Democrats can continue to disarm the workers movement, the threat of a bourgeois government will always be present. In fact, the threat will become greater and greater. As we see it, the best way to combat this threat is to work to break the possivity and demoralization in the workers movement, to arm our class organizations, to work for a democratic and combative workers movement. It is only in this way that we can create the basis for a real workers government capable of standing up to the bourgeoisie and defending the needs of the working class. We will not get many votes - perhaps a few thousand. They will not make a big difference for the Social Democrats. But a few thousand voices raised in the trade uniors, the solidarity movements, and the neighborhoods every day after September 19 will be an important step forward in rearming the workers movement for the struggle against capitalism and for socialism. September 1, 1976
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MEXICAN ELECTIONS